Photo: © Casey Gibson

Time for a change: The Kimberly Bruckner Journal 2003

Last year the 2001 US Road Champion Kimberly Bruckner left the number one ranked women's team in the US after two years with Saturn and joined the growing force that is Team T-Mobile. With her sights firmly set on the Worlds in Hamilton and the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004, Kimberly's diary is sure to provide compelling reading.

• Index to all entries

Toughing it out at Berne

Tour de Berne, Switzerland, April 27, 2003

I've probably said this before but I just have to say it again: technology never ceases to amaze me. This past week, my boyfriend was racing the Tour of Georgia in the States and I've been trying to follow the action. With our current six hour time difference, it's been difficult to talk to him. So instead, before we go to sleep at night, my roommate, Kristin Armstrong, calls her boyfriend, Joe, back in Boise, Idaho with her T-Mobile cell phone. Joe is an engineer at Hewlett-Packard and from his work desk, he checks on-line with our favorite website, cyclingnews.com, and reads us the live updates from Tour of Georgia. So we go from Holland to Idaho to Australia to Georgia, and I know exactly what's happening down to the final kilometer. It's rather cool when you think about it.

Saturday's drive from Holland to Lyss, Switzerland took seven and a half hours and it rained almost the entire time. We all felt like big fat sausages by the time we piled out of the car at our hotel. Some of the girls chose to ride trainers straight away since it was raining. But I was so excited to be back in Switzerland; it's such a beautiful country. I dragged Kristin outside, which wasn't very difficult, to ride a loop of our race course and enjoy the scenery. As soon as I got on my bike, I started feeling better. The mountains will do that to me.

Race morning dawned sunny and clear, although a bit chilly. The team was pretty excited going into this race because we had absolutely nothing to lose. Which is really how we should go into EVERY race. And surprise, surprise: 160 women on the start list. So much for being just a small, regional race! Before the start, my friend Cathy Marsal (Rona) came up to me and asked if I recognized the climb on the circuit. I did not. She reminded me that it was the same climb from the Tour of Switzerland in 2001 where I took the yellow jersey. The circuit itself was completely different but the climb was the same. I hadn't even recognized it climbing the day before! It wasn't until we were climbing it the first of four times in the race that it all came together for me and I remembered. I rode up next to Cat and exclaimed, "You're right!" but we were breathing a little too hard at the time for her to reply.

The climb came just 14 kilometers into our race, which consisted of four 28km loops. Although the climb was only about 1km long, it was enough to break things up. Unfortunately, that included losing our teammate, Stacey Peters. Stacey had come down with food poisoning the night before Flèche Wallonne and hasn't quite felt the same since. She's still suffering from stomach problems and just didn't have the power in her legs like she usually does. Bad salmon will do that to you.

Four T-Mobile girls got to the top of the climb in the front group of about 10: Kristin, Mari, Amber, and me. A group like that looked promising and we started rolling through, but were caught on a long descent about 10 minutes later. From then on, the race was aggressive, and it made the racing so much fun. We were all super active and always represented in every break. Kim Andersen attacked and got away solo while going up a long gradual climb at the start of the second lap. A Prato Marathon rider tried going after her with Kristin and me right on her heels. When we crested the hill, there were four of us with a gap on the rest of the bunch. We tried to get up to Kim and form a break with three T-mobile girls. But the other teams weren't letting that happen. That would have been too easy.

Breaks came and went all day with at least one or usually two of us in all of them. The strongest riders of the day though were Nicole Brandli, (Prato Marathon) and Olivia Gollan (Australian Institute of Sport). We could tell early on that those two were the girls to beat today. So Kim took initiative on lap 3 to bridge up to Oneone Wood (AIS) and Svetlana Boubnekova (Prato) who were off the front. The three of them were working well together and it looked good for our team.

Going into the steep climb on lap 3, our director told Amber and me to really try and stick with Brandli and Gollan should they attack and try to bridge to the front group. Of course they both attacked, and of course, neither of us were able to stay with them. We really tried! But they were just too strong for us. We crested the climb only about 200 meters behind them, but it was just enough for them to escape. They quickly bridged up to Kim's break. Now she was outnumbered with two AIS and two Prato riders.

Our next brilliant plan was to have Mari and Kristin chase the break and bring the gap down to about 15 seconds so that Amber and I could attack together and bridge. But since so many teams were not represented in the break, they weren't going to let anything else go up the road without them. I needed some serious rocket-legs today in order to escape solo. Amber and I tried but we had a group of eight right on our heels; too many to drag up to Kim. So we had to leave poor Kim to fend for herself.

The crucial point in the race for the break was the fourth and final time up the steep climb. Kim later told us that straight away, Brandli, Boubnekova, and Gollan got a gap on herself and Wood. Kim went into the climb on Wood's wheel, but then told us that all of a sudden she was being sprayed by something. It was Wood peeing into her rear wheel. Kim was so surprised, she didn't know what to do - except move straight over of course! She said it made her ride up the climb even harder to try and get away from her! Kim and Wood never did catch the front three again. But Kim gave an awesome effort today to finish 5th. Overall, I think it was a great time for our team. We were all worked over but it was great racing, aggressive and tough. It's what makes us better overall.

Now unfortunately, we have to leave lovely Switzerland. Tomorrow morning starts our two-day trek to the Czech Republic for the start of the four-day Gracia Tour. I'm stocking up on my candy supply since I don't know what I'll be able to buy there. The fun just keeps on coming!

Until then, ride easy!
Kimberly

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