March 25^th, 2010

Riders:  Thom Coupe, Alister Ratcliff, William Goodfellow, and Jerome Townsend

Guest riders: Nathan Wilson, Christian Deshaies, and Josh Bartlett

Written by: Alister Ratcliff

Alister Ratcliff 14^th on the opening day of Redlands

http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/26th-redlands-bicycle-classic-ne/prologue/results

                With the help of Bikereg.com/Cannondale we were able to assemble a strong squad and take part in the Redlands Bicycle Classic in 2010.  The first NRC of the year and a super tough race with all the big teams in the country taking part; Fly V Australia, Jelly Belly, United Healthcare, Bissell, Jamis, Bahati, Garmin, Spidertech, amongst others. 

                A few members of the team traveled out to do the San Dimas stage race the weekend before but I however chose to reckon some of the courses for Redlands instead of racing.  The main one’s being the Time Trial course and the Road stage for the last day.  The TT course being only 3 miles in length and only about 5 minutes away from our host house where we were staying, I probably rode the course 10 times before actually racing it. 

                Instead of giving all secrets away, I’ll say that I pinned it from the gun, the same as every other TT you have to do.  Then I got into the best rhythm I could on the steep climbs near the end of the course.  I passed 4 people on the way up in 3 miles but none of them were great TT guys and I forgot to start my stopwatch so I wasn’t sure if I had put out a good time until a ways after the event.  In the end, I was 14^th, giving us the 7^th car in the caravan!