Pre- Race
I have been in Oregon for about a week now before the race, I had other family events that were taking place here, such as a wedding, so it already feels like I have been here forever and have not even been able to race yet. The racing starts tomorrow though and I feel ready to race hard and have some fun. Lindsay has already started racing with the pro women and has been doing awesome. Ryan and I have been trying to help her out with cold water at the finishes etc. Bend is an awesome town and it’s been fun to hang out here, but I can’t wait to start racing tomorrow.
Stage 1 – Time Trial
I got an early start this morning so that I could get a really good warm up for this time trial. It is all out from the beginning, as most time trials are, but the warm up was even more important for this time trial because it was uphill on the way out and then downhill on the way back so the time gains would all be made in the first half. I went out hard and was feeling good with my effort, I glanced down a few times to see my heart rate exactly where I wanted it. Then I got caught by a guy and the rest of the climb I pushed myself way past my LT to try and stay about 10 seconds behind this guy, I did not want to be losing more than 40 seconds in the first stage, that would not be a good start. I raced hard and gave it my all so I had to be content with that; my result was not where I wanted to be though. I was basically out of contention for the overall after the first stage, so now it was a tour for stage wins and good hard training. I found out how tough the category 2 competition would be and it was going to be quite a fight.
About to head out
Getting ready
Ryan Racing
Ryan after finishing
Lindsay tearin it up
Stage 2 – Criterium
Ryan and I rode back from the time trial to our host house. We got some lunch and stretched and rested to recover for the Criterium, which was in the afternoon. We then drove downtown to the Criterium course and got a quick warm up in. Then we had to stand on the starting line forever; there was a crash in the master’s race that was before ours. They even cut down our race from 40 to 30 minutes. It was a pretty sweet course through the downtown and there were pretty decent crowds. They would get huge later that night during the pro race. It was amazing; the crowd was 5 deep around the entire course.
We finally took off and I didn’t get out of the blocks too quick. I began to move up, but there were not a lot of sections that were beneficial to moving. I was getting near the sweet spot when the wheel that I was on took the corner way too wide and I was pushed into the outside curb and ended up in the rear of the field. There was not much time left to race and with the important mountain stage coming up tomorrow morning I just took it easy in the back and rolled in with the field. Ryan sprinted into 7th with a flat though, that was impressive! During the race there were Webcor women throughout the course cheering for us, that was really cool. After our race we went for a spin, then sat with Coach and watched the pro women’s race. She was coaching the Webcor team so we got to listen to her tactics as she talked to them through the radio; it was really fun to see how different coaching is for pro races.
Stage 3 – Road Race
We set out early again and drove out to the start of the Pro men’s race. We had to drop my dad off there because he was working for Sram and we got to talk with old Swifties Steve Cozza and Nathan Miller. Steve gave us some tips about the stage, it was really cool to have the inside knowledge. We then drove out of town to where our start was. We started on a climb and some guys decided to drill it from the gun, I was hurting, as I had not gotten a really long warm up. I made it over the top though and then we descended for about 10 miles, it was crazy. The race rolled on and I felt good. The pack was very large and we only got 1 lane so it was hard to move around, but I was good at it, sneaky. It was really fun racing with such a large field.
The race would come down to the last climb though and I was trying to save all my energy for that. In order to appropriate my energy correctly I would need to eat right and drink plenty. Unluckily though our feeder got lost and didn’t make it to the feed zone. As I was going through the feed zone and realizing that she wasn’t there I tried to get bottles from anyone but could not. It was really hot though and I needed some water if I was going to do well. I looked down at my stem, which I had written down the course details on and realized that we still had some flat sections before we would hit the climbs. I decided to go back to the caravan because we had been told that there would be some neutral bottles back there. I asked the commissar if he had any water, he said he did not and he said that the medic car didn’t have any either. (Even though on the last climb the medic car was handing out bottles of water, so the commissar didn’t communicate correctly with me) I ended up being able to get a bottle from a rider that we had been hanging out with, Chris Lyman on Z-Team. I really appreciated that. I made my way through the field and back to the front and soon we hit the climbs. There was a hard part then a plateau and then a last climb to the finish. I suffered up the first half and just hung onto the front group as the field split up. I recovered as best as I could during the plateau then we hit the final climb.
The group hit it hard and I began to realize that if I tried to hang then I would crack and burn, so I sat up and went to a hard tempo that I could maintain to the finish. I hit a second wind and passed quite a few guys that had cracked off the front group and finished in 57th place. A good effort, but still not much to be excited about.
Stage 4 – Circuit Race
The last day, I woke up tired, not a lot of energy on the last day, I can’t imagine racing another 17 stages – like the grand tours…amazing. I also have realized how much easier it would be to be on a pro team though when all that you have to concentrate on is the racing and not all of the other little details like having food and bottles ready and making sure the bike is clean and ready to race. It’s a lot of work. We got down to the start and had a chat with coach before the take off. After the neutral I dropped my chain just as the real race was beginning and just then I feel my teammates hand on my back as he pushes me and I get my chain back on. Now that’s a teammate! The course was fun; it was probably one of the best circuit races that I have ever done. It was a pretty long course; 17-mile laps and we did 4 laps. The course had a little bit of everything and one of the roads was called Tyler Road, which was cool. I got to race on my own road! I did not have great legs, but I was surviving in the front of the group and I was hurting on the climbs, but hanging on.
There was one really steep climb at the end of the lap and that was going to really hurt on the last lap just before the finish. I hit it hard in mid-pack and was able to hold on giving it my all. I hung in at the end of the pack for the finishing stretch and that was all that I could manage. Ryan had a super impressive ride, putting in a 4th place sprint, even with junior gears. I was not able to achieve the results that I had hoped from the stage race, but I got a lot of good training and I hope that will be very helpful for nationals. That will be the culmination of my season before I head off to college at UC Berkeley. Thanks for reading,Tyler Brandt
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