First time down there for this cat, but many of the Rio gang have been regulars over the last few years. Cool town super close to the Mexico border and an ever cooler bike race. 3 days, four stages with two TT’s and two road races. Decent sized field with 81 and Fly V and United Health Care sending full squads as a Gila warm up.
After a solid 15hr drive (including one flying bike and running out of gas 3miles before the station) we arrived in one piece and ready to shake up the 1.5mile uphill prologue on Friday night. And represent we did, with Gray taking 9th, Winn 14th and Garcia 23rd and all in the hunt for the GC. Little did we know that the next day’s 90mile RR would throw us a rather large curve ball.
With the word that most of the time a bunch finish occurs, our plan was to protect Gray and stick Holt in the break as a safety net. Needless to say when the break of 7 stayed away and gained 11min we were pretty shocked. I guess Fly V and United were happy to play their cards with Lill and Killun respectively rather than keep Rory in the jersey after he smashed the prologue. So Holt took fourth on the stage outta the break and over night shot into 4th GC! Cycling is pretty crazy sometimes and all of a sudden the rest of us were defending at top 5 GC spot….sweet! That afternoon there was no rest for the wicked with a 7.2mile TT to suffer in.
TT was pretty straight forward, out and back and little to no wind. Holt held his own and didn’t lose any time and we were all pumped for the final 84mile stage the next day.
The team plan was to patrol the breaks with Krughoff, Bingham and Winn early on and then spend the rest of the time looking after Holt. After stage one’s surprise pretty much every move was being brought back and quickly to the point where it looked like things would stay together until the final major climb. This is where once again this sport threw a curve ball. After rolling back through the caravan from a stopped nature break (yellow jersey included in the group) almost instantly a group of 11 rolled off the front and stuck. Luckily Garcia made the move and represented the red and black. The peloton fluffed along and pretty soon the break had 3minutes and were away. The stage finished with a solid steady highway climb in which Fly V rode a hard tempo to shell as many guys as possible. Holt was able to defend his GC position without too much trouble despite having 3rd and 5th GC breathing down his neck.
Overall it was a very successful race for Team Rio and we are now in Silver City for the Tour of the Gila starting tomorrow. Wish us luck!
