While the California Webcor contingent was at Mt. Hamilton, Amy was racing the Iron Horse Classic in Colorado.

Here is Amy's entertaining report of the first stage:

May 23rd kicked off the Durango Iron Horse Classic, a 3-day omnium consisting of a 50-mile road race from Durango to Silverton, a downtown criterium, and a 15-mile time trial. Part of the Boulder contingent – Fred Dreier of VeloNews, Tiffany Cromwell of Colavita, and Mara Abbott of Columbia, and myself, Amy of Webcor Builders–- drove the seven hours early Friday morning. Fred’s Subaru was busting at the seams with seven bikes on the roof, one bike in the back, along with a menagerie of wheels, duffels, food bags, and us four large bike racers.

Sunday’s road race began all too early and soon, at the raw time of 7:26 a.m. There is a train that runs from Durango to Silverton, so the object of the day for the citizen riders is to “beat the train." For the women, the object was to cling to Mara’s wheel. 

There is always a calm before the storm, so we rolled along the first few miles before the climb began at an easy and quiet pace – either because it was so early, or out of anticipation of knowing we would be climbing out of our skin at 11,000 ft! Sure enough the storm began when Mara went to the front, so I grabbed her wheel knowing that if anyone were to open a gap on her it would all be over. Within a minute of this, the 60-women field was reduced to a front group of Mara, Marissa Asplund, Alicia Welsh, Melissa Mcwirther, Susannah Gordon, Tiffany Cromwell, and myself. The storm had crushed its first victims before ultimately decimating this group of seven. About 25 miles in, I couldn’t match Mara’s final surge, which separated herself from the group. Toasted, I watched Marissa, Alicia, Susannah, and Melissa ride away from me too. Tiff had fallen off, and I found myself all by my lonesome at 9,500 ft.

The road race had turned into a hillclimb time trial for me, so I went through a variety of different mental states, ranging from ‘this sucks! A $50 entry fee for a training ride?!’ to ‘Harden up, you can get yourself top 5 instead of lousy 6th!’ to ‘screw this I’m tired of pedaling’ to ‘OH, she’s right up the road, pedal harder, stronger, faster!’ to lyrics from another song…”There’s no way you’ll march on top of me, not how this is gonna be – it’s not the size of the dog in the fight but the fight in the dog." Ultimately, through all my mind games I pulled myself out of the dredges and even made my arms go numb. 

The first pass to get over was Coal Bank pass at 9,600 ft, which shoves you down a wicked descent, dropping you at the looming doom of the second pass – Molas Pass, which tops out at 11,000 ft. From there, you then have the final four miles of a joyous and ripping descent into the finishing town of Silverton. Mara had told me that two years ago she had been in the lead up until the climb ended, only to be rocketed past by a speedy Alison Powers in the final 2k of the 50-mile/2.5 hr race. I took this ticket of information and stuck it in my back pocket.

I was relieved to have made it over Molas Pass. I had tried to eat a Powerbar gel blast while climbing, but apparently only my legs were still functioning, as the first one hardly made it out of my pocket into my hand before being dropped; I missed my mouth with the second one; got the third one in my mouth, only to see it careening back out and onto the pavement with a string of drool. To add to this, I have had problems with my left eye closing at high elevation, so I fought this as the ascent turned into a switch-backing descent. Fortunately with my right eye I was able to see my prey a couple switchbacks ahead. It was Susannah Gordon, a rider from Colorado who can definitely hold her own on a bike uphill, downhill, and all around. But I had my 11x26 on, which was the ultimate gearing, so I could go faster than I should have been going. With 3k to go I blew past Susannah like she was standing still and held onto it for a 5th place finish. In the end I fought through all sorts of mental states and was pleased to see that over a two-and-a-half hour climb I was only four minutes off of Mara who has proved to not suck when the road goes up.

Here are Amy's remaining reports – a good read!

Stage 2

Sunday the 24th was the downtown criterium of the Iron Horse Classic in Durango, Colorado. The course consists of eight bold corners that zig-zag through Durango’s lively Main Street and lovely side streets. The start/finish escorts you onto a left turn and up a punch-in-the-gut 200m kicker, to a soft and gradual uphill right turn. This 150 meters had a head wind, as did the finishing drag. A hard and man-hole laden left turn shoed us onto a cross-winded 100 meters before a fast left and a 250 meter tail wind section. We flew into a rough and cracked left hand turn and then a quick pot-holed S-turn. Gaining more speed in this 200 meter tail wind, we railed another left hand turn down a short and sweet descent, before pinning a hard left to the long finishing head wind straight.

We awoke to pouring rain, so instead of a mellow coffee shop spin before our 4pm start, we were beckoned to the rollers. Instead of the sand man bringing me sweet dreams, I think he opted to pour sand into my legs…or mud, or lead. However, after some time spinning I felt much more spry, and ready for a nap! Waking from the nap I didn’t know what day it was or whose legs I was wearing. All the caffeine in the world couldn’t wake me from this funk, nor could any amount of efforts. I arrived to the start line yawning and unable to get my heart rate above 150. And so it began.

Carmen Small, now riding for Colavita, joined forces with Tiffany Cromwell. Carmen came out to play, all rested, snappy, and amped to win in front of her hometown crowd. Though groggy, I knew I had to stick to Carmen like a fly on sh…compost. From the gun it went with a slew of attacks from the two Colavita members, the Defined Fitness Training squad, and the Colorado Bike Law gang. For the first 15 minutes I surfed wheels, following bridges, attempting to awaken my body a bit before pulling any superhero stunts. But there were no superhero stunts to be had today. The tipping point was a counter off Tiffany’s attack by Carmen following the little kicker. I found myself a few wheels back when I tried to bridge to the four escapees. That extra gear wasn’t there, and I found the remaining field glued to my wheel. The stragglers and individual riders wouldn’t help me, and instead of pulling through, on multiple occasions they attacked me.

I did make a few other attempts to bring myself to the break, but never had the pop to break free of the chase group. After pulling hard on the front, again some individual would attack. This left me feeling jaded, frustrated, and uninspired. I sat in for the remaining laps until four to go, when I made my way to the front to contest the sprint. Sitting second wheel for the remaining laps, I thought the finishing straight would allow enough real estate to overcome the driver on front. Again my plan fell through. Tiffany, Lauren Hall, and myself came to the line, a hair between each of us – mine being the thickest for a 7th place finish.

Stage 3

Memorial Day leaves me memories of pain and achievement. My time trial began at 9:58.30. I was on my bicycle at 8:28.30 and rolled over to the start, at Bread, the best darn bakery ever. The owner, Rob was waiting for me with a piping hot Americano. To y’all who raced Tour of California – Rob was the rockstar who gave us all the cookies, bread, granola, and hats! 

Everyone brought their A-game with TT bikes, disc wheels, aero gear, rockets, and after-burners. My TT bike is in MN waiting for me at Nature Valley, so I already looked off the back with just my lucky Leopard road bike, with dorky clip-ons. Little did all the geeked out martian-looking time trialists know that I was angry from the day prior, and anger can breed the most rampant of fires. My warm-up didn’t go as smoothly as I would have liked. The bathroom was out of order at Bread…darn overly caffeinated bike racers! So I had to go hike off into the woods. Then my shifting was all out of whack, and I couldn’t get into my 53, which I figured I might need for a mostly flat to downhill time trial. After my hike I couldn’t get in or out of my pedals, so to keep from falling over, Michael Engleman had to hold me up! Leggies still weren’t kicking as I would have liked, but after a couple sets of pyramids my heart was beating a bit faster and I was licking my chops.

The 15-mile time trial was mostly tail wind, and quite rolling on a quaint country road. When living in Durango the year prior, I had ridden the road, but was still surprised by how much downhill there seemed to be. The last half-mile finally kicks up a good climb, which is still big-ringable. My eyes stayed glued to my power meter for the entire race, and it served as a friend – a brutally honest friend. I maintained the numbers I wanted and was pleased with a time not-far-off of some known and geeked out time trialists, and ahead of a lot of silly looking aero pedalers.

Kristin McGrath of ValueAct is coming back from a knee injury, and had the green light on the TT. She smashed the competition, posting a mid-34 minutes. Tiffany Cromwell of Colavita was a minute behind her in 2nd. I was a minute off of Tiffany in 5th place, with Terrie Clouse of CO Bike Law and Marissa Asplund of DFT in between.