Tour of the Gila Stage 1

Well Stage 1 of the Tour of the Gila is officially over with. Today's stage was 118km long. Here's the course profile:
I don't know how many official starters there were in our race, but Webcor, ValueAct, and Colavita had full squads. Not to mention, Kristin Armstrong was in our presence. It was a neutral 3.4k roll out. We did the first climb together. It wasn't anything intense. After that, it was pretty much downhill for the next 40km. Our team started throwing out some attacks to try and split things up, hoping to get a small break going early. Nothing seemed to be sticking. I launched an attack and found myself off the front for almost 20km by myself. Not what I wanted to happen. I wasn't giving it my all, just putting out a steady tempo. I couldn't figure out what was going on back in the peloton. I was really hoping some people would bridge. Anyway, eventually I got caught. Then things got really mellow. Nothing too exciting happened until my teammate Hillary Billington threw down an attack. She put a lot of time on the group (like 1min 40 seconds). Eventually 2 riders bridged to her, and another one later on. The 4 kept away until the climb. The climb was the real race. Here's the profile:

Ya...it was steap. So hard!

I came into it already tired. Kristin Armstrong picked up the pace on the climb and everything shattered. I got dropped like a bad habit. From that point on, it was damage control. I finished 33rd, 5minutes and 4 seconds down from Kristin Armstrong. My teammate Anne Samplonius was 11th, Carla Swart was 18th, Toni Bradshaw was 37th, Hillary Billington was 48th, and Kate Ross was 68th. It was a hard race, I felt like I gave it my all. Everyone on the team rode a very aggressive race. Now it's time to rest up. Tomorrow is another brutal day in the saddle!

Here are some pictures from our pre-ride of the time trial course yesterday. We saw Lance Armstrong riding out as we were coming back.

Riding with Kristin Armstrong.

Don't ask.
Team van.

Team mechanic - Kyle.

I...am...THE BUTCHERER!
Toni and Hillary cooking some dinner.

Ok that's all. Dinner time!
-A