Tour of The Bahamas Recap

Just getting back from the Tour of The Bahamas, and I'm crispier than a conch fritter. Overall the race went really well; our boy Jake "The Breeze" took home a big trophy for 3rd place which was a nice bonus. Jake has multiple nicknames as I've come to find out, which I think is a direct correlation to how fast you are. Me, I have one nickname, so that's a start I guess.

Now here comes the stage-by-stage synopsis:

Stage 1 - Time Trial: Short time trial on Saturday, 3 miles long. Flat, straight, and fast. Warming up I felt like I could use about three days of openers after not being on my bike all week, but c'est la vie. I went out hard, faded hard after the turnaround, but was able to finish pretty strong. My time of 5:56 was enough for 16th place; not bad for being on a road bike and going up against dudes in full TT setups, but I was still about 20 watts lower than I wanted to be for the effort.

Stage 2 - Circuit Race: Saturday afternoon's short circuit race was an absolute attack-fest! I don't think there was one minute of the race when somebody wasn't up the road or there wasn't a group trying to escape. Everyone was being super aggressive, and the intensity and speed showed. Finally starting to feel good again, I was able to cover a couple of attacks, get into a few breaks, and keep myself in good position at the front most of the time. Nothing was able to get away though. Coming into the sprint I think Geronimo finished 5th behind Tyler Farrar who won. Awesome job. I finished in the pack amidst chainrings flying by my head but somehow I moved up to 13th on GC. I guess the fast pace dropped a bunch of guys.

Stage 3 - Road Race: 105 miles of flat racing (6 laps) + 10 miles each way riding to the start and then home = a very long day in the saddle and a very sore butt! Geronimo and Big Willie Style were able to get into the early break which lasted for about 2 laps. I just sat on the front of the mostly-lackadaisical group and covered the wheels of people trying to attack to help keep the break away.

Coming into 3 laps to go, there was a break up the road with one of our guys in it. The pace let up a bit so I decided to drop back and get some waterbottles for everyone. After grabbing some ice-cold refreshments from the team car, I made my way back up to the pack... wait, where's the pack? Apparently while I was back at the car practicing my "turbo bottle" technique, Team Slipstream decided to annihilate the field, and I had made my way back up the remnants of the destruction. Bad timing on my part. I tried to bridge up, but me vs. the argyle train is no contest, so I was relegated to the autobus for the last 2 laps of the race and rode tempo to finish up, some 15 minutes behind.

Good points of the weekend: 1) the team worked exceptionally well together and we were well represented in every major break that went up the road, 2) I'm finally starting to feel better physically and learned a lot in my first race as a pro, 3) we were racing our bikes in the frikin' Bahamas, and that's about the coolest thing ever!