The women have just returned from Redlands, California where they escaped the cold and snow of Colorado to get out and compete at the “big show” which is the Redlands Cycling Classic. Redlands, held late in March, always is the first big National Racing Calendar event of the season where every professional team shows up with their best riders and their A game. This year was no exception with T-mobile, Lipton, Victory Brewing, and Velo Bella all bringing very strong squads to the race to compete for the early season bragging rights at Redlands.
The Vitamin Cottage Women’s Team also brought a very strong squad to the race, with Renee, Sharon, Carmen, and Beth. To fill the roster they invited two guest riders to ride with the team for the Classic.
The race started out with a new time trial course this year which was a brute. It was only 5 kilometers, but the steepness of the grade of the final 500 meters left something to be desired, especially by the buckling legs of the riders. The women all did well and amazingly all finished very, very close in time to each other. Unfortunately they weren’t all very, very close in time to Amber Neben who won the stage, but they still all did well near the top half of the 100 strong women’s field.
The next day was the downtown criterium. The Redlands Criterium is always one of the fastest, most fun criteriums of the whole year, and this was no exception. Normally Redlands will have a couple of hard road stages prior to the criterium to shake up the general classification, but this year the race was shortened. So with the top GC only separated by seconds, the leader’s jersey could easily change hands with time bonus sprints, and it did. Team Lipton dominated the race and took the jersey.
Unfortunately, the only thing the Vitamin Cottage women dominated was medical tent after the race. Sharon, Beth, and Renee all got caught in an untimely crash with 3 laps to go. That meant that they would not be protected from losing time with the free lap rule or the 3k to go rule. So they all had to get up and sprint as fast as they could to the finish, but still ended up losing time, and unfortunately a little skin too.
The Redlands Classic finished as it always does with the Sunset Loop Road Race. This race is a blast. The course is fun, technical, and completely closed to traffic so it’s very safe for the riders. Beth, Sharon, and Renee all did a fantastic job in the race and redeemed themselves from losing so much time in the crit by gaining it back and then some on the final stage of the race. They all moved up in the classification and were able to bring the team up 3 spots on the team classification by doing so.
Now after this big test, they’re ready to bring it to the Colorado racing calendar.