Solano Classic 2002 – California, USA

Stage 1 – 100km (60mile) Road Race – 28 June 2002

Conditions: moderate winds, 25C, sunny,

Today was my first race with the Verizon Wireless-Cervelo team.  The team is based on the East coast of the USA, and will race predominantly on the east coast, however we decided to open up the season with a race in Fairfield, California.

The core five girls on the team includes two Canadians, Erinne Willock from Vancouver Island, and Julia Farrell from Toronto, two American residents, Petra Ford from New Jersey and Hiroko Shimado from Connecticut (however Hiroko is of Japanese origin) and an Aussie, me.

Todays course suited the all-round cyclist.  It had plenty of rolling hills, headwinds, crosswinds, with a few steep climbs.  We started in Fairfield, (a town about 1.5hrs north east of San Francisco) and headed out on a 100km loop, finishing back in Fairfield.  It was a big field with 109 girls lining the start line.  My plan was to contest the sprint jersey, cover all early attacks and try to get in today’s break.  I chased down the first 3 attacks and then bridged across solo to Anne Simplonis.  We had about 10sec on the peloton but were caught by the peloton only 500m before the first sprint.  I tried to recover and managed to get 4^th in the first sprint.

The peloton was aggressive with counterattacks immediately following the sprint.  I was desperately sitting in, trying to recover from the sprint.  At the 20km mark, the terrain started to climb gradually.  The road was narrow with large cracks, potholes and a solid headwind.

A group of 7, including Bessette and Bruckner (Saturn) Palmer-Komar and Pryde (Talgo America) and Sydor (Canadian National) managed broke away up the first KOM.  Minutes later, Judith Arndt attacked on her own, crossed to the break and they were never seen again.  She timed it perfectly because with the climb and headwind, we all watched helplessly as she disappeared.  Unfortunately Verizon Wireless-Cervelo missed the break, although not before a gallant effort by Erinne.

The feed zone was just crazy.  There were riders weaving and dodging everywhere.  I saw one girl ride straight into one of the feeders and literally took him out.  Riders that had passed their feeders were braking and trying to grab a bidon from the neutral feeders.  I grabbed a bidon and then headed to the left to avoid the carnage.

The peloton were not particularly interested in chasing the break and the time gap quickly opened up.  The 2^nd KOM was uneventful, however was really steep and my legs felt shattered as I grovelled over the top just off the back of the peloton.  I chased hard and was easily back on by the bottom of the descent.

A short while later, someone yelled out “Bee swarm” and coming straight at us down the road was a huge swarm of big bumble bees.  They were flying in our faces and being allergic to bee stings, I was thankful that I wasn’t stung.

With 10km to go, I moved up to the front of the peloton.  Erinne manoeuvred in front of me and kept the pace on to lead me out.  With 2km to go we did a sharp left hand turn and Erinne miss judging her speed, put her wheels in the gravel but skilfully stayed up right.  With 1km to go I moved up to 2^nd wheel, hard against the left side of the road.  Just before I decided to come around her, I saw Kiesanowski (Diet Rite) coming down the far right side.  The girl in front of me sat up so I headed across to the right and managed to finish 10^th in the bunch sprint, which gave me an overall position of 18^th.  The peloton finished 12min29 down on the winner, so unfortunately GC contention looks doubtful now.

Lyne Bessette won the race from Judith Arndt and Kimberly Bruckner, a complete domination by Saturn.