Tour de Beauce: Stage 2

Tour de Beauce: Étape 1

Pre-Beauce spin avec team

SMOKE?!?!?!?

My god they just lifted Kelly Raes from its studs at the Batavia Conoco and done moved it somewhere else????

Silver City > Mogollon Ghost Town 

TL;DR - A game of breakaway chicken yields an extremely fast second half, which led to Tyler for 2nd in a sprint finish on the summit! 
- - - 
The standard opening stage of Tour of the Gila is a very (literally) straightforward course, which usually yields a bit of a boring day, and today was no different. The early intrigue came from the brinksmanship every team up playing, as no one team was willing to take up the chase once the break went up the road after about 35 minutes of riding. 

It's a funny game of bike politics that we were all playing, as nobody wanted to put riders on the front because that would effectively indicate they were willing to ride and commit them and their team to doing so. BUT THE GAP WAS GOING OUT FAST. 

FINALLY, once the break reached 13 minutes up the road, we decided that it was time to fall on the sword and send two riders--in this case, Zach and Cade, engines extraordinaire--to the front to begin to ride. But you know what, other teams started sending riders up to the front too! Everyone called everybody else's bluff and their own! It's hilarious that everyone was so cagey given how it ended up that the major teams of Medellin, CS Velo, Team California, and Aevolo all provided riders to help pull at one point or another. 

Zach and Cade did an amazing job to close the gap, and by the time we made the righthand turn off the highway and headed towards the climb, they had brought the gap down to 4 minutes and 30 seconds. At this point,  I was pretty tired because we hadn't exactly been riding easy the past two hours. Since the gap had ballooned so much, there was no time for dilly-dallying, and we had kept a steady steady for most of the day leading into the turn. 

Going into the right hand turn, I boosted to the front and positioned Tyler, Laurent, Scott, and Cade at the front of the pack as we headed up the false flat. On the "pre-climb" section--a 1.5km dick kick at around 7% gradient--riders began to go hard, and while I felt absolutely awful on account of stomach issues, I had decided I would boost it to the crest of the kicker to the plateau section to get Tyler in as good a position as possible. I rode with him on my wheel to the front of the pack, crested the hill and was about to pull off when Tyler yelled, "Keep going!!!" 

I decided I had a little bit longer until I was going to die, so I rode the front over the crest down the tiny hill on the plateau to the base of the true climb before peeling off and literally stopping on the side of the for a second to make sure I wasn't going to pass out. I looked back and the group was only 6 riders! Tyler was isolated, but he was looking strong against 4 Medellin riders and a Canel's rider. They went off into orbit and I began to pedal again, making my way verrrrrrry slowly up the climb, linking up with Cade for company on the way up. 

We got to the top and learned that Tyler had gotten 2nd on the stage, on same time with the stage winner, Wilmar Paredes of Team Medellín. I'll take a moment here to mention that Paredes finished up a four-year ban that ended in February last year as part of a series of positive tests that effectively ended Colombia's only professional team, Manzana Postobon, back in 2019, and he seems like he hasn't missed much a beat and gotten back to winning ways. I'll also take a moment to say that it annoys the shit out of me that he's here, and that dopers like him are constantly given second chances to continue in the sport they actively help to ruin because they choose to cheat. 

Regardless, my annoyance couldn't overshadow the fact that Tyler was clearly showing some serious strength and the team demonstrated a commanding performance to set him up for the rest of the week. 

- - - 
Photos courtesy of Kai Caddy
Website: 
IG: @kaicaddy

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Sam Boardman

Tour of the Gila: Stage 1

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Tour de Beauce: Stage 2

Tour de Beauce: Étape 1

Pre-Beauce spin avec team

SMOKE?!?!?!?

My god they just lifted Kelly Raes from its studs at the Batavia Conoco and done moved it somewhere else????

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