The Valley of the Sun stage race in Phoenix Arizona was our first race of the year as a team together. For me, it was my first test of the year to see how the legs were going into the season. After a long winter mixed with lots of schoolwork in university, as well as quite a bit of time spent on the indoor velodrome, I was excited to get back on the road and do such a cool stage race in such a cool place.
The first stage was a Time Trial. Many of us, including myself, did not bring Time Trial bikes so it was an all out road bike effort Merckx- style. After the long two day drive from Vancouver I was curious about how the legs would be, but I gave it my all and ended up posting a decent time for riding a road bike.
The road race was more my jam, it was 150km long with a rolling hill to the finish. In the first 20 km of the race I rolled a breakaway which got about a decent gap, but the other teams had aspirations to close the gap and keep everything together all day. This was how it went the whole day. It ended up being a hot day out there - desert who would have thought - it also ended up being a relatively fast paced aggressive race as all the teams were just trying to keep the race together. In the end we tried to have the best positioning on the final time up the climb to the finish. In the end we didn’t get a placing, but we had guys in the mix which is sometimes how it goes. Overall not too bad for our first road race of the year.
Lastly we had the criterium, an eight corner criterium with some of the fastest criterium racers in the US. It was fast and furious right off the gun. To be honest, it took a little while to get used to the criterium style of racing after not doing one for so long it seemed like. Overall, I didn’t have too much to report from the crit. At eight laps to go I was able to sneak off the front for a flyer to try to snag a cash prime, but I got caught by the surging peloton in the last corner.
Valley of the Sun was a great race for Red Truck, our first race of the year together and we all worked so well together. We stayed together in one big house which was super great for team bonding. We very much built our family vibes during this trip. From this we become a better team and a more committed group of people. It’s great to see what we can do both on and off the bike, which is something that is really special about Red Truck Racing. Thank you everyone, that was awesome!
