Amgen Tour Of California: My First World Tour Experience - Black Magic pb Tineli
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28 May Amgen Tour Of California: My First World Tour Experience

Posted at 21:03h in Featured, Racing by

Amgen Tour of California, is America’s only World Tour event for women. To hear Team Illuminate had managed to get an entry made me very excited but also slightly nervous. Ever since the team participated in it last year, the thought of it possibly being on the cards this year made me very excited. It was such a big opportunity for us as riders to show what we are capable of and to mix it up with some of the biggest teams in the world such as Canyon-Sram, Team Sunweb, Wiggle High-5; the list goes on really.

We had just arrived back from a very successful but interesting trip in China racing the 5-day stage race, Panorama Guizhou International Women’s Race. The culture was completely different to what we were used to, and I experienced one of the most painful massages of my life, it even managed to leave me with a few bruises. We landed back in USA about a week before the tour started and it was fair to say I needed all of that to get over the jetlag. Throughout this time, we had a wee look round San Francisco, did a bit of riding and went out for the most amazing 7 course Japanese meal (even Shoko our Japanese team member was impressed). After a bit of “touristing” we headed up to Lake Tahoe, where stage 2 was to be held. Stage 2 proved to be the decisive day of the tour for the GC riders, with 2 lengthy climbs throughout, along with a 1km climb up to the finish. Also, Lake Tahoe is at altitude just to make it a bit more challenging. We got to recon the last 35km of the course which consisted of the main climb and the finishing one, with mountain bike legend Katerina Nash. She was awesome, giving us heaps of tips throughout the ride and pointing out the tough cross wind sections from last year. Everyone came away from that ride feeling eager and motivated to tackle the tour.

To kick things off stage 1 was a 125km loop around Elk Grove. With no hills or wind what so ever the pace was reasonably mellow. There were a few attacks towards the beginning, but teams seemed keen to save their legs for the following day. As a team we struggled to find each other in the end, and we all just rolled in with the bunch, nothing spectacular.

Stage 2 was the key day, finally some hills. The pace was on right from the start, this was a bit of a shock to the body. We weaved our way through Lake Tahoe, over some rollers and very bumpy roads. The bunch was already strung out and everyone was gearing up to tackle the first climb of the day. With a break up the road, the pace was set at a rather nice tempo for the duration of the 6.6km climb. No one seemed eager to attack, and the bunch was mostly intact going over the top. We then had about 40km of flat before we hit the next and main climb of the day. Mikayla made good use of this time feeding the team and everyone was set for 13kms of pain up Dagget Summit. I lost contact with the group around 2kms from the top, but kept chasing all the way up and by the top had managed to pull together a group of about 10 riders. No one seemed particularly eager to work and it was clear we were never going to catch the front of the break. I focused on refueling and preparing myself for the last climb up to the finish. I managed to roll in 4th in my group finishing 16th which put me 15th on GC and 3rd young rider. For my first World Tour event I was pretty happy with that. Shoko, Mikayla and Rebecca worked well together up the climb finishing together in 35th, 36th and 37th with Lexie not far behind.

The final stage consisted of 18 laps of a 2.3km loop round Sacramento. This was brutal, I think all of us were probably positioned too far back at the start which made the race a lot tougher than it needed to be. Apart from Rebecca who was putting her mountain biking skills to good use at the front of the race. I can’t say I managed to see the front of the peloton on this day but had a good time trying to work my way up the bunch for the majority of the 70km. Everyone finished in the bunch and we were all stoked to finish our first World Tour Event. It was such an awesome experience and I learnt lots. It definitely taught me the importance of being around each other and moving up as a team. I wouldn’t recommend trying your luck of getting amongst a Sunweb lead out, it’s fair to say your chances of getting let in are a BIG zero.

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