Green Mountain Stage Race
By Ali Wilson
This year’s Green Mountain Stage Race is definitely one that will be remembered: for good and not so good reasons…
One week before the event, I was racing in Ste-Agathe for the Quebec Provincial Road Championships and had pulled out of the race because of terrible racing conditions caused by the tropical storm Irene (cold temperatures, downpours and strong gusts of wind). I had many motives behind this decision: I was shivering from head to toe, I couldn’t control my bike on the long descents and it seemed like other girls were in the same situation which made for a very sketchy peloton and, finally, I wanted to avoid catching a cold. In other words, I was trying to be in the best shape I could for GMSR the next weekend since it was, for me, a key event.
But that wasn’t the extent of how Irene would affect my racing, she also hit Vermont and caused major flooding and damages to little communities in the Mad River Valley (where the GMSR is held). I received an email from the GMSR race organizer soon after the storm that explained how the race might not go on because of damages to the course and host communities. My heart sank. I had trained and raced all summer thinking GMSR would be ‘La Grande Finale’. I was ready for this race: it was the race of redemption; I wanted to finish it and make up for the crash last year. I couldn’t believe Irene was going to ruin another event for me.
This is where I, and many other racers, got lucky. That evening the race organizer sent out a follow-up email announcing that Vermont would be waiting for us. He managed to pull some strings and the race was on but with some changes to the courses. What a relief! Cynthia, Courtnay and I were off with plans of getting Cynthia in yellow and Courtnay in green but knowing that it would be challenging with such an experienced field.
I arrived Thursday afternoon and noticed that the little town of Waterbury was hit the hardest: the houses on the main road had big piles of debris on their front yards from the flooding and everything, from cars and house windows to plants, was covered in dust and mud. It looked pretty miserable, but I also noticed a strong community involvement between neighbours.
The first event was on Friday: a 10 km or so prologue. A challenging course but interesting in my case since TT bikes were prohibited which put everyone on a more equal level. I was the first one off and felt like I was being passed by the whole field but, in the end, was happy to shave about 15 seconds from my time last year. Courtnay preferred to keep her legs for the sprint the next day and Cynthia finished in 10th, a minute or so back from the leader. This also meant that Cynthia could be a bit more daring the next day having nothing to lose.
This is where my team and I got… well… unlucky. What a disaster was Saturday! The race started off fine with the usual mentality settling in: no matter who you are, if you try to attack, we will hunt you down and bring you back to the peloton. Having a much smaller team than at Catskills and different objectives (sprint points), the whole Re: Form/Cyclepower team pretty much sat in. The intermediate sprint went well, Cynthia got first place and Courtnay 6th (she would have been up there hadn’t she flatted a few km before and had to pace herself back to the peloton). The final sprint was where we got unlucky which resulted in Cynthia breaking her left wrist and right collarbone and Courtnay getting bad road rash and hurting her elbow. The final sprint was the only time in the race where the centerline rule wasn’t in effect and I guess a few girls took that opportunity to swerve to the left not looking behind them if others were coming up behind them. I believe 4 girls were involved with 2 of them being my teammates… we were lucky that only bones were broken.
That evening was spent at the very chic Burlington Hospital where Cynthia was partially treated (she would get surgery in Canada where we benefit from free medical care). My prerace meal that night was a Mexican rice bowl from an American chain restaurant: I would have liked it more if I knew I wasn’t racing the next day. I woke up Sunday morning feeling tired and sad I would be racing without my teammates but I was also excited to ride the infamous App Gap again. The mountain had the best of me last year. At that point, I had been dropped, was bonking, had mechanicals and had to walk up a part of the climb. This year, I was more prepared and knew what to expect and it went fine. I believe the mental toughness I developed while riding Devil’s Kitchen had to do with it as well (see Catskills race report).
Monday was the criterium: a well known and challenging course in the streets of downtown Burlington. Because of the situation I was in last year, I had never done this stage previously but I knew it was going to be hard. The course was wet from the sporadic rain that day, some parts had fresh slippery paint, cobles and manholes, but what was going to make the race hard were the women that were thirsty for the win. Sadly, as the women’s pro race grew closer, the rain got heavier and the final decision to cancel the race was made when big pools of water were starting to accumulate on one of the corners making the race too treacherous. I was a bit disappointed but I think the race organization made the best decision: I’ll just have to wait until next year to ride the Burlington crit. And so ended my race weekend in Vermont; my boyfriend and I packed our bags, earlier then we expected and went back… TO THE BEN AND JERRYS ICE CREAM FACTORY!!! (but that’s another story and it doesn’t exactly belong on a cycling blog)
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Thanks Ali for a great report about a really not-great weekend. Cynthia and Courtnay are now back in Canada, recovering from their crash. Cynthia has a broken collarbone that will not yet need surgery (fingers crossed) and a broken wrist, each on opposite sides, so Cynthia’s husband Kevin is taking extra good care of her while she recovers.
Next up: CYCLOCROSS! Stay tuned.
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