April 2/05 5:18 am - Phil Cortes in France, The Pinner Report from Redlands Stage 1

Posted by Editoress on 04/2/05
 

Phil Cortes (one of the Atlantic Cycling Centre athletes) sent us a little hello from the other side of the pond.

Phil is training and racing in France as a part of a DN1 team called UC Sabolienne this year. You can follow his season by clicking on the link to his website www.philcortescycling.ca


The Pinner (aka Andrew Pinfold) Report
Symmetrics Cycling Team Rider
Redlands, Stage 1: Oak Glen

One interesting thing about LA is that the whole city is surrounded by mountains, apart from the bit bordered by the Pacific Ocean. Another interesting thing about this city is that you normally don't see these mountains until you get within 2km of them. No they aren't that small, the smog is just that bad.

Fortunately, the gale force winds that have been battering So Cal for the last week or so have clear the air enough that you can actually see the snow capped mountain that ring the city. This has made breathing for me a great deal easier and the racing a great deal harder. Yesterday, the winds were the biggest factor on the day. They caused splits in the pack, and created a situation where crashes were the commonplace.

You all know how the race went down so I won't try to regurgitate all you've probably read before, but I'll give you a quick note on some of the stuff I have noticed. If you don't know what happened check out Jeremy Stories' diary on www.symmetricscycling.com

1. Half of Health Net is sick, they were having a really tough go yesterday even before half of them crashed.
2. Jelly Belly tore the race to bits yesterday but they couldn't keep the split going. Ironically, this may have really helped Health Net. It hurt us because I think Cory's move could have at least got to the bottom of the hill before getting caught.
3. 60 guys didn't finish yesterday and if they had enforced the time cut (which they should have) we would have lost another 20-30 guys.
4. Collavita had to ride back from Oak Glen to Redlands for training (punishment?).
5. We got our new Rudy Project helmets yesterday and they look great.
6. Each of the riders also got a portable Altitude Training device called the Alt02 lab. We are going to try them out on the long drive home.

That's about it.

Cheers,
Pinner