Le Etape Du California 2011

Saturday a bunch of us decided to head down to LA to participate in this wonderful event. Sometimes, "fun rides" like these turn out to be anything but as some of the best racers in California show up and inevitably the 'gloves come off'.

Before the ride I was talking with Dave Lettieri before the event started who said "It's gonna be ON".

And for the most part it was. The group kept it at a conversational pace for most of the first climb, until we passed through the tunnel when Sergio Hernandez made the comment about it suppose to be a social ride and everyone had stopped socializing. The pace continued to slowly ramp up, but he decided to start talking again.

Near the top of the first KOM, Tinker Juarrez who had been climbing for about 40 minutes in his big gear decided to take off, never to be seen again.

The decent across the ridge and back down towards San Dimas was awesome. Then came the GMR climb (the first part of which is the TT for San Dimas Stage Race). The ride had been not been easy up to this point, but it had not been super difficult either.

At this point EVERYTHING CHANGED. Zabriskie got to the front and laid down the law. I hung in there as long as I possibly could but Tim Johnson's words "we have 2 more hours of climbing boys" were echoing through my head. I decided enough was enough and let the group slowly fade away into the distance and I settled into a nice friendly rhythm. Tim caught up to me after he had stopped for a nature break and pulled me and a friend of his to the top, where we found Zabriskie and a couple HTC guys at the top of the KOM off of their Bikes. "What happened?" said Tim. "Those guys went ape shit" responded Zabriskie. There was a stop just down the ridge where I scarfed down some food and filled up my bottles.

Randy Pulled up who had been dropped earlier and did a quick feed and then hopped back on the saddle ahead of Tim and Dave. I figured I better get an early start as well and quickly ran after him.

Although I did not quit have what it took. Randy dropped me on the ridge and I rode the rest of the ride solo. Nothing could have prepared me for the last KIM, average 8.9% grade over 4 miles. I settled into a Rhythm and dug deep into my psyche. The pain was excruciating and I definitely was not prepared or trained for that last death slog.

But somehow I made it.

The results had me 19th overall with a finishing time of 5:52:00.. and both the KOM's somewhere between 20th and 30th.

I was super stoked on finishing a great ride, with some awesome friends and riders (Gary stayed with the lead guys the whole way and finished around 5:30:00 !!) .

Watching this stage of the tour is going to be AWESOME having completed the ride myself.