Tour de Beauce: Stage 5

Tour de Beauce: Stage 4

Tour de Beauce: Stage 3

Tour de Beauce: Stage 2

Tour de Beauce: Étape 1

TL;DR - Tyler retains yellow!

I think a lot of people had ideas on how today's stage could have played out, but in the end I think the Occam's Razor principle prevailed, as it ended up being more an exercise competition than anything else. 

That is not to say there wasn't some excitement sprinkled in! A fast and flat run-in to the climb with a couple sprint points chucked in just to make it spicy meant the pace was extremely high for the first 40 minutes. At one point, I'm looking down at my head unit checking to see what the next turn was, and it wasn't for a couple of kilometers, but then I looked up just in time to see the moto refs making an abrupt left-hand turn. I was confused, as I think many others were, but my assumption was there was a last minute change and they were simply taking us an alternative direction. We quickly learned that there wasn't, in fact, a re-route, and that the refs had simply made an error themselves, and we had indeed gone off course. The peloton was then neutralized, and we were paraded through a neighborhood before finding our way back onto course and re-starting. Never a dull moment! 

As we turned onto Mill Creek Rd. and began to climb what was traditionally the sprint point on the old Yucaipa Road Race course, a break of one rider, Stephen Schaefer (Landis Cyclery-Trek) went up the road in a brave move right as the road began to truly turn upwards. The group sat up and Project Echelon amassed at the front and began to set the pace for the next 60 kilometers of climbing that we would have to tackle. 

Nothing really happened for a looooooong time until a single Canel's rider made an attack with 40 kilometers of climbing to go. Once again, as a single rider, we weren't too concerned, and we kept riding our tempo as his gap grew. At one point, the Canel's rider's distance from the pack was around 1:30, with Stephen's as high as 2:45. We knew we couldn't afford to let the gap grow that much larger, but were biding our time until around 20 kilometers to go until we go to the rolling section of the hill. From there we started to drill it, and within 5 kilometers, we had brought back a minute from the break (although I think that might've been partially on account of the fact that Stephen may have flatted). We also saw that the Canel's rider had flatted right before we caught after the last little descent right before the final 10 kilometers, and we quickly absorbed him too.

The group was now fully intact and still fairly large (30+ riders), but we were sticking to our plan to ride a tempo to limit attacks that could risk Tyler losing time from any main GC contenders. With 7 kilometers to go, Eder Frayre (Williams Racing Devo, and former teammate of mine) and Kellen Caldwell (Team California), put in a dig and go a gap of about 10 seconds up the road. I was fading HARD, and kept the gap from growing any further for the next two kilometers. Eder would pop and come back to the group, but Kellen would attack again and maintain a solo attack off the front. I exploded with 5 kilometers to go, and Ricky took up the helm, with Tyler and Hugo closely in tow. 

In the end, as I learned, Cole Davis, the sleeper pick of the century for the second year in a row (maybe that means he's not a sleeper pick???) boosted off the front with 1 kilometer to go, timing it to perfection to take the win. Tyler would roll across the line in 8th place on same time with the rest of the GC riders, achieving the goal of the day and retaining the leader's jersey. 

Everybody--Scott, Ethan, Laurent, Brendan, Hugo, Ricky, and Tyler--all rode  excellently on what has got to be one of the longest climbs in bike racing in the world this year. We climbed for legitimately 2 hours to an asphyxiating 2500m above sea level, and I think we fared pretty decently given the level of difficulty the stage presented. Onto the time trial tomorrow! 


Photos Courtesy of Kai Caddy! 
- 
- @kaicaddy on IG 

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Sam Boardman

Redlands Bicycle Classic: Stage 2 - Onyx Summit

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Tour de Beauce: Stage 5

Tour de Beauce: Stage 4

Tour de Beauce: Stage 3

Tour de Beauce: Stage 2

Tour de Beauce: Étape 1

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