Joe Martin Stage Race 2012

Once arriving in Fayetteville, Arkansas, we unloaded our bikes close to the start of the uphill tt and then rode 40 miles to the host housing. We all got super nice hosts this year, in amazing houses and all within 50 metres of each other. The neighbourhood was over-run with black orange and yellow.

After a couple days of relaxing and soaking up the Arkansas sun we headed to the first stage, the 4km uphill time trial. It was hot, hard, and not so much fun. Our team did well to get a 4^th and a 5^th and the rest of us reasonably high up there. Although we were firing on all cylinders to do some dominating the next day!

Stage two was a 98km road race. We started off aggressively with numerous attacks going off at the start. Once we got to the ‘big hill’ (about 20km’s of pain) I did an attack a quarter of the way up. I got away with a rider sitting 2nd on GC so all I had to do was sit and hopefully wait for my team mates to join. Going over the climb I looked back to see Jade and Carmen had bridged up to us. With 15kms to go I drilled it on the front to make sure we got a good gap. Then with 7ish km to go Carmen attacked hard with the 2nd place rider on the chase, unfortunately she could not drop her but she still did take the win!! Then Jade and I came in about 30 seconds later. I gave Jade the 3rd spot as there is a sprinters points classification in the race and she was sitting in 3rd so to get 3rd on the stage meant she would move up to 2nd (Carmen is leading it). So I got 4th. I have the young rider’s jersey now and I am sitting 4th overall. The now very small bunch came in 1 minute 30 back, our team also won the bunch sprint so we got 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th and were rocking all three jerseys. Definitely a successful day for us.

Adrian had changed our bar tape to match our jerseys. Jades is green for points jersey, Carmen's is pink for leaders and mine is white for young riders. 

The next day was about 110kms on a rolling to flat course (that we did twice). Because we held the leaders jersey, the young riders jersey and the points jersey we were in defence mode. We wanted to win the stage, and we didn’t want anyone getting away so we chased everything. Anna and Annie (teamies) pretty much set the tempo at the front of the pack for the entire race while we separately chased down the attackers.  The finish was fast, a long descent with some hard attacks done by Tibco. We bridged each attack but the end was a bit of a cluster. Jade sprinted to 3^rd while Carmen came in one place back in 4^th.

The final day was the criterium. Today we went into it not only to win the stage but to also hold onto all jerseys. It was a hard crit with a steep uphill finish. After a few unsuccessful attacks Carmen and Jade got away with Emma on their wheel. They got in a break of about 5 or 6 riders so all Anna, Lex, Annie and I had to do was chase attacks and try to slow the bunch down as much as possible as this was the perfect position for us. We did exactly that , and with 1 lap to go I look behind and see the lead vehicle coming up with a single orange and black rider in tow. It was Jade!! She had broken away and was coming into win the stage. My job of riding as slow as possible was a success! In doing this I lost the young riders jersey but that didn’t matter one bit as it went to my team mate Emma, I also went from 4^th to 7^th overall but again, wasn’t an issue as it ended up that Jade took over the leaders jersey from Carmen, who was now 2^nd overall. So all up Jade won, Carmen got 2^nd, Jade got the points jersey, Emma got the young riders jersey, we won the stage and won first team overall. Pretty successful few days I must say.

We then headed straight back to Little Rock for a night and flew to Albuquerque the next day for the Tour of the Gila. The start list for this race is pretty dam impressive including the world’s strongest rider Kristen Armstrong and some very impressive teams. Gila is raced in Silver City New Mexico, in the desert, in the heat, at altitude, and up some hard climbs. It’s going to hurt! And I can’t wait.

                     All the teams host families from Fayeteville. Awesome group of people!

Will keep you updated (that’s if I have any energy left to type afterwards).

Courteney =)

(More photos to come).