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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.
T-Mobile vs Rona at Redlands, part 2
First of all, let me apologize for not being more prompt about sending out my race reports from Redlands. I didn't realize how much the racing there was going to take out of me. After the stages, I had absolutely no energy to sit down and write. I just laid in bed all afternoon and then went to dinner with my friends. I promise to try and be better during the Sea Otter stage race, and that starts tomorrow already!
Stage 2 - April 3: Oakmont Oak Glen Road Race, 172/130km
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The T-Mobile team went into the 81 mile Oak Glen road race in a really good position. We were stacked behind Genevieve in second, third, and fifth. In retrospect, we could have gone into that race with the goal of simply maintaining our podium positions. After all, second and third on the podium is not too shabby. But we were willing to risk everything and go for the win. We didn't want to hand it over to Genevieve just like that. So Kim, Mari, Kristin, and many other girls started attacking straight from the gun. The race was aggressive the entire time. But Rona was certainly on top of everything and brought all attacks back, protecting Genevieve.
The best opportunity our team had all day was after the first QOM at about mile 23. Instead of waiting for her team, Genevieve went zooming up the climb with the rest of us on her heels and ended up isolating herself from the rest of her team. After a small regrouping on the other side of the climb, the group was made up of about 30 girls, with one RONA, three T-Mobile, three Saturn, and a bunch of really strong mountain bikers among them.
Dede and I started attacking along with Alison Dunlap, Alison Sydor, and Lyne, Ina, and Manon. It was our best opportunity to try and isolate Genevieve and put her on the ropes. But wow, that woman is strong. She was covering everything on her own. At one point, I was on her wheel as she was chasing down an attack, and even though we were on a straight flat road, she was practically riding me off her wheel!
Finally, Ina got a good gap and since she wasn't an immediate threat to overall GC, was allowed to go on up the road. Soon after, Dede attacked hard, got a gap on Genevieve, and bridged up to Ina. That was the break that stuck for quite a while. Our group slowed down once those two were off and that enabled several chase groups behind us to catch back on. Once we all regrouped, Genevieve had her whole team back and they started chasing. It wasn't looking good for us. I knew that in order to beat Genevieve either Amber or I would need to reach the bottom of the final 10km climb minutes ahead of her. Our chances of doing that were bleak. And Dede was out there completely sacrificing herself. As the bunch hit some more rollers, we saw Ina coming back towards us, meaning Dede was now out front hammering on her own. But RONA was holding her at about a minute.
As we passed the 25km to go sign, Manon and I attacked hoping to sneak away, but Genevieve was right on my wheel. Oddly enough, the 3 of us had gotten quite a sizable gap from the rest of the bunch, and seeing her opportunity, Genevieve decided to take over and just start driving it with Manon and me on her wheel. That was the best we could do. Maybe she would tire herself out enough before the climb. Yea, right.
I radioed to Dede that we were fast approaching and to prepare herself to hop on my wheel as we went flying by. Even after being out there on her own for so many miles, she still had enough energy to jump onto our group, thank goodness. Around about 20km to go, it became a big cluster... the commissaire sent our break in the wrong direction. They soon realized their mistake and had us turn around even though they sent the peloton the right direction. So we came back onto the course actually behind the peloton even though we had held about a 1:15 gap before the screw up. The commissaire was very cool though, neutralized the field, and motor paced the break back to our gap. But our small advantage had been lost, Genevieve was no longer going to pull us to the base of the climb.
Dede, being the totally selfless teammate she is, attacked yet again to try and encourage Genevieve to chase. But Genevieve was no dummy, she didn't go for it. And there we were, the 10km to go sign, the base of the final climb, and I was right on Genevieve's wheel, the exact position I knew I wasn't supposed to be in at this point. Oh well, too late for regrets. And again, as so many times before, Genevieve rode me right off her wheel. Now it was only a matter of exactly how much time she would put into me by the finish line.
Today it ended up being 2:44. I didn't have my best climbing day by far; I didn't quite have my Solano legs, but man, I was wishing I did! Manon, Lyne, and then Amber were not far behind me. T-Mobile was still grasping onto second place on the podium, but at the expense of a very exhausted Dede, Kristin, Kim, and Mari. After finishing the climb, Kristin confided to me that she had never been on a team where she had to work so much for her teammates. This was a whole new experience for her, arriving at the climb having done everything she had been told to do that day and being so tired that she could barely make it up the climb. It's a frustrating thing when girls who have just sat in all day passed her on the climb, thinking Kristin just isn't as strong as they thought. The thing is, she's SO strong that she had to work her ass off all day for her team. Don't worry Kristin, it all comes around. You will get your chance one day soon too.
Talk to you soon,
Kimberly
