What time is it?

Ginger 1
Sep 5, 2015
3 min read

Just because I haven’t been posting, doesn’t mean I have been doing nothing; actually it’s the opposite. It has been a super busy month with finishing up the domestic racing with Rochester Twilight a few weeks ago, just arriving back from Brazil, and now packing for 2.5 weeks in China. I don’t know where to start, and I don't want to bore you too much.

The tour of Rio was a 5-day stage race starting and ending in Rio De Janerio. I didn't find out until 1 week before the trip that I was going. It ended up being the hardest stage race I have ever done. Most of the days were at least 100 miles with 6,000 ft of climbing.

I thought my racing was done on day 1 when I flatted at a bad time, and the commisuer would not let me use the cars to pace back in. She would go in front of the car I was sitting behind, and break check the car. I don’t think they really thought that through because that could of be very life threatening if I ended up riding into the back of the car. Once the caravan of all the cars passed me, I was on open road with traffic trying to dodge cars, and at the same time trying to figure out which way the race went. Finally, I got onto an open boulevard and the guys saw I was off the back. One by one my teammates dropped back outside the caravan to help me get back in the race. At one moment I thought we were all going to be out of the race the first day. After a long chase back, we finally caught the peloton as they were going 30 mph. Thanks to my awesome teammates we made it back in, but still had about 60 miles in the race. It ended up being a hard finish, and I was just inside the time cut.

Everyday was just a battle to make it to the finish before the time cut. Every night going to bed I thought the next day would be my last, but somehow I ended up fighting through and finishing the whole stage.

The last day was a LONG one. Every stage started at noon but this one started at 7am. It was cold and I just wanted to finish the stage. We raced 90 miles and then packed up the van and went to McDonalds for food because we were starving. It took two orders for me to get French fries. I don't speak Portuguese so they just nodded their heads when I asked for fries. We then went to the hotel to pack our bikes up, go to the beach for a bit, and shower before heading to the airport for our long travel home. Brazil was nice and a great experience, but I didn’t get any time to be a tourist.

I have been home since Monday but am still tired and recovering from last week. I don't have much time at home as I leave Tuesday morning for another long travel to China. Next weekend starts the Tour of Poyang Lake stage race. This is a 12-day race around China. I did this race last year and am excited to go back and try to improve on Conor’s 5th place GC. I also know to pack a suitcase full of food and coffee.

I will try to update as much as possible when I am in China. Hopefully I can get some videos.