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Team TIAA-CREF - 2005
Team Journal Entry - May 4, 2005, by Timmy Duggan
TIAA-CREF at the Tour de Georgia
TIAA-CREF had some early success at the Tour de Georgia, and if anything else this event provided the team with great experience racing in the 'big time'. Tim Duggan gives us a rundown of the first four stages.
April 20: Stages 1 and 2 - Early success
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We have the first two stages of the Tour de Georgia behind us now, and things have been going pretty well. Team TIAA-CREF has just been trying to be aggressive and follow as many breaks as possible. Only a few miles into the painfully slow first stage, our man Dan Bowman decided he'd go off the front, inviting a few others to join him. I think he took off a little too fast though, 'cause he ended up in a 145km solo breakaway, getting 12 minutes at one point. I hope he had a big breakfast. Unfortunately, the field gobbled him up with less than 40km to go, but he won all the points sprints, an $800 prime, and took over the sprint jersey. Not a bad showing on the first day! It ended up being nearly six hours on the bike that day, as we cruised along at a leisurely pace and caught up on off-season gossip.
Day two went quite a bit faster, but still no breaks could get off. Our mission was to get Will the King of the Mountains points on the finishing circuit hill, so we put the team (David and Ian rode the hardest, helping keep the pace extremely high; the plan was for them to go until they blew up) on the front and kept him fresh. He launched it up the 20% hill. Unfortunately one guy was off the front and we only caught him five minutes later, so Will didn't get the jersey today, but was one step closer. The finishing circuits were cool; there were so many screaming fans on the hill, and the noise made it a lot easier to get up it! Now were then in Rome, Georgia, getting geared up for the TT, ready to give it everything I had on my new superfast Javelin TT bike.
April 21: Stage 3 - Time trials...
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Stage 3 in the tour of GA is a time trial of about 30km. It starts out rolling for the first 15km before hitting a wicked steep hill. If it weren't for all the fans screaming and yelling and running alongside you I don't think that I could make it up! As soon as I was just passing the 25km to go sign it started raining. The intensity of the rain just kept getting worse. With just one really BIG difficult turn leading into the large climb, I slowed down as much as I could, thinking that it would be enough, but before I knew it I was down. Still clipped into my pedals, I slid across the road. My bike was kind of a mess; it took the Mavic mechanic about a minute before he tried to get me back on my bike. Just as he started pushing me my chain came off over the outside. After getting passed by yet another rider behind me I was off. The climb went really well, I felt great and really enjoyed all the fans and their encouragement! It turns out that I wasn't the only one who went down. Five riders actually crashed on the starting ramp! For team TIAA-CREF, we had three riders go down, with Craig Lewis packing it hard on one of the fast descents; luckily he is OK. Timmy raced really well, leading to a good result in a field filled with ProTour riders!
April 28: Stage 4 - An epic day in Georgia!
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The day's stage from Dalton to Dahlonegha was huge. The field exploded on the first climb, only 20km into the race. By the time I could actually catch my breath and eat something, we were already an hour and a half into the race! Things got really exciting when the weather came. We raced through one of the most intense rain/hail/thunderstorms I had ever been in. You could barely see the rider in front of you. At some points there was so much rain coming down that it was difficult to breathe because you were inhaling so much water! The race caravan even had to stop and pull over because it was impossible to drive. Pretty nuts. Of course I only got a rain jacket out of the team car AFTER I was already soaked to the bone. My teammate Micro was climbing with the best on the day, so I helped position him at the front for the climbs and then hung on over the top. I knew I was in for a little suffering once Lance's super climber teammates started attacking! You just gotta keep things in perspective; they are literally the best in the world. Just to be climbing in the same group as them is pretty cool. But, the race exploded again, and six hours and 218km later I was ready to get off the bike and into some dry clothes.
Thanks for reading,
Ian D. McGregor
www.JustGoHarder.com
Photography
For a thumbnail gallery of these images, click here
Images by
Beth Seliga/
- Ian McGregor pushes hard during stage 1
- Dan Bowman during stage 1
- Craig Lewis at the end of Stage 1
- 'Dan Bowman, how do you feel?'
- Will Frischkorn gets the girls and the money
- The best young rider jersey for Frischkorn on day one
- Will Frischkorn salutes the crowd after stage 1
- The sprint jersey for Will Frischkorn on day one
- Frischkorn starting stage 2 with the points jersey
- Bryan Smith rides tempo on stage 2
- Craig Lewis out alone on stage 2
- Will Frischkorn on stage 2
- Dan Bowman rounds a corner during the time trial
- Look out, it's Timmy Duggan going fast!
- Craig Lewis gets out of the saddle during the time trial
- Will Frischkorn time trials on stage 3
- Chad Hartley shows the strain
- Chad Hartley joins the other bums on the road
- Two words - bucketing down
- Puuuuuush!
- Craig Lewis looks comfortable on the climb
- Craig Lewis during stage 4
- Well done Timmy Duggan...
- Tim Duggan finishes stage 4 and looks tougher for it
- Feeding time on the road
- Bryan Smith coasting along on stage 2
