 Not six days after finishing the Vuelta Cuba we were off to Mexico to start the Telmex Tour. This was the early season and miles in the legs was the plan and that was just what we were going to get: the Telmex Tour was 8 days with most of the stages between 150 and 200km. And at altitude. Everyone knew that we were in for a tough week.
First off, let me explain that after Cuba getting to Mexico felt like Nirvana. Not that Cuba was terrible, and I don’t want to sound like a whiny Westerner, but a comfy bed and pillow, better quality food, toilet seats in all the rooms, internet access (you mean I can Skype with my girlfriend that I only talked to twice over three weeks while in Cuba, one call costing $60? wow, technology is great!) and smooth roads were all hugely appreciated. After two weeks in Cuba, where everyone was stretched thin from racing, all these little things started to wear on us and Mexcio felt wonderful. Then the racing started.
Our first stage, a circuit race, was in Oaxaca, south of Mexico City. From the gun, as in the first 500m, it was mayhem: crashes, flats, speed bumps, and the general high energy nervousness that comes on the starting day of any tour. I was laughing my head off at the insanity of it all. After a couple of laps though things calmed down and the race came down to two sections. One was surviving the down town sector where the race went over paving stones, had a couple of turns (these seemed to really screw with people), and the aforementioned speed bumps. Once through there it was a matter of getting over the one 2km long hill on the circuit, which we generally took at a steady pace – but that might have been because being the first day of the race everyone was feeling the altitude, and we were only at 1500m in a race that was to go over 3000m.
It was on stage 2 that my personal death march started. As I said I knew going in to this race that following on the heals of Cuba it was going to be tough but… the five stages that I did were way harder than I anticipated. Each day was not only long, but the altitude was fatiguing. In the five days I raced I did over 20hours; these were definitely the long days we wanted so that we would lay down a good base for the season.
The highlight of the second stage were the roads we raced over. They were gorgeous, over rolling terrain with big sweeping downhills that you could cruise without touching the brakes. Wonderful. The negative was the 3 hour transfer to get to the stage start, getting dropped off by the bus and not know which way to walk to the start, and then finishing the day off suffering like a dog. To be honest I was disappointed with my finish: on the second last climb I wasn’t even feeling the pedals (I know the race wasn’t going hard but still) and had high expectations for the finale. Not so. The last climb dragged on and on. Steve’s “only 3km to go to the KOM” over the radio was a bitter pill to swallow as I looked up the road at what was obviously a false summit with the legs slowly giving way under the pressure of the race.
Then the final highlight of the day? Riding across town for an hour to find the race hotel. Josee had been told that it was “the first right and then two blocks”. Uhu. Check out the pics on the website and look for the one where we are cyclocrossing the bikes up a hill and over a pedestrian bridge in order to get over the highway to the race hotel. These things happen racing down south and all you can do is roll with the punches. Needless to say we showered quick as possible and were down at the buffet in record time. It wasn’t the only day that it was like that.
The rest of the week starts to blur a little in my memory now. Too much suffering, you know that whole death march thing. That’s what I started calling the race, the Death March. And us guys that had raced in Cuba weren’t the only ones suffering, there were lots of riders from other teams dogging it along side us.
Stage 3 I remember a big climb up the side of a volcano. A big gruppetto formed on the first of two laps over the climb so that made for an OK day. But then we had another fiasco with finding the hotel. This time we didn’t even shower but went straight to the buffet. You know those Hungry Man frozen dinner ads, where the guys eat huge meals and “it’s good to be full”? That was us, huge plates of food and feeling good to be full. Best of all was breakfast the next morning. They had chicken wrapped in what were essentially crepes. Well, Bruno had the genius idea that if we unrolled the crepe and dumped the chicken then we could have crepes and maple syrup! MMMmmm, just like back home. The little things that make you feel good when you are on the road…
Stage 4. I remember a desert, a couple of climbs that I got dropped on and using the caravan to claw my way back in to the race, and Bruno getting the runs again and having to stop mid-race. He got back to the pack though and finished the day up with the rest of us. Impressive, but it certainly makes for some good laughs when things get a little crass later around the dinner table and we can all joke about his discomfort.
Stage 5 was my day of reckoning. Looking at the profile was daunting enough even if I had had fresh legs: it showed a climb that was 100km long, and went up over 3200m. I rode well, better than I expected for the first part of the day but then I started to unravel. Today’s highlights? One, the never ending climb. And two the town we rode through mid-climb where the road was made out of huge slabs of broken stone. It wasn’t even cobbled, they were just these huge stones that we bounced around on. For a part of the town you could ride the side walk which made things way easier. Anyway, I didn’t finish the stage unfortunately but it was probably for the best. I had been pushing my body hard each day and was feeling like it was on the point of tearing itself apart. Best not to do any serious damage at a race where I wasn’t competitive anyway, and which was also so early in the season.
Still, the race was good in that it forced us to ride the miles we’ll need later in the season. Between Mexico and Cuba we have a huge base that will help keep the form consistent throughout the summer months. And, best of all perhaps, is that there is nothing better than a little bit of adversity to help a team bond together. For the rest of the season we’ll be able to laugh at some of the difficulties we overcame. After this opening project of the season we can now really say that we are a team.
