Minnesota Stage Race / St Paul River Front Time Trial

Tuesday, for the first time since I moved to Minnesota, I packed up the car and journeyed across the state by myself. No Mike. No Sydney. Mike was kinda grouchy in the days leading up to me leaving. I told him if he wasn't nicer to me that I would just go home with the team after the race. He said how strange it was for me to be going to race while he stayed home. But he quit being so grouchy! It was a fabulous drive, and Minnesota is so green and blooming and beautiful right now. I didn't take me long to fall in love with my new home state as I drove across the lovely prairies and river valleys! I suppose there are advantages to "what might be bad for riding your bike" weather after all.

I made it from Marshall to Bloomington in great time and before the mad rush hour traffic started. But that also meant some waiting time before I could register the guys for the race and way before the managers meeting. The hotel's air-conditioning was wacked out and it was a sauna inside. And outside it was about 90F and 100% humidity. Given it was in the 50's last week, the air-conditioner was probably rusty from not being used in a long while.

I sweated it out at reg---literally. The room was small with lots of people and I was having a hard time reading all the stuff I needed to fill out---I'm sure the organizer's had a hard time reading all the soggy sign-up sheets...Soon rider's and team managers and media were filling the lobby---It was so nice to see folks I haven't seen in a LONG time. That hot & humid hotel lobby felt like a home away from home.

After the manager's meeting, I headed to our hosts house (who had graciously cooked a big dinner for the guys amongst everything else!) and got to see my guys (after not seeing them for most of the season), and we had a brief meeting before calling it an evening. We were treated to a torrential down pour of rain, thunder, lightening and flooding in the wee hours. I slept through the whole thing.

I stayed at the brother of one of our hosts' house...two driveways down, and while I was chatting with Jennifer and Dan Bailey, the fact that Mike went to school at St. John's came up and Dan's brother Joe Bailey graduated from St. John's the same year as Mike and Mike knows him. Small world...

Anyway today the guys rode to downtown St. Paul for the 4.5 mile Prologue, while Dan Reymann (mechanic) and I drove the van and set up on the course. The weather we woke up to had drastically turned into a sunny, hot day. (again with the weather). The course was along the Mississippi on the St. Paul river front (right across from the Science Museum)...An up and back flat course with crosswinds.

The field was loaded with talent from Healthnet, Navigators, Jelly Belly, ColaVita Bolla, Monex, Endeavor, Webcor, and the usual players at a big NRC race. The McGuire-Langdale contingent: Erik Saunders, Matt Dubberly, Jason Allen, Roman Kilun, Pat Dunaway and Devon Vigus. Our guys had just driven 1300 miles in two days, after racing hard at USPro...and all the other east coast races---so to say they were tired is putting it mildly.

Given that we didn't have TT bikes...or disc wheels (this was certainly a course for disc's...flat and fast), we managed to finish most of the team in the upper half of the race...Matt finished with the best McGuire-Langdale time @ 1 minute off the fast pace set by Chris Baldwin of the Navigators (@ 8:40)

59 Matt @ 9:40
61 Erik @ 9:41
62 Jason @ 9:42
70 Devon @ 9:46
72 Roman @ 9:47
110 Pat @ 10:11
After the stage I was off to Plymouth to Suzanne's where we went out to dinner and ate outside in the nice evening air and lovely sunset...

Tomorrow we race in Mankato....Game on!