Nature Valley Grand Prix Stage Race, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
6 Stages, 5 Days
Teammates: Abby, Kate, Virginia, Holly, and Trish
What an amazing week of racing! In my NRC Stage Race Debut, I was accompanied by 5 incredible teammates, unbelievable mechanical and technical support, gracious and enthusiastic hosts, and by far the coolest Team Manager out there. After everyone had arrived, we got the team together and went for a ride the morning before Stage 1, a 60-minute criterium in downtown St. Paul. When we showed up at the course, I was nervous at first, but after seeing that most of my competition was familiar NorCal women, I told myself that it was just another race and the only thing in my control was how I was going to prepare and race that night. Chris Black gave me some words of wisdom before the race, which turned out to be decisive and the reason I finished the day in 2nd place. He told me that the field would split and if a move went up the road and I missed it, that I would have to bridge the gap and join the break without bringing a single rider with me. That's exactly what happened. Immediately after an effort to win the QOH sprint halfway through the race, a group of 7 riders with all the strong teams represented and defending champion Kristen Armstrong, had split from the field. They were obviously moving fast and well organized and Chris knew it. He yelled immediately to me to bridge and bridge now. As if my life depended on it, I jumped out of the pack and made the move across the gap. It took 3/4 of a lap to latch on to the back of their group, but as soon as I got there, I was confident this was the move of the day. Armstrong was driving it with the help of a few others. A couple of riders were clearly just marking the move, but it wasn't enough to doom our effort, so we rolled on. The other girls were more concerned with getting time on the field so they let me scoop up the sprint points left in the race, which ultimately put me in the Wheaties Sprinter's Jersey at the end of the night. With one lap to go, a Cheerwine rider attacked up the right side before turn 1 and I attacked up the left. We were side by side and I let her take the corner first. Two more riders jumped up and tried to move ahead of me behind Cheerwine and ended up crashing right in front of me. I was able to avoid going down, but I had to brake hard and redirect myself. Meanwhile, Cheerwine was rolling away and two more girls from our break had moved ahead of me. In the last straightaway before the final turn, those two girls started playing cat and mouse and I seized the moment jumping ahead of them on the far left and sweeping the corner. I had a good gap on the girls behind me and too much of a gap to close ahead of me. It was amazing to roll in in 2nd place though. I was ecstatic and overwhelmed. I got my two minutes of fame by standing on the podium next to a World Champion as the first woman of the NVGP to wear the Sprinter's Jersey and 2nd place overall going into the next stage.
Stage 2: Cannon Falls Road Race This race was fairly uneventful. We rode for about 55 miles out on the open road with the occasional QOH or Sprint points to shake things up. I did not go for any of these points, nor did I eat hardly any food or drink while I was out there. I sure paid for it at the end of the race when things started to heat up. Just before the final 2 mile circuits, which we would do 5 times, the open road became a very narrow dirt road. Everyone, including myself, was sprinting to get to the turn off first and onto the dirt without too many riders in front of them. I made it there safely and came out on the other side with the lead group onto the circuit. It was all bad from here on out. The finish line was at the top of a 50-ft little kicker of a hill that hurt pretty bad every time. The course was really technical coming into the final straightaway, so positioning was really important and I was just totally out of position. There were sprints on two of those 5 laps, so the pace never really let up. I just did my best to stay with the group and finish as far up as I could. I ended up in 19th on the day. Virginia was perky-fresh the whole race, checking in with me every few minutes and offering her strength to move me up in the final circuits. I refused and told her to go for it herself. She finished 13th on the day. This was an incredible and well-deserved result that proved she was truly a contender on the NRC circuit. The rest of the team rolled in with the group except for Abby who suffered a mishap, getting stuck behind another rider whose fork broke. Abby's a stud though and picked herself up, rode it in, and immediately started preparing for her specialty of time trialing the next morning. - Shelley
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