Recently on Cyclingnews.com |
 Mt Hood Classic Photo ©: Swift |
 |
The Kimberly Bruckner Journal 2004
Like many top riders, 2001 US road champion Kimberly Bruckner has the Athens Olympics in her sights as she returns to racing after surgery for a soft-tissue tumour in her ankle cut short her 2003 season. With her T-Mobile squad in its second year, her diary this year will document the highs and lows of the US' top women's team.
The maid is on holidays part 1
Tour de L'Aude Feminin, France, May 14-23, 2004
This will be my first time ever competing in the Tour de l'Aude Feminine. I've always wanted to do this race; it's one of the longest running women's tours. And each year you can count on its existence… unlike the Tour de Feminine in France and the women's Giro; No one's ever sure those tours will actually happen until about a week before the start.
The T-Mobile squad for this race is made up of Kim Anderson, Kristin Armstrong, Dede Barry, Lara Kroepsch, Stacey Peters, and me. Dotsie Cowden was supposed to come with us, but her boyfriend was in a serious bike wreck a few weeks ago, so she's stayed home to help Kirk recover. We hope you're healing quickly, Kirk! Lara is here in her place and has been given a great opportunity now to race in Europe. This is her first time here in the European peloton, so now she can show her stuff.
Our last trip to Europe really cracked me, as the weather was crap the entire month. It rained, hailed, and the wind nearly drove me insane. I ran into a wall at Tour of Flanders and broke my hand, keeping me out of the next Belgian race and 3-day Dutch tour. It literally took me the 4 weeks. I was home to completely decompress and unwind, and get healthy. Two weeks ago, Kristin instant-messaged me on the computer and asked if I was excited about going to L' aude. And honestly, at that time I was not, as I wasn't completely decompressed yet. But after some beautiful weather in Boulder, some great local racing, and hanging out with friends, I had the right mindset back.
We arrived in Toulouse on Tuesday and drove an hour to our "hotel" in Trebes, just outside of the city of Carcassonne. I say "hotel" because when we drove up to our lodging, just the look of the place was almost enough to send me back into "cracked" mode again. And I had only just arrived. Apparently, Cathy Marsal had told our director that this hotel was the place to be; I need to have a serious talk with this girl.
Kristin and I walked into our room and were slightly horrified. The walls were dirty, the beds were NOT clean, and the disgusting shower was down the hall. Kristin pulled up her bedcover to look at the sheets and screamed; enough said. We quickly looked around and found a closet in which we hoped were clean sheets and made up our own beds. No phone lines. No computer connections. The only thing that kept us going was that we were only here for two nights. Of course we were the first team to arrive too.
The next day, as other teams started to arrive, and we got to meet up with old friends, the place started to grow on me. Team Nurnberger was staying at the same hotel and a good friend of mind from home, Jessica Phillipps, is on that team. So we got to hang out in our not-so-clean beds and chat like we hadn't seen each other in months... which we hadn't. We had a lot of catching up to do.
The team presentation was held at the Conseil Generale in Carcassonne on Thursday evening. As each team was presented, we were closely checking out our rivals, determining which girls would be the ones to beat. Sixteen teams are represented here with a total of 103 riders. That'll seem much smaller than the 150-women fields we were racing with this spring at the early season World Cups.
After the presentation, we drove to our new place of residence for the next two nights. It was a seaside village resort in the town of Grissan and I promised to have a much better outlook on the situation. I really don't need much….I just want it to be clean, and this place was. That night, the wind was HOWLING outside and blowing the shutters against the side of our cabin; I think it kind of scared us for the upcoming stage.
Stage 1 - May 14: Gruissan - Gruissan , 95km
Stage 1 started at 2:30 and no, the wind had not died down before the start. This was going to be a day for the Dutch women; the race was just 95km with one Category 2 climb. In looking back, I think the climb was the easiest part of the day! The wind strung out the women single file like it always does, making us fight for wheels and feeling like we were going to explode at any minute; it was a great way to open the legs for the Tour!
The climb didn't really split up the group at all and we came into one of the sketchiest finishes I've ever done. We zigzagged back and forth through the streets of Grissan with sprinter teams trying to set up a lead out despite the howling wind. It was disaster in the last kilometer as there were two big crashes in the bunch. Kristin and I got caught behind the first, as I tried my hardest not to t-bone her when I saw her stop suddenly. Then, as soon as we got clipped in again and tried to catch back on to the bunch, another big crash brought down a number of girls. Luckily, all the T-Mobile girls were able to maneuver through the chaos and get to the finish line unscathed. Little Lara Kroepsch did an amazing job today in her first European race and finished 10th overall. Unfortunately for her, they mixed her and I up and actually put me in 10th. Being the sprinter that I am not, anyone that knows me would know a mistake was made. But still, it made me look good, at least for a little while.
I'm not sure why the organizers chose to do it this way, but Stage 2 is the prologue. The short TT is in the town of Port la Nouvelle and that's where we're headed now. See you tomorrow!
Stage 2 - May 15: Port La Nouvelle - Port La Nouvelle ITT, 5.7km
It can be a long tough day on your nerves when a stage doesn't start until the late afternoon; I struggle with how to fill my time. We're staying at another vacation resort in a little condo in the town of Port la Nouvelle. It's only May and not quite super warm yet, so none of the summer tourists are here. But apparently in the summer months, this place is completely packed and one can't even find a place on the beach to lay their towel. It kind of reminds me of the ocean-side town of Rimini in Italy where the women's Giro went through last year. I'd love to walk around and check out the sites; maybe even take a stroll down the beach. But then the serious cyclist in me says no, I should stay off my feet as much as possible and rest. The on-going struggle of a cyclist.
Since the prologue didn't start until 3pm, and we were staying right on the course, we went for a ride after breakfast to check out the course. Round and round we went for about 4.5 loops of the 5.7km circuit. It seemed pretty straightforward and not too technical; may the strongest chic win.
Well, turns out the strongest chic's today were my two teammates, Dede and Kristin! They finished 1-2, just 2 seconds apart. How fun… now we have the leader's jersey going into tomorrow, so I better go lie down and rest.
Stage 3 - May 16: Rieux Minervois - Rieux Minervois, 109km
In our down time, we've played a lot of solitaire on the computer. It's a lovely invention for the computer, because it sure does save laying out the cards all the time. And if I don't like my deal, I can just hit re-deal. Kristin and I were playing solitaire yesterday in our room and Lara wandered in to see what we were doing. It came to our knowledge that Lara did not know how to play. How does one make it to the age of 25, especially an American, and not know how to play solitaire? We quickly clued her in.
Races never turn out as planned. If they did, they wouldn't be that interesting, would they? But today TRULY did not go according to the T-Mobile plan. We had the worst luck in so many ways. We went into today's stage the number one team, defending the leaders' jersey with another T-Mobile girl backing her up in second place. The stage had an HC climb in the first 26km (HC means out of category…. well beyond a cat 1 climb) and then rolled up and down the rest of the day with a category 3 climb at 77km and into the finish at 109km. Since it's still early in the race, and the HC climb was so early in the stage, we thought that as long as we got to the top of the climb with as many of us in the first group as possible, we'd be fine the rest of the day.
At the mountain sprint at 26km, the top of the HC climb, Trixi Worrack, Nurnberger, and Olivia Gollan, Australian Institute of Sport, went for it. I don't even know who won the actual sprint, but immediately following them down the descent was Lyne Bessette, then me, Valentina Polkanova, then Dede. I think we got to the top with about a group of 12, but because it was a long, twisting, narrow descent, the separation wasn't going to stick. But holy cow, Trixi TOOK OFF, and I never saw her again for the rest of the day.
The descent stunk because there was a lot of gravel and potholes and some construction workers waving us to slow down around particularly nasty sections. I remained where I was in the line and waited for the bottom of the descent for us to regroup and find out how many of us were in the bunch. Trixi was off on her own, and because T-Mobile was in the leader's jersey, the other teams were looking to us to chase. After a big regrouping of about 70 girls, we had Dede, Kristin, Lara and myself. We tried radioing Jim to ask for some direction but heard nothing. Then Priska Doppman came up to Kristin and told her two of our teammates had crashed on the descent; It was Kim and Stacey. We knew they'd be caught way behind and probably wouldn't catch back on. Hopefully they weren't hurt.
At about 40km, Jim finally radioed through to tell us to start chasing; Trixi had 3 minutes by this point. Unbelievably, we chased the rest of the day with other girls, but to no avail. Trixi was on fire. It was like a German version of the Jason McCartney ride at Tour of Georgia. The first 40km was Lara, Kristin, and I pulling and then the SATS team sent four girls up to help us rotate through. They kept giving us time gaps and Trixi was putting time into us! Once the feed zone started at 50km, I needed water badly. My radio didn't work, so I asked Kristin to radio for some water or my rotating days were going to be very short-lived. Luckily Dede went back to the car for bottles. It's not often that you see the yellow jersey going back for bottles. Can you imagine Lance going back to his team car for more water? But she did it.
The rest of us were otherwise pre-occupied with trying to bring the little engine back. I think it was with about 30km to go that the Canadian National team sent two girls up to help us. Thank goodness is all I can say. Dede jumped in at this point too as Lara was starting to fall off. With 5km to go, we started getting swarmed with teams lining it up for the finish; a thankless job. Fifty-five girls finished with the same time… 2 minutes and 12 seconds down from Worrack.
To our dismay, we found out that our teammate, Stacey Peters, broke her collarbone in a high-speed crash on the descent. She had gone down first, with Margaret Hemsley and Kim Anderson right behind her and they had nowhere to go but down. Luckily Kim aimed for the dirt, and despite losing a front wheel, came out with just scratches and sore body parts. Stacey had a much rougher time of it. The ambulance and helicopter took her to the Carcassonne hospital where she had to spend the night. The girls are all heart-broken to have lost such an amazing teammate, and we hope to see her at least for a bit before she flies back home.
Stacey, we hope you heal very quickly!
Kimberly
