The NOW team came together in Santa Barbara for a training camp to kick off the season of racing. We practiced skills such as sprinting, pacelining, and leadouts. We talked tactics (sorry have to keep those secret). We had hard days and we had coffee ride days. We had yummy team dinners and lots of team bonding. By the end, we had done everything except actually racing.
Luckily, we headed straight to San Dimas to get the "show on the road"! San Dimas is a three day stage race that starts with an uphill time trial, proceeds with a hilly and often windy road race, and finishes with a fast and furious crit.
The weather gods stirred it up for the weekend. The skies started getting gray for the uphill TT. The day before we had been climbing in the sun, but on race day we were riding up the mountain into the fog. It was cold coming back down that hill, but luckily it stayed dry. Despite no sunshine, the NOW team rode strong and clocked several good times.
On Saturday, the temperatures dropped and the clouds unloaded. Our team warmed up well on our Kurt Kinetic trainers under the shelter of the NOW Energy Bar tent. But after a minute of waiting for the gun to go off we were all shivering on the start line. It's no surprise that the race started fast and furious. Not only was the field ready to race, but we all wanted to get warm! Attacks went from the gun and when we hit the leg-breaking hill, the pace barely slowed. The roads were wet, the winds were furious, and crashes were happening left and right. The pack was quickly dwindling, but the NOW team had all it's riders remaining. After several laps of attacks, the winning break finally formed around lap 3. We had our top GC rider up the road with all the top teams represented. The pace of the pack slowed as the break rode away, and we were happy to see our rider get further and further up the road. A bit of panic ensued as we learned that our rider got dropped, but a couple laps later we were happy to hear she was un-dropped. Meanwhile, shivers and shakes were starting in the pack as the downpour continued and the winds picked up. Nobody complained when the officials mistakenly ended the race a lap early! Unfortunately, the officials also messed up the finish for the lead group so there was no exciting sprint at the end and the 4 riders in the breakaway tied for first.
The weather calmed down briefly for our crit on Sunday (except for a tiny hailstorm during the warmup). Anne got in the winning 4-man break and Alison held on to a 4th place GC ride! Not a bad start for the team. We quickly loaded up and were on the road to Redlands before the skies unleashed again -- a few days of rest for the team and then another stage race!
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