It’s been another rough go at it for the ABD Men and Women at the Nature Valley Grand Prix. With two stages to go only Alex remains in the Men’s race, and Susan is holding her own with the Pro Women.
The race started out with a 1 kilometer, 6-corner course... which is awesome... NOT! There were a lot of crashes in the Women’s race and lots of amateur men were just blown out the back as the peleton stretched almost 1/3 of the course - Brett Stewart’s out.
Next up: a 63 mile road race with a fear of deathly crosswinds. ABD is prevented from fielding a car in the caravan because the officials decide that since we only have four riders left we can’t have a car... lame. In this day and age, not having a car in the caravan of a stage race is like putting blinders on riders. Most everyone who’s a contender is radio-wired to the team vehicle to get updates and breaks, splits, wind, course conditions, upcoming obstacles, etc, etc, etc. Oh yeah, and in the case of a major crash team vehicles are essential to take care of the mass of riders. Guess what happened? The mass of super-tense riders yard sales it just two miles from the start. Jeff Schroetlin breaks his cleats and helmet (spares of which would have been in the team van), Josh Carter breaks a frame - but continues on, Ryan Baumann gets tangled up with some pros and chases the rest of the day, only to finish 32 minutes down and outside the time cut. But, he rolled in with local hero and Cyclocross World’s Silver medalist Jonathan Page. Of course they wouldn’t cut Jonathan Page?!?! And they didn’t. Jeff’s out.
Friday morning the three remaining guys tackled the 5-mile TT (Josh on a neutral support bike)..... and they all finished without any casualties(phew). Then on Friday night they all took on the downtown Minneapolis Grand Prix. Josh struggled to get comfortable on a borrowed bike that the neutral guys seemed to alter the position on each time they gave it to him.... Ryan started coughing uncontrollably about halfway through the race (a cold he’d been trying to hide coming out in full force)... and Alex just sat in the field, out of harm’s way. Two more out....
Which brings us back to today and our survivors - Susan and Alex. At the moment I’m writing this both of them are duking it out somewhere amongst the wind-swept plains of southern Minnesota. May the force be with them...
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