The Race: City of Beaumont Road Race
The Course: 3 laps of a 25-mile circuit
The Field: 1/2 women
The Finish: 29th
I’m behind in knocking out these race reports, so this will just be a quick recap. This stage didn’t quite go as the team had planned, but our GC riders moved up to 11th and 13th overall, so that was a plus. I felt decent on the first lap but got separated from the front bunch on the last climb. Just after the start of the second lap, the field came back together and I stayed with the front over the climbs the second time through. On the third lap, just after the climbing started, a break formed up the road with riders from Exergy, Lululemon, SC Velo, and two from Optum. Although my legs hadn’t been reliable on the climbs, the grade at that point wasn’t hurting and I felt strong enough to take a flyer and bridge to the break to get Colavita represented. I joined and we started smoothly rotating through, but shortly thereafter, one of the Optum riders crossed wheels with the other Optum rider and took her out with a mechanical. We kept rotating, but never got more than 30 seconds on the field and with neither the yellow jersey nor any of her NOW teammates in the break, it didn’t seem promising. At the beginning of the first of the two steep climbing sections, I popped and slid back into the field. The break was swallowed up shortly thereafter. When I hit the second steep section, I was gassed and got gapped off the front group. The last few miles were spent sliding from wheel to wheel, trying to hitch a ride back into the field before the finish. I never made it; the best I could muster was sprinting across the line first out of the chasers, 18 seconds behind the main group.
Mary kicked ass and grabbed 6th place, while Laura came in 15th, and Jamie finished 16th. Solid enough results to move Laura and Jamie up in the GC and put them in contention for a possible top-10 GC finish by the end of the weekend.
