Nature Valley Grand Prix - Maura

NATURE VALLEY (6/16-6/20)

For Nature Valley, I was feeling really fresh for the opening TT on that Monday morning. This year aero gear was prohibited in order to curb costs and level the playing field. I was nervous to ride Eddy Merckx style because I usually have a different focus on my TT bike but it wound up being alright. The TT was a 6 mile course along the river, starting flat and then ending with a steep 5ish-minute climb. I got way too excited and went out a little too hard. Wound up finishing 55th, which I was still pretty pleased with that extremely stacked field (For complete results).

The rest of the week didn’t go as well. That night was a very technical 5 corner criterium with over 90° turns. I was positioned poorly from the start and was basically sprinting out of every corner. The next day the Cannon Falls RR was cancelled due to tornado warnings. On Friday, the nighttime criterium in the heart of Minneapolis was also fast and hard. The field was completely strung out the entire 60 minutes. Then, on Saturday, my drivetrain completely fell apart during the Menomonie RR. On the first hill about 3 miles in, my chain came off for completely no reason – I hadn’t even touched the shift levers. I had to get off my bike to put it back on and watched as the whole caravan passed me. I hopped back on my bike and time trialed my way to the field, but my chain kept skipping – in the front and back. So after about 5 minutes back in the field, I was having to work a lot harder than everyone else with my gears changing every pedal stroke. Pros around me started to tell me to go back to my car… little did they know that non-pros do not have cars. Nevertheless, I went back to the neutral support car. After about 3 minutes of trying to get a neutral bike from the car, I hopped on the new bike but after about 15 minutes of trying to catch back on, I saw the peloton going further and further away in the distance. That’s when I realized that I was going to dig a hole right before Nationals if I continued. So, I hopped in the sag vehicle and that was the end of my first attempt at a NRC race.

--Maura