Former Junior National Champion and America's top U23 racer Rob Squire. This season Rob will be traveling the world gaining valuable experience and saddle time as one of America's elite racers. Rob will share his adventures with us throughout the 2010 racing season. Here is his first report:
Currently I’m sitting in an airport headed out to Albany, New York, for my first road race of the season with my new road team Holowesko Partners. The race is Tour of Battenkill, a 200km race, much of which is on dirt roads, which should make for an interesting first road race.
Tour of Battenkill will be my first road race of the season I’ve already taken part in two mountain bike races. The first of which was a PRO XCT national race in Fontana, California. I went to it not expecting to have a great result because it’s early in the season and usually the guys from California and warmer climates have a bit of an advantage because they can get more riding and training in earlier in the year. However, as it turns out I had a pretty good race. I recorded my highest place finish in an elite national race and was the number one placed U23.
At the start of the race I was nervous, as it was my first real race of the season against a formidable field. I had a great start position in the second row just behind Todd Wells due to the UCI points I had accumulated over the course of the last year. Despite my good start position, once the race started I went backwards almost immediately dropping from 9th to high 20s. I was able to make up some spots on the climbs and started closing in on the top-10. Unfortunately, I put a nasty kink in my chain on the second lap and had to ride 4 laps with a skipping bike. The big bonus of the weekend was that Scott Tedro, the Sho-Air series sponsor, decided to start doing a U23 podium and cash payout so I was able to pick up a few bucks for being 1st U23 and 14th elite.
My biggest news of the season so far was at Pan American Mountain Bike Championships in Guatemala City. This race takes the top riders from each nation in both North and South America to compete for the title of Pan American Champion. I was really excited to compete in the event but a little less eager to go to Guatemala. I had heard that it isn’t a good place for Americans to go because of crime but it wasn’t that bad. I did receive a few warnings about where to avoid and to be careful of bandits and for the most part this was enough to keep me out of trouble. The most exciting part of the security issues down there was the armed guards almost everywhere the team went. The hotel was guarded by men with shotguns at each entrance as well as guards along the course. I was happy to have the added security but I never saw anything that made me think that armed personnel was necessary.
As far as the racing goes, the course was a lot of fun. It wasn’t the best racecourse because it lacked anything technical. What it lacked technically it made up for by being a really fun course.
The start of the race was really chaotic. The U23 men were started 2 minutes after the elite men so we had to kind of hurry up to get lined up and ready to go in a short amount of time. I was looking forward to the call up here because I knew that I would have a good start position. I was called up third and lined up right in the middle of the first row, a perfect start position for the first climb and starting lap.
I was getting ready to start as the official counted down, 60 seconds….. 30 seconds….. 15 seconds….. and then without a whistle from the official the two Brazilians on either side of me just decided to go. They didn’t wait for the race to start and ended up doing a false start. The official decided not to start the race over because the elite men were already on course and restarting the race would take too long so I went from excellent start position to about 15th in the first 2 seconds.
I was able to make up some ground on the first lap and starting the second lap I was in second place in a group of 5. As the climbing started on that lap the pace really picked up and we lost a guy bringing the group to 4 halfway through the second lap. On the 3rd lap the two Brazilians attacked and got away from me and now I was in 3rd with a Costa Rican right on my tail. Once those two got away I decided to ride my own race and ended up dropping the Costa Rican and finishing in 3rd place.
Although I think I could have done a bit better I’m still really happy with the result. It was my first international UCI podium. I don’t have any pictures but you can find some on www.usacycling.org
From here on out my schedule is pretty hectic with this race in New York and then another stop in New Mexico next weekend before heading across the pond to Europe for some mountain bike World Cups and some road bike stage races-I can’t wait.
-Rob
