Rubicon Leading Tri-Peaks
And for all of you who dream of being in the leader's jersey, it's great and it's trouble all in one.
Stage one -
Richard, Kirk and Matt went on the attacks for the first hour of the race; Aaron came up from the back and when the break went, he went with it. The break included
Chris Baldwin, Caleb Manion, Justin England from Toyota-United, Karl Menzies, Frank Pipp, Kirk O'Bee of Health Net presented by Maxxis, defending champion Andrew Bajadali of Jelly Belly and Aaron Tuckerman of Rubicon. They worked together while back in the field Rock Racing tried to get something working to close the gap, but couldn't. The last 9 miles or so are uphill- Karl Menzies stopped working in the break so, so did Aaron. At the 5k mark, Aaron jumped them, they all just looked at each other and Aaron soloed across the finish line for the win. The 62 mile race was completed in under 2 hours . . . .That's how fast they where moving.Tomorrow will be a different story, it's 100 plus miles. The guys are riding strong, Hood is just around the bend. The boys in Orange, or blue and yellow for this race have a little something-something up their sleeves; however this wasn't planned, but it's really awesome! The team works very well together."
Stage two -
100 miles of pressure. Aaron holds a 9 second lead over Karl Menzies of Healthnet and Chris Baldwin of Toyota-United. Rubicon stepped up to the plate today and the team rolled at the front of the peloton protecting Aaron. A 6 rider break was off the front and no one seemed to mind, so the Rubicon boys set tempo to slowly bring back the break, finally after 30 miles Healthnet stepped up to help. After awhile, the Rubicon boys where told over thier radios to stop rolling through, this made an unnamed pro team very unhappy, after some heated words, Rubicon made the decision to leave one rider on the front to work with the pro teams. Matt got the call. For those of you who might not know Matt Brandt; he just turned 19 two months ago and he is the youngest member of Rubicon. Matt is also a very talented young man who always steps up to the plate and give 110% to the team.
The break was finally brought back, but the pro took no time in jacking the pace up, riders where getting dropped on the decent, with 1k to go the road went up again. This was great, it meant what was left of the field would stay together and Aaron would retain the leaders jersey for another night.
Matt, Kirk, Logan, Aaron and Richard rode a great race again today. Next on the shedule is the time trial and criterium - look for Aaron and Logan to give the TT everything and for Matt and Kirk to come alive in the criterium, then it's game-on for Sunday. Sunday the Rubicon boys climb Mt. Nebo. So Healthnet, Toyota-United bring it on -
it's not how hard you hit, it's how hard you get hit and the punishment your willing to take, the will to keep getting up and moving forward . . .Hope Healthnet and Toyota-United are ready for a dog fight. Rubicon's ready.