2009 Blogs
Redlands Cycling Classic attracted an extremely competitive field this season, with Columbia-High Road bringing a squad, and Amber Neben bringing some help from Nurnberger.
The race has been going on for 25 years now, and the host families are as devoted to this race as many cyclists are to riding their bike. Indeed, Cid Breyer hosted our director, Karen when she was racing. She continues to host Webcor and is an amazing mom away from mom and home away from home.
There is also a "Legends Award" given at Redlands. Christine retired last season after the Olympics, and was awarded it this year. Look up Legend in the dictionary...her picture is beside it.
The Prologue uphill Time Trial kicked things off with nearly 150 women testing their legs on the 5k course. Below, Rebecca, Janel and I warm up for our start.
We had some success with Katheryn and Janel grabbing 5th and 6th, respectively. Rebecca was not far behind in 16th. After the top 3 posted times, everyone was wicked close in time - the difference between 5th and 20th was about 15 seconds.
The next day was the Beaumont circuit race, which turned out to be crazy windy. We had some bad luck with flats and poor wheel changes from the neutral support. Alex ended up with a double flat in an inopportune spot. I woke up feeling like a truck had me, a bit under the weather. The rest of the race was junk for me and I didn't finish.
Later, there was a race dinner, open to all riders and directors. There was some delicious food and the house was unreal.
It had a water slide!
We ate olives. We laughed.
We showed off our best Blue Steel.
We make this look good.
The criterium went much better. The team rode an amazing race and for the first time ever, on the final lap, the announcer was yelling "Webcor is on the front!!" Yep, we have a lead-out train this year! Gina grabbed third in the bunch sprint!
The next day has to be one of the hardest races ever. It is the Sunset circuit race, which does 9 loops on a grueling 12k circuit with killer climbing. Again, bad luck with flats. Janel caught hers just as the neutral flag went down. Gina crushed herself to chase Janel back onto the bunch, but ended up taking a wrong turn. Neither re-joined the front of the race. But the rest of our five rode wicked strong, protecting our GC leader and throwing monster attacks. In the end, Nikki sprinted in for a third place finish.
I was with the boys - Davo, Jezza, and Rhino in the feedzone.
Katheryn held onto 5th overall. We ate a lot of oranges. We got better tans. Nobody broke. We hung our laundry on Cid's drying line instead of the dryer. We went through a metric-shit-ton of coffee. And now we're home for 3 1/2 weeks until Tour of the Gila.
The race has been going on for 25 years now, and the host families are as devoted to this race as many cyclists are to riding their bike. Indeed, Cid Breyer hosted our director, Karen when she was racing. She continues to host Webcor and is an amazing mom away from mom and home away from home.
There is also a "Legends Award" given at Redlands. Christine retired last season after the Olympics, and was awarded it this year. Look up Legend in the dictionary...her picture is beside it.
The Prologue uphill Time Trial kicked things off with nearly 150 women testing their legs on the 5k course. Below, Rebecca, Janel and I warm up for our start.
We had some success with Katheryn and Janel grabbing 5th and 6th, respectively. Rebecca was not far behind in 16th. After the top 3 posted times, everyone was wicked close in time - the difference between 5th and 20th was about 15 seconds.The next day was the Beaumont circuit race, which turned out to be crazy windy. We had some bad luck with flats and poor wheel changes from the neutral support. Alex ended up with a double flat in an inopportune spot. I woke up feeling like a truck had me, a bit under the weather. The rest of the race was junk for me and I didn't finish.
Later, there was a race dinner, open to all riders and directors. There was some delicious food and the house was unreal.
It had a water slide!
We ate olives. We laughed.
We showed off our best Blue Steel.
We make this look good.The criterium went much better. The team rode an amazing race and for the first time ever, on the final lap, the announcer was yelling "Webcor is on the front!!" Yep, we have a lead-out train this year! Gina grabbed third in the bunch sprint!
The next day has to be one of the hardest races ever. It is the Sunset circuit race, which does 9 loops on a grueling 12k circuit with killer climbing. Again, bad luck with flats. Janel caught hers just as the neutral flag went down. Gina crushed herself to chase Janel back onto the bunch, but ended up taking a wrong turn. Neither re-joined the front of the race. But the rest of our five rode wicked strong, protecting our GC leader and throwing monster attacks. In the end, Nikki sprinted in for a third place finish.
I was with the boys - Davo, Jezza, and Rhino in the feedzone.
Katheryn held onto 5th overall. We ate a lot of oranges. We got better tans. Nobody broke. We hung our laundry on Cid's drying line instead of the dryer. We went through a metric-shit-ton of coffee. And now we're home for 3 1/2 weeks until Tour of the Gila.