Lindsey Jean Bishop: The Tour of the Gila Race Report: "CATTLE GUARD!!!"

"CATTLE GUARD (imagine female cyclists screaming this out)" was the quote of the week for me. In hindsight it's hilarious. At the time, it was terrifying. There's nothing like 70 cyclists riding very fast in a big peleton, wheels nearly touching, and then suddenly experiencing a chain reaction of people hitting their brakes as they anticipated the upcoming cattle guard. I'm pretty sure we didn't need to slow down for them. But there weren't any bad crashes all week!

Another salient point?

Stage racing is challenging!

This is me one day before the start of the Gila, in my silly "can't wait to race" mode:

...and this is me the morning of Day 2 of 5:

Slightly shocked, clutching to my energy drink mix. If I could put a thought bubble over my head, it would say, "omg. i hurt. omg." Much like giving birth to a baby (or so I've heard- haha), I'm slowly forgetting the pain of the 5 day stage race and looking back fondly on my first GC road race. Now that I'm not exhausted from the insane amount of riding, I can say with confidence that I'll be doing many road races in the future! Mountain Bike will always be my first love though :).

My teammates on Colorado Bike Law are amazing women and I'm very very fortunate to be training and racing with them on the road. There were many other women in the peleton who were friendly and great to ride with also. There were a few mountain bike racers like Chloe Foresman and Kelli Emmet who were solid wheels to follow and learn from also...not to mention the many awesome roadies like Kristen Armstrong and Allison Powers! It was a very positive, encouraging experience for sure.

On the first day, my anxiety and relative inexperience with big pelotons got the best of me and I stayed on the side of the group far more than I should have. And when attacks would go off the front, instead of getting swept into the group, I would burn way too many matches unsheltered in the wind to feel "safer" from potential crashes. After 3.5 hours or so, we hit this massive, super steep climb to finish the stage and I felt cooked. I knew if I was going to survive the five days, I was going to have to A)get comfortable with the peloton to stop wasting energy on my nerves and tension while riding in the group B)stay sheltered from the wind better and C)not jump every time an attack went off but just get sucked up into the group.

Day 2 hurt the worst of all of the days by far. I didn't exactly follow my A, B, C and got dropped from the peloton when Kristen attacked at the base of the first long climb. Luckily I had two teammates and a few other girls to paceline with and we worked hard...but not hard enough to catch the peloton. The sweetest part of the stage was descending down the "Gila Monster". It was SOOOO much fun and it was the first time I felt very confident carving down a steep, twisty mountain like that on a road bike. Road tires can corner better than a mountain bike's, but I had always trusted the big tire more than the skinny. The Gila week helped me to finally feel comfortable pushing the limits on handling a road bike through fast, tricky turns. Butter. ALMOST as good as single track...but not quite.

Day 3 was the TT and I just couldn't get my legs to go. At all. I was horrifing. I just wanted to go to sleep...but when I'd lie down to sleep my HR wouldn't slow down, so I couldn't fall asleep. I was too exhausted to do anything productive so after the TT, I just talked with my teammates, laid in my bed, ate, and watched episode after episode of 30 Rock. We didn't have wireless in the house, probably a blessing in disguise.

Day 4 was the criterium. I think I really like crits. I felt very comfortable following wheels closely and did a good job at staying sheltered from the wind. Not until the very last little acceleration did I get popped off the main group, so I was psyched! The crowds were awesome since Lancy-pants was there and the pro men went right after us, so we had tons of spectators. It was pretty stinkin' cool.

Strangely, by the morning of day 5, I didn't hurt that badly anymore. I still wasn't sleeping well but I think my body was already adapting to the hard back to back to back to back days ;). AND I was actually completely comfortable in the peloton! HUGE win for me. My goal for the day was to stayed as buried in the field as possible with the least amount of anxiety over it. I did well I think. I had to swallow my nerves when I began hearing girls yell CATTLE GUARD - lol- but asides from that, it was a great day. Megan Hottman was my saving grace on the last long climb of the day - thank you SOOOO much for your encouragement and help Megan!!! It was another looooong day and at about 3.5hrs, we climbed for 30-40minutes. The finish was at the very top. I finished! I was around 40th overall...and placed right around there every day.

This is how 5 days of hard racing makes you feel: