Mankato, MN - June 13, 2009 - After 6 crashes and a flat in 2 days, the Webcor team showed what a never-say-die attitude can bring. We started Stage 5 with our top-placed GC rider Nikki in 25th place 1:37 down. Alex was 40th at 2:28.
138 km later, Webcor was in 2nd overall, and held the Best Young Rider, Queen of the Mountain and Most Aggressive Rider jerseys! For the first time in 2 years, Kristin Armstrong was put into difficulty on US soil and Webcor was the team to do it!
Here is Alex's Report:
What a difference a day can make!!!!
After the bad lack we have had with crashes and punctures over the past 2 days, it all turned around for the better today.
Mankato road stage is one of the longest stages I have ever done in a Tour. At 92 Miles with a solid finishing circuit, it was a long day in the saddle.
Team Webcor went into the day treating it like a one day race as we were all a fair way down on GC and thought that maybe we could salvage a stage win from the less than average tour to date.
Katheryn, Erinne, Nikki, Rebeccca and myself were all attentive at the start of the race with Katheryn managing to get away solo about 30 miles into the race. Katheryn was then joined by 3 others, who gained nearly 2 minutes before Kristin decided that she was unhappy with the break and chased it back. Whilst all this was happening I was in the bunch next to Nikki complaining how;
"Its unfair that every time I try to get in a break no one will work with me yet, every man and their dog will chase me down, and how I was so over it"
Ok to be honest that is the very clean version of what I was really saying but I didn't think it would be appropriate to put that in the race report.
Then once Katheryn was back the usual counter attacks followed and I managed to jump off the front with Brooke Miller from Tibco, Dotsie Bausch from Jazz Apple, and Kelly Benjamin from Colvita, and to my utter amazement they worked with me. We managed to gain nearly 2 minutes before being joined by a Nature Valley rider and Nicole Evans from Value Act. I could not believe my luck. Not only was I in a break but I was feeling good and we were gaining time on the peleton.
Laura was great in keeping me calm as all I wanted to do was see if I could rip the legs off my break away companions (you see I was a bit excited to be off the front and just wanted to ride as hard as I could), but she kept telling me in the radio to make sure the other girls are working and save it for the finishing circuits. Meanwhile back in the bunch the rest of my team were doing a fantastic job 'policing the bunch' making sure nothing dangerous tried to get up the road. This also forced Armstrong to chase.
By the time we entered the finishing circuits we still had over 3 minutes on the bunch and I was confident enough that I could drop Kelly and Brooke up the climb that we did 4 times and the others I was pretty sure I could out sprint. After the first time up the climb it was just Brooke Miller, Dotsie and myself. Down the decent we unloaded Dotsie. The next time up the climb I managed to offload Brooke. Over the top of the climb I knew that I had to dig deep as this was where I could gain the most time. By this stage I was suffering like a dog, but then I though about Amy in Gila where despite having a blood nose she continued in the chase, and Janel who rebroke her collar bone, yet still finished the crit last night, and suddenly my sore legs seemed a little bit pathetic.
It was not until halfway through the final lap that I realized I had a shot at being in the yellow. Unfortunately I missed it by 12 seconds but moved into 2nd overall by one second over Alison Powers who is now in 3rd, and won the stage. We also moved from 8th to 3rd on teams classification, which is a fantastic reward for the team as it was a whole team effort today.
Tomorrow will be a hard day, being a really, really hilly criterium but we will for sure have a crack.
Technorati tags:
webcor,
cycling news