Gila Day 5- Riding along with the Trek-LIVESTRONG U 23 Team

Words and images by Shawn Lortie

After Joe Lewis’s win in the Stage 4 Downtown Criterium on Saturday, the team was pretty pumped up. It was a kind of Déjà vu, as last year in the 2011Tour of the Gila, Jesse Saergent had won the TT the day before the crit, with Taylor Phinney winning the crit the next day. Could this be happening for a second year in a row, this young team stamping its mark on the pro peleton once again?

The morning of the final stage I asked Axel what he thought of the team’s performance so far. He took a second to respond, perhaps going back through the week in his head, thinking about each rider and what he had hoped from them in this Tour. “Ya know, no matter what happens today, they have exceeded my expectations.” Axel was not the only person the boys had surprised, as the media, the race announcers, and the other teams could not ignore the fact that the Trek-LIVERSTRONG U 23 team was sitting atop the team General Classification for the tour.

With the infamous Gila Monster stage looming before them, the boys prepared themselves for the final stage in what had become a tour full of stellar performances.  The plan was to keep Joe Lewis in the Green Points jersey, protect Dale Parker in the Best Young Riders Jersey, and work to get George Bennett and Joe Dombrowski into the break and onto the podium.

It would be a long day out on the road with close to 10,000 ft. of climbing in 170 Kilometers of racing. The course made it’s way up and down more than a few of the steep and technical passes surrounding Silver City. The day was a bit cooler than the proceeding days, and the wind did not play much of a part in the stage. As the peleton rolled out of town under a neutral start, the early morning sun threw long shadows across the blacktop.

The Trek team rode smart throughout the stage, riding towards the front of the pack to stay out of trouble. Joe Lewis continued to take points at each bonus sprint, as Dombrowski, Bennett, and Parker were content to sit in and wait for the deciding climbs to arrive. When they did arrive, the boys were ready. A group of about 15 or 16 riders began to pull away on the days second to last climb, as riders began to get shelled. 

On the descents, dropped riders risked it all to get back to the break. It is one thing to watch on TV, but to see first hand is truly remarkable. Riders flew through the caravan, diving into tight corners with nothing but a guardrail between them and the valley floor below as team cars, photo motos, and officials all struggled to stay close to the riders. In the head official’s car, Com Car #1, I had the best seat in the house, but feared I would witness some terrible crash or catastrophe. 

But to those involved in this type of spectacle on a regular basis, it’s just another day at the office, as the whole caravan, and the riders of the peleton, seem to ebb and flow with an uncanny sense of what is going on around them. Team cars pull up to service riders then fall back into their position in the caravan, photo motos race to the front to capture the breakaway, and official vehicles mix it up within the whole group, trying to preserve the integrity of the race and keep the riders safe.

When the final climb up to Pinos Altos arrives, George Bennett is the only rider left that is able to stay with the invincible Francesco “Paco” Mancebo. Once again, Paco finds it hard to believe he has to work so hard to rid himself of one of the Trek-LIVESTRONG kids. Finally, with about 10K to go, Bennet blows, and Paco escapes. With 5K to go, Bennett is caught by the chase group, which includes two of his teammates, Joe Dombrowski and Dale Parker. 

No one catches Mancebo, but Dombrowski and Parker finish 3^rd and 4^th respectively, cementing Trek-LIVESTRONG’s first place in the team GC, Dale Parker in the Best Young Riders jersey, and Joe Lewis in the Green Sprinters jersey. As overall GC winners, Trek-LIVESTRONG is obviously the team with the deepest talent out there. Not bad for a group of mostly first year riders whose median age is around 20 years old.

After the race and the podium presentations, Axel gathers the team around the team car and lets the boys know they have truly impressed him with their performance at the tour. George is a bit let down after letting Mancebo get away, but Axel will have none of that, letting Bennett, and the rest of the team know that his effort was just the beginning of things to come. “Now you guys have the confidence to go out and win races,” Axel says with authority, “You can go to Europe and win there and you will.”

After witnessing the teams’ performance at The Tour of the Gila, I do not doubt what Axel says, and neither do the boys of the Trek-LIVESTRONG U 23 team. The natural talent is all there, now the confidence has been instilled, and the process of molding these young riders into seasoned professionals who will ride the grand tours of Europe is well under way.