The sky was so blue,

The sun so bright!

The trees stood so green,

And clouds their wispy white.

That day! The sun crisped colors

In just the way that makes artists crave New Mexico—

And magnified the kits to max the greens

And oranges and blues, helmets sheening,

And girls radiant in their hair.

At Pinos Altos race news was rare,

So no leaders, gaps, names.

Just pure racing that day, and pure waiting,

Ironic in that place that communicates

Most easily into the mysteries,

That very large array of riders,

Coursing under that sky

Whose every night brings

The stars within reach.

I even thought of ee cummings,

His leaping greenly spirits of trees.

And all we could see—

The sky so blue,

The sun so bright!

On Sunday the Tour of the Gila finished in Pinos Altos, NM, a few miles from Silver City on the continental divide. The Rally pro cycling team was feeling celebratory. They rode downhill back into Silver City for postrace milkshakes at Sonic. It’s a tradition for the winner to treat his team before everybody packs up and heads to airports. Pro cycling teams don’t live or train together and usually only see each other at races.

My view of the podium in front of the Buckhorn in Pinos Altos, NM: Team Rally from left: Eric in orange vest, Adam DeVos, Evan Huffman in red race-leader jersey, Rob Britton in polka-dot King of the Mountain jersey, Danny Pate, Sepp Kuss, Colin Joyce, Mateo Dal Cin. Best Overall Team

Inside the Buckhorn Saloon

The terrible thing about the immediate post-race time was that everyone knew that a cyclist from team Axeon Hagens Berman had been badly injured in a crash. He was already evacuated to hospital by helicopter, but there was no news. It’s not unusual for cyclists to crash, and they wear no protective gear except a helmet. Dressing in skintight lycra to avoid wind drag doesn’t help.

Usually there will be a Tweet from hospital with a brave and droll comment from the injured that he has a broken collarbone (the most common cycling injury), or some other shorthand for pain and recovery that other cyclists all understand. No one had anything yet. The Axeon (pronounced “action”) team is a developmental team in the pro ranks, so all the riders are young, generally 23 and under. This rider is 21. Age 21 with no news became two bad things. The third bad thing was that he’d been described as “airlifted with facial injuries,” which meant he’d hit his head. The road where the crash occurred is steeply downhill and he’d been trying to “chase back on,” cycling shorthand for “Oh my God, I’ve got to catch up!” Chasing back to the peloton’s relentless pace in the final stretches of a pro race can be an impossible task, and if you can’t do it quickly chances are you can’t do it at all. My mind at times like this goes to my own son. There’s nothing I can do about that, and it didn’t help that the injured happened to have our same last name. Yeah, so there was that.

We popped down to Silver City ourselves, said good-byes, stopped at an artist store we’d admired, and hit the road. It was still early afternoon, and we had the intent to get into Texas, not so much for love of Texas as to lose the timezone hour. Amarillo would mean eight hours done. First, back to Albaquerqee (still can’t spell it!) by a different route, a beautiful mountain road through Gila National Forest that Tour of the Gila had used as a race route. We hadn’t driven it yet, because we’d arrived last Wednesday by heading straight to the day’s finish line. The road was a gorgeous twisting mountain drive with plenty of S-curve advisory signs down to 15 mph and even 10 mph. Pro cyclists during a race routinely take these at double or even triple the posted limits. A little sand or a small bump can be a problem. We stopped briefly at turnouts, got out of the car, and admired the views. New Mexico: Land of Enchantment. And copper mining. And road runners and lizards and tumbleweed.

Armadillos too? No, those were the next day. In Missouri we had a contest going to see who could spot roadkill armadillos first. We saw a combined fifteen dead armadillos! Sure there were the occasional raccoon or possum as well, but those armadillos! Armored, but not enough to cross a highway.

**Note: one correction, I found out later that Chad Young whom I described as trying to “chase back on” was, in fact, bridging up to the lead group in the race– same effect on the frantic nature of the effort required, but a world of difference in what it means to cyclists. I regret that error

The world of bicycle racing is a pretty strange world, and one of the strangest places is southern New Mexico: The final stage of 161.9 km (100.6 miles) and total elevation gain of 9,131 ft (2,783 m), known as The Gila Monster, finished on the continental divide at Pinos Altos, NM, (over 7,000 ft. above sea level), the main feature of which is a restaurant-bar and honky-tonk, The Buckhorn Saloon, a former brothel and proud of it.

Rally Cycling, after winning Tour of the Gila 2017. Evan Huffman, center in red leader jersey, was the overall winner over five days of racing. Two not pictured.

But maybe the strangest thing about a pro cycling race is that it’s a team event that a team can’t win. Instead, an individual racer pulls out victory. At Tour of the Gila, considered one of the most grueling races in the world, Evan Huffman figured out a way to do that, but he could not have done so without his team pictured above. From left, Sepp Kuss, Adam DeVos, Eric (in green sprinter leader’s jersey), Evan (overall winner), Rob Britton (who ended the day as best climber jersey, known as King of the Montain), and Mateo Del Cin (Stage One winner) were six of the keys to victory, but Danny Pate who serves as their road general, and Colin Joyce, third place on Stage One that began the weekend, were still coming in.

This table shows the rider standings before the final stage of racing:

In this table, far right shows the amount of time a rider had to make up to put himself into the overall lead. On the last day Evan Huffman had 25 seconds on Eisenhart, 33 seconds on Ellsay, 34 seconds on Tvetcov and 38 seconds on Mannion. (The two other riders within one minute of Evan were teammates Dal Cin and Britton.) The rider in 14th place Naveaz won the day’s race but not by a large enough margin to make any difference in the overall five-day race, because he’d started the day down 1:39.

At the day’s podium presentations, after all the real prizes had been announced Rally Cycling, the whole team, took to the platform as the fastest overall team.

The flowers. Yeah, not sure why, but bicycle racers get flowers when they win.

Stage 4 flowers: Tour of the Gila

Late afternoon: I watched Stage 4 from a coffee shop porch, because it was one story up and the view was excellent all the way to the finish banner on the main street of  downtown Silver City, NM — a fast circuit of laps, each a bit more than a mile. The 40 laps took the racers 1:30:19 to complete, an average speed of 28.9 mph. They drank bottles of water, but I drank iced tea and chatted with other fans enjoying the same vantage point. Two businessmen from California who’d participated in an amateur race earlier in the day, several family members of an 18-year-old new pro in his first big stage race, and some others, everyone happy to be there on a day at altitude with bright sun and gentle winds. On a full crit docket the Pro men race last, so this had been going on since 8 am. My day started about 6 when I threw on shoes and hustled from our hotel to move my car off of the closed street.

As the pro race developed it looked like Eric would have a decent chance to take the final sprint. Attacks off of the front by racers taking a chance to build a short lead into the wind had all come to nothing, and with two laps to go the field of cyclists was all together, one swarm strung out about a block long and traveling close to 30 mph. They whirred out of sight, and we waited the minutes for the lap to complete. Next time would be one to go, and when the lead group banked around the final corner and into view it consisted of a straight-out train of four Cylance teammates in blue, and Eric in Rally orange tucked in behind looking comfortable. I knew that’s good. One to go. Then they were gone again.

Crowd noise increased, the race announcer told one more story that I didn’t hear, then came the motorcycles accelerating out of the way, then suddenly orange at the front, out of the saddle, Eric pumping hard with his bike rocking and Travis McCabe near his wheel, but getting dropped. The line of pro racers strung out behind that, but nobody caught up. I couldn’t see the actual line on the pavement, but I could see Eric’s right arm suddenly thrust skyward and someone asked me if that was him, and I screamed Yes!

Two sprint victories in three days! Interviews and flowers still to come. His Mom got the flowers this time, their first vase a McDonald’s coffee cup, then at home, glass.

Compared to Wednesday’s race the second stage of Tour of the Gila is much more conducive to a sprint finish, so naturally we wanted to see Stage 2 up close and personal. Cell coverage is rather spotty outside of town, so we had no info or updates at all. Nothing on Twitter, no TourTracker app, not even the race announcer at the finish line knew much.

We did know Eric would have a decent chance to contest the final sprint– it’s a race he had won twice before (2012 & 2015), and it has the type of “race profile” that fits his approach to winning. A Race Profile is a little chart that shows gains and losses in elevation, and in New Mexico it looks like a schematic of a mountain range– however, we’ve learned what to look for, and Stage 2 looks like what we like to see: all the climbing is over well before the finish and the last few miles offer a fast approach back into town so sprinters can move to the front and position themselves for speedy acceleration in the last 500 meters. That’s when things are apt to get interesting.

We found a vantage point about 100 meters upstream from the finish line where we had views both backwards to the final turn and onward to the finish. Then we waited for things to come into view. In front of a pro race there are always motorcycles, police cars, and officials. Behind the racers there are always team cars and support vehicles, (for example, the ambulance in the photo). In between are the cyclists.

As they came into view we saw orange. That is always a good thing, but other colors were swirling around in front and behind the orange. The orange was Eric, still trying to make his way to the front. His ideal position is “second wheel” which means he’s right there, but has one guy in front of him, one guy who is crushing his way through the air making a little invisible hole to hide inside of. In a classic sprint lead-out that guy is a teammate who is helping on purpose, but usually it’s an opponent who has started his all-out sprint earlier because he knows that’s his best chance to win. That guy was Travis McCabe, one of the best racers in the US. After a ride of 80 miles Travis and Eric had 100 meters left to see who would be on the top step of the race podium. They flew past our 100 m vantage point at about 35 mph with Travis ahead by a bike length and Eric trying to come around him. The last 50 meters of a sprint finish only takes about 2 seconds, but they are long seconds. I know that Eric has a full-on sprint that is faster than Travis McCabe’s, but faster enough to make up a bike length in 50 meters?

It was, and Eric had flowers to present to the most important spectator.