A few rollers
Today was a 90 mile road race. Alfredo the race director described it as follows: flat at the start, a 10K climb then a few good rollers to the finish. Sounds good right? Remember this is Mexico.
The first part was right, flat. The first hour they covered 35 or so miles so it was not exactly an easy warm up. There was a big crash that everyone but Jesse and I think Alex got caught in. While he was lying on the ground trying to extract him self from the pile a spectator stole El Gato’s glasses. Brent had to get a front wheel change. It took quite a while for everyone to get going so I motor paced Todd, El Gato and Brent back to the field. Just as they got on we went through a town where I think the entire population had turned out. There were all kinds of kids in school uniforms lining the street cheering like mad. It was really cool. Shortly after that it was Terry’s turn to flat. Another slow wheel change followed by some motor pacing and he was back in action. Then we hit the 10k climb that Alfredo had mentioned. Here is where the fun started. One thing you have to know is any time the road goes uphill the Mexican riders go berserk. I guess the image of Raul Alcala in the polka dot jersey is still pretty fresh here. The field is starting to shatter. Almost every team vehicle is either pacing or actually pulling riders up the hill. Terry being the cagey vet that he is was quick to grab the van and catch his breath. We soon caught Gardie and Brent and I followed them for a while. All this time there are Mexicans dropping off and grabbing a tow from me. At one point I counted 8 guys that I was towing up the hill! I saw one Mexican rider get into one of the Federale vehicles thinking he must have flatted and missed his team car. Thirty miles down the road I see the same guy get out and rejoin the lead group. A little home cooking never hurts I guess. When we get to the top I make sure everyone has bottles and food before I leave them to check on the guys up front. Today we had a closed road so I was driving 80mph on the wrong side of the road up get back to the action. I reach the group with Todd and Zulle and drop off a few bottles, and then I am of to find Jesse who is in the first chase group. I start up this climb that goes a little long for a roller. After driving another 5 minutes I catch the group with Jesse. At this point I can see there is a lot more elevation to be gained before we are done with this climb. I get Jesse set with his bottles and drop in behind his group. In my mirror I can see Snake coming across solo so I drop back to give him a little Mexican Team Time Trial on to the back of the group. At the top I wait for the rest of the guys and it is a constant string devastation. Every one asked me for water or food. I gave some until I was worried that I would not have enough for my guys.
Everyone made it safely to the finish. Jesse had the ride of the day and finished in the 1st or 2nd group on the road (still have no official results), this kid can ride. The guys were all completely spent, but laughing about “a few rollers”. The promoters had food and beer waiting for us at the finish, nice touch. After fueling up and taking a few pics (even in Mexico the ladies love Gardie) we are off to the hotel which was about a 2 hour drive. With the first real stage under our belt, sprits were high. This is a composite team some of us have traveled together and some not. Today I think we really came together and everyone is starting to get pretty comfortable with each other. We were rollin to some Snoop Dogg felling pretty good about how lucky we are to be getting to experience this together. On the way we drove the start of tomorrow’s stage which is going to be another super hard day, lots of “rollers” again.
