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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.
1st Geelong World Cup - CDM, Australia, March 2, 2003
Not my day, but certainly Kristin's
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The weather here in Queenscliff has been so bizarre during our four days of training between the Geelong Tour and today's World Cup. The sun will come out for 15 minutes and the skies are completely blue and clear. And the next 15 minutes will be monsoon-like winds and heavy rains. It's made for some interesting riding.
On Thursday, Kim Andersen, Kristin Armstrong, and I headed south along the Great Ocean Road for a 150km ride to the little town of Apollo Bay. The scenery was absolutely incredible as we rode along the coast. And our director, Jim Miller, was kind enough to drive down with our mechanic, Duke, and pick us up so we didn't have to ride all the way back. That ride definitely ranks up there as one of the highlights of my trip.
However, something happened to Duke this week that I think he would rather forget. On Friday, Duke was working on our bikes and reached into one of his bike bags that held spare parts and other equipment. When he pulled his arm out from the bag, his arm was totally black, covered in thousands of tiny little ants. In the two days that the bike bag had sat in the house, ants had built an enormous nest in the bottom of it. I had been upstairs getting a massage at the time and all of a sudden heard Duke, who's normally rather quiet and serene, start yelling and swearing and slapping his clothes frantically. Our soigneur, Heather, ran downstairs to help him and get out the ant-repellent. Poor Duke. He's probably still having nightmares about the experience!
The World Cup course was a seven kilometer circuit back and forth along the lakefront in the city of Geelong. We raced 17 laps for a total of 119km. Our team was staying 30km from the race course so this morning Kristin and I rode to the race site in order to get a really good warm up. Kristin had no idea at the time how important that warm-up would prove to be.
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The wind was really strong coming off the water, so with a strong pulling at the front, the peloton was immediately strung out. In the midst of the first lap, with the peloton strung out a bit, six women got a bit of a gap on the rest of the field. Stacey Peters saw the gap forming and sat up to let it go. Before everyone else noticed, the six had a significant enough gap to cause some worry. Immediately heads were turning in the peloton to see who was up there and who was still in the field. Quickly, Sara Carrigan, an Aussie on the Power-Plate team, bridged up to the six and the break was formed, consisting of Sara Carrigan and Kate Bates (Power Plate Bik), Natalie Bates (AIS), Kristin Armstrong (T-Mobile), Judith Arndt (Nürnberger), Meshy Holt (New Zealand) and Katie Mactier (Victoria).
At first, the peloton seemed happy to allow that break to gain some time. But soon, AIS got restless and kept sending off riders in attacks, trying to bridge to the break. Those attacks quickly were swallowed up by some very motivated Nürnberger and T-Mobile riders. The Iterra team wasn't content with the break either and they too kept trying to send riders up the road in hopes of reaching the break.
But nothing was getting away anymore, and the gap quickly grew to one minute. AIS and Iterra put their efforts into chasing but it just wasn't enough to bring the gap down to a reachable level. My heart went out to Kristin in the break. It was going to be a very long day for her! I was having my own little personal hell back in the chasing peloton as I kept missing feeds every time we went through the feed zone.
Within the first lap of the race, I had lost a bottle while jumping over a hole in the road and had quickly drank the other. We couldn't feed until after the 7th lap, and I missed feeds on both lap 8 and 9. I was starting to feel a bit parched and my legs were starting to go. It wasn't exactly easy back in the chasing peloton either. With the wind and the motivated women chasing hard, the peloton was often strung out, bringing back terrifying memories of the dreaded Tour of Holland (it's ALWAYS strung out in the wind at the Tour of Holland!).
Luckily, after missing my feed AGAIN on lap 10, Mari heard me bitching to myself about being so uncoordinated and gave me one of her bottles. It saved me. Revived, I was able to take a feed on the next lap. Reinvigorated with Gatorade and Coke, I felt like a new woman and was ready to take on the field should the break be absorbed and we needed to start attacking like mad-women.
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But the break was never caught; the closest the chasers brought it to was 30 seconds with 4 laps to go. However, the spirit was seemingly lost, the chasers gave up and the gap blew up again to 1:18. Once we heard that, we knew Kristin was going to be lining up for a sprint finish. We cheered for her from our group as the break sped by us on the other side of the road. Kristin did an awesome job finishing fifth out of seven in the sprint in her first year as a pro cyclist. Oh, if only her ex-fellow triathletes could see her now.
Katie Mactier attacked with 450 meters to go and thought she had it and started to raise her hands as she crossed the finish line. But while she was raising her arms in victory, Sara Carrigan came around Judith's wheel to take the win. Katie ended up second and Judith was third. Meshy Holt finished 4th and Kristin 5th. Petra Rossner (Nürnberger) won the field sprint for 8th, showing hints at some good early season form.
So round one of the women's world cup is a wrap and we are heading home tomorrow. Thanks Australia, for showing us a good time and some more great racing. Now it's home to snow and cold. I think I'm going to do some nordic skiing this coming week!
Talk to you soon,
Kimberly
Results, report and photos from Round 1 of the Women's World Cup
