The 2007 the Aaron’s Professional Women’s Cycling Team made their debut this weekend at the season opener in Santa Clarita, California. The race was set to go off at 10:30 on Saturday morning with a multitude of powerhouse teams fighting ferociously to establish their dominance at the first race of the season. The weather was predicted to be a pleasant 70 degrees and with the backdrop of the Tour of California we couldn’t have had a better stage.
After gearing up our radios, conducting our pre-race meeting, we all lined up at the starting line assessing the competition. Other teams: Lipton, T-mobile, Cheerwine, and the Palo-Alto squads all were represented. It was going to be a tough day.
The race started out at a brisk pace as we raced through the 1.2 mile hilly loop. Five (5) laps into the race Katherine Carroll decided to pick up a $50 cash bonus given to the first racer who crossed the line on that lap. The “A Team” took turns attacking the field all day and Felicia Gomez was busy winning the hill-top sprints to win the Queen of the Mountain competition. With only five (5) laps to go in the race and the Queen of the Mountain competition sewn up we geared up for a field sprint. I was going to be the sprinter for the day, so with one lap to go, we all began our formation for the sprint. Right about this time someone from my left hit me hard from the side and crashed into my back wheel taking herself down in the process. I nervously sprinted away only to realize my wheel had taken a hit and was wobbling side to side. We tried to adjust the best we could and Katherine Carroll railed it on the down hill to get 9th in the field sprint. Palo’ Alto’s Brook Miller took the field sprint for first, but we still finished 3 out of 4 in the top 20.
All-in-all Aaron’s was the team of the race, but in bike racing anything can happen. The good news: we won the Queen of the Mountain competition and got our bad luck out of the way on the first race of the year—not bad.
Next weekend: It’s off to Merced, California where we will finish what we started.
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