Photos courtesy of SnowyMountain Photography
I’ve hardly processed everything that happened last week. On Tuesday morning, I was more motivated than ever. I was ready and focused – physically and mentally peaked. I went out to the time trial course to do openers, focused on holding the aero position and nailing my power targets. I began the climb with a fast cadence and clear mind. I stopped only a minute later, shaken and confused. There were cars stopped across the road, and then I realized that a rider had crashed.
Tate Meintjes was just 19 years old. He had joined Team California in 2019 – the same team that I rode for from 2016 through 2018. Tate was previewing the Redlands TT course when a car turned in front of him. He didn’t make it. I cried that night, unable to process all that had happened. My mind was on the race, but my heart was with Tate, his family, and Team California. I couldn’t imagine what they were going through; I still cannot imagine. They raced their hearts out the entire week, finishing third on Team GC, in one of the biggest races of the year and up against some of the best pro teams in the country.
I had Tate in the back of my mind the entire next day. At the start of stage 2, Tate’s father gave one of the strongest and most inspiring speeches I’ve ever heard. I had tears in my eyes as he gave us the countdown to start. Throughout the entire Redlands Classic, teams, riders, and members of the community shared “#RideforTate” to honor Tate Meintjes.
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Stage 1 Crafton Hills Time Trial
Wind was the story of the day. Somewhat of a climber’s TT course now became a technical, big-man’s course where wheel choice and bike-handling skill were just as important as putting out power.
After rolling down the start ramp we faced five blindingly-fast corners in just the first two-and-a-half minutes. You couldn’t win the race here – as the saying goes – but you could definitely lose it. Cornering on my TT bike is not my specialty – it’s something I never practice, to be honest – and I lost a big chunk of time in this first section. I chose caution over ‘sending it’, focusing on the five-day stage race as a whole instead of losing everything in the first mile.
Turn five (AKA “warp speed”) saw us blasting onto the main highway road where we faced about a minute of flat pavement before a 6% descent down to the bottom of the course. Normally a 45+ mph descent, the roaring headwind on the day instead made it difficult to hold 35 mph. Because of the crosswinds, I couldn’t even pedal in the aero bars, and instead descended with my hands on the cow horns (bike parts have weird names) for stability’s sake. I think it was the right decision, as the 30 mph gusts nearly sent my tri-spoke sideways, multiple times.
When I finally reached the bottom, I breathed a sigh of relief. Now it was time to pedal hard. After blasting through a neighborhood, we turned left into a tiny bus-stop turnaround. It was weird, it was gimmicky, and probably pointless…but honestly, it was kind of fun.
Back up to speed, we now had to climb that 6% grade for 3-4 minutes all the way back to the finish. I stayed in the aero bars the entire time, holding a steady 17.5 mph up the climb and sprinting cross-eyed the last 150 meters. I crossed the line with a time that I was satisfied with, but not overjoyed. The result matched my expectation: I finished the day in 22nd place.
Stage 2 Highland Circuit Race
The Highland Circuit Race race is notorious for early crashes and mechanicals. Time cut is a real risk, even for the strongest of riders, as catching back on is almost impossible.
We raced 20 laps of a 2.7-mile circuit, roughly a 2-hour race in total. After blasting downhill and snaking through a bumpy neighborhood in single-file, 140-rider line, we turned right and came face-to-face with the Wall. The crux of the course, this 60-90 second effort averages 9% and peaks at over 20%. Every lap requires a 400+ W effort just to get up the thing. Being such a short and aggressively fast course, an early crash or mechanical is the likely end to anyone who suffers such an unlucky fate.
Two minutes in, there was a massive crash. Gobs of riders went down immediately to my left, and my heart was in my mouth as I skirped by and counted my lucky stars. I was then on the back burner for the entire race. It was all mental too – my legs were fine, and I could always move up on the climb. But as soon as we hit the 40+ mph descent, all those riders I had just passed returned the favor. Disc breaks and risk-taking allowed riders to go from 100th wheel to 20th wheel in a matter of seconds. I couldn’t hold me nerve in the corners, or along the bumpy pavement. I was overthinking it, and I knew it – but that only made it worse.
My teammates were riding spectacularly, amassed at the front, always in the right position, and marking any dangerous moves. I was helpless at the back. With two laps to go, the race got hard and I started to move up. With one lap to go, I was still 60 riders back. With 500 meters to go, I made one last-ditch effort to move up, flying up the left side into the cross-headwind as the field moved right. Luck was on my side that day, as the riders who moved right also crashed, leaving me with a clear opening on the left. All of a sudden, I found myself sitting 15th wheel, where my teammates had been – and still were – the entire race. Four of us finished right beside to each other – we had stacked 15th to 25th place. Not exactly what we were aiming for, but happy to come away in one piece and without losing any time.
Stage 3 Yucaipa Road Race (Oak Glen)
It was all going so well. We had marked the right moves and send a rider (Evan) in the break. The rest of us were chilling in the field. Matt and I were saving our energy for the mountaintop finish. I had just taken a rolling nature-break (only my second-ever mid-race attempt), eaten an energy bar, and was feeling good. And then our world turned upside-down, literally.
On the easiest of downhills with no turns, obstacles, or worries in sight, a rider crashed near the front of the 120-rider field as we were doing close to 35 mph. Screaming bodies slammed into each other, carnage spread out across the road; bikes, wheels, and dreams were shattered. I had time to see it coming, the most helpless of feelings – I locked up my brakes, saw that I had nowhere to go, and plowed into a rider whose skin was cheese-grating across the ground. I went straight over the handlebars, but somehow rolled onto my feet. As I stood up I realized I couldn’t breathe. The crash knocked the wind out of me, and as the Shimano neutral service mechanic ran through my gears, he asked if I was OK. “I don’t know,” I replied.
“Well get rolling and you’ll have time to think about it,” the mechanic said.
I winced as I swung my leg back over my bike, the mechanic gave me a big push, and I started painfully pedaling. A minute later I noticed there was blood all over my handlebars. I could see the skin peeled back from the tip of my finger – well there’s your problem! My wrist was torn up and I had road rash all down my elbow. But my ribs hurt more than anything. I wasn’t sure if there were broken, but I wasn’t about to stop for an X-Ray now.
Ten minutes later I was back in the field. My friends and teammates saw me hanging on the back, and the looks on their faces told me I should stop. My hand was covered in blood, and apparently so was my neck and teeth. I was not a pretty sight. I clung to the back of the field, hoping that I could recover, somehow, in the next two and a half hours of racing.
20 minutes past and my elbow was killing me. It was stinging so bad, and I knew that scraping skin across dirty concrete at 30 mph is a sure-fire way to get an infection. As I pondered the decision, I thought of the hundreds of pro races that I’ve seen over the years. Riders who receive treatment from the Medical Car are allowed to hold on to the car as it holds its position in the caravan. But this Medical Car was different.
As the backseat doctor started treating my elbow, the Medical Car kept slowing down. And then we went slower…and slower…and slower…and slllooooowwwweerrrr. By the time they let me go, I could no longer see the caravan. The Medical Car sped around me without even a second look. I was so far behind the race I thought it was all over. I almost cried. This race, this dream that I’ve been chasing for six months, was all about to be over. I wasn’t even going to finish. All because of this stupid crash on this stupid road at this stupid time for no stupid reason. (Don’t worry, I’m totally over it).
I had to chase solo for 20 minutes to make it back to the field. Battered, bloodied, and bruised, I found my teammates with just over a lap to go. Amazingly, my legs still felt good, and my team was committed to putting Matt and I in perfect position at the bottom of the final climb. And that they did. I gave it everything I had on that climb. But six minutes in, I started to fall off. The front group was still 25-strong, and I was watching my dream ride away from me. My teammates believed in me, and I felt like I was letting them down. I watched the front group explode as I suffered immensely all the way up Oak Glen. I never gave in, pushing all the way to the finish for 22nd place. But I was left wondering what could have been.
Stage 4 Downtown Redlands Crit
I always get nervous on crit day. It’s just not my thing. The corners, the crashes, and the risks… it’s just not worth it to me. As if my natural nerves weren’t enough, the last corner was horribly slick this year – maybe it was new paint, a bump in the road, a small reflector – I saw more than 10 crashes during the 90-minute race. Two of them were severe enough to cause neutralizations, meaning that we all had to stop on the start line as the crashed riders are extracted (cringe) from the course. (How about we say “helped off the course” instead?)
Physically, I felt great the whole race. The only question for Matt and I was: Where should we be? Front, back, middle, bubble? I trusted Matt, his experience, and his instincts, who said that it was fine for him and I to chill out at the back of the field, even in the last 10 or 20 wheels.
When I finally crossed the finish line after the most unnerving race I’ve ever been a part of, I couldn’t have been more relieved. Tomorrow was Sunset, and that’s all we were focused on.
Stage 5 Sunset Loops
This is the day that matters. Dreams are made or broken on the Sunset Loop. The GC can be turned on its head. 50th Overall can become Top 10. 3rd Overall might not even finish. 12 laps of the famous Sunset Loops, with its stair-step KOM climb and treacherous descent, whittle down the front group to only the strongest of men. You also need a little bit of luck…
My job was to go for the early break, so five minutes, I was launching off the front into some good-looking moves. But it was all for not. I nearly blew myself up, doing over 440 W for two minutes trying to make ‘the move’. After my fruitless attacks, we entered the circuits for the first time and I suffered like hell. My legs felt empty, and I was just hanging on – to 80th wheel.
As we crested the KOM climb for the first time, I tried to breathe a sigh of relief. But that only made the pain worse. My second rib on the right side felt it was dislocated or broken – it hurt so much that I knew something was horribly wrong.
Every lap was an endless loop of pain: sprint up the climb and my legs feel like they’re going to explode. My lungs are on fire and my back feels like a Navy SEAL just tied it in a 13 different knots. We crest the climb and I try to relax. I take a deep breath and my rib pinches, squeezes, presses against my chest and intercostal muscles. The pain pounds against my chest wall in a way that is difficult to describe. There is nothing that will make it better. Laying down only makes it worse. Moving only makes it worse. Doing nothing only makes it worse, because then I can only focus on the blinding pain caused by a single breath.
I don’t know how I finished that race. I had nothing left to give. I wanted to quit. I was doing real damage to my body – I realized this all on Lap 1. We still had over three hours to go. I have never wanted to quit a bike race so badly. But I couldn’t let me teammates down. I just couldn’t.
When I entered the final five crit laps with the remaining 37 riders, I couldn’t celebrate. I just wanted it to be over. I feel like I should have been happy. I should have celebrated. I should have been more proud. But I was in so much pain that I could not think. After I crossed the line, I unclipped from my pedals, and I realized that I couldn’t move my arm. If I forced it, I felt tingling up into my shoulder and down my arm – like a shot of electricity radiating from my rib.
They did a chest ultrasound in the medical tent – they thought my rib might be broken, or that I might have pneumothorax. Thankfully it was only severely bruised. Only. I couldn’t ride the next day. I could barely get out of bed. Putting on socks was torture.
A few days later, it’s getting better. I’ll be okay.
In the end, I cannot be more proud of my own and my teammates’ efforts throughout the Redlands Classic. We set high expectations, and with a little bit more luck (and a lot less bad luck), I think – I know, we could’ve achieved them. But it just wasn’t meant to be. In cycling, just as in life, there’s nothing we can do but move on. Out next race is coming up fast; David and I will be racing the San Dimas Stage Race in just 8 days’ time. A few days later, the Project Echelon squad will start its first UCI race of the season: the Joe Martin Stage Race.
Our goals remain the same, ambitions high, our dreams on the horizon. We may be battered, bloodied, and bruised, but this is only temporary. We will fight on.
