Sun/wind City, El Paso

1st official race of the season brought us to El Paso, TX. On Friday all of us (well, minus our favorite Aussie Big Bird Emma Roberts, COME BACK!) Following the successful pre-season opener, we were excited to take to the line again. I rented a car and picked up Dani at the Tucson airport and we road tripped our way there; getting those juicy conversations you only get after hours in a car, Googling all the facts of places we were passing, and crushing the tunes on Spotify. Others flew in, while our director extraordinaire made the drive from Boulder with her two adorable pups, Esther and Ruby.

 Shout out to the Gotyas for all their amazing support, including a delicious race day breakfast. We missed our Aussie so much we photoshopped her in so she could join us! After a morning spin to check out the course we headed back to the house to nap, or in Sarah’s case re-watch Pitch Perfect for the millionth time.

En route to the race we stopped to visit the Crazy Cat Cyclery. If you ever need anything bike related in El Paso this is the place to go. Thank you so much to them for all their help throughout the day!

We quickly learned that El Paso is hella windy and knew it would be a tough race with wide roads and an uphill into the finish. After warming up we were ready to race!

The race was aggressive from the start with HB Supermint taking the lead early. Not content to let them just ride away we did out best to bring back the break.

Eventually I was able to bridge and soon we had a 45sec gap on the field. Knowing they were just going to attack me, I sat on and waited for the inevitable. I tried to respond when Lily went, but the legs weren’t having it and soon I was waving bye to Leigh Ann as well. Thankfully I held on to third and am getting better at popping champagne. Best part was after the podium and I shared my champagne with a nice down and out local who was excited to watch the action.

Back in the pack we unfortunately suffered some crashes, but nothing that can keep us down. Sarah brought it in for 10th and we are now sitting second in the team GC standings.

Following some partying with our Wolfpack sisters we packed our bikes- ahem, I mean massage tables- in our Orucases’ and jetsetted back to wherever we came from.

word by @emilyflynn2