The Myogenesis boys packed up their bags, and headed out of town….er..out of the country for our first foray into racing overseas. June 13-17, we did a 4 day, 5 stage, stage race, called the B.R.A.D.A. Tour of Jamaica.
Going along for the trip would be Brady Rogers, Cleve Blackwell, Casey Magner, Thomas Brown, Eric Murphy, and guest Clay Parks. Also making the trip was Mike Colwell, friend of the team, who be in the management role for the week. The race would start and finish in Kingston, and traverse the entire island (just about).
On June 11, all the guys would meet up at the airport for the flight to Kingston. Upon arrival, we were met by Ken Ennis, with the Jamaica Cycling Federation, who would be our driver for the week. BIG THANKS TO KEN for a great job! From there would go to the Pegasus Hotel in downtown New Kingston for the first night. Once settled in, we ventured out into the wild blue yonder for some food. JUCCI PATTIS is were we stopped for some great local fare…Jamaican Beef Patties…mmmmmm. After a little grub, the guys chilled and got some shut eye, anticipating the race that loomed ahead.
Tuesday, June 12, Ken would pick us up, along with our gear, and take us to Iona Wynter (-Parks) “Mums” house. Let me insert a HHHUUUGGGEEEEE thanks to Iona’s mom for putting up with us….she was BEYOND hospitable! This would be our home base for the week, if you will. Once we arrived, we all unpacked our bikes, and put them together, ate a little lunch, and went for a ride in the Blue Mountains (think Blue Mountain Coffee)
. This was a great ride to stretch our legs on, it was basically a 15 or so mile long climb…maybe further, with absolutely stunning sites. (picture) When we returned from our ride, we decided to walk about two miles down the hill to one Bob Marley’s house. Unfortunately, when we got there, the power was out, so all we got to do was have a Red Stripe, and take a photo in front of the bronze statue of Bob. (see picture) When we returned to the Wynter house, we were greeted with a dinner of local fare. Rice and peas (red beans and rice) and chicken. After eating, we sat out by the pool, eating fresh mangos, straight off the tree in the backyard.Wednesday, June 13, IT’S GO TIME. After a nice breakfast, we all kitted up, mounted our steeds, and set out for a 15 mile ride to the start of the Prologue in Port Royal. The TT was a 5K blazin’ fast, flat, but windy stretch along the water. We would finally get to see our competition for the week. On the start list would be some hitters from the Caribbean. Names like Guy Costa, Oneil Samuels, Marlon Williams, Peter Aldridge, Phillip Clarke was also there. He is the current Caribbean Champion, along with several others that we we’re not familiar with, but definitely had the ability to impact the race. Teams included a strong contingent from Trinidad and Tobago, The Cayman Islands, Herba-life, out Miami, as well as the Jamaican National Team, and strong team from Jamaica, Monte Carlo Gaming. Everything went very well in the prologue with Myogenesis taking 3 of the top 5 spots, setting the tone for the first stage on Thursday. The results looked like this:
1st Marlon Williams, Heatwave (Trinidad & Tobago) 6:05.35
2nd Guy Costa, Heatwave 6:09.37
3rd Casey Magner, MYOGENESIS 6:12.00
4th Eric Murphy, MYOGENESIS 6:13.64
5th Cleve Blackwell, MYOGENESIS 6:23.38
SO the tone was set…….
Thursday, June 14. Ocho Rios to Montego Bay
Wednesday night we packed all of our worldly possessions (well the stuff we had with us) into two separate vehicles. Cleve, Thomas and Clay would take one vehicle, so I really can’t speak for their experience, but do let me share the transfer experience that Casey, Mike, Eric and I had. The vehicle was to be at the house around 6ish to take us on the 2+ hour drive to Ocho Rios…two words..ISLAND TIME. The ride showed up at 9!, and to boot, was a kingcab Nissan pick up. So into this pick up, we put 4 bikes, 4 bike bags, extra wheels, and all of our luggage. In the cab, up front, was Eric, the driver and his guest. In the back, Casey, Mike and I…did you count? 6 people crammed in for the ride…ok, we’ll just write this one up as an “experience”. As we we’re pulling out, Iona’s brother, Nigil, quipped “ let the sabotage begin”. So the trip was interesting to say the least. Out of Kingston, into the country side, then over VERY NARROW, winding mountain roads. I thought Eric was dead at one point, when an 18 wheeler came around a switchback, in our lane, his lane, and anywhere else he wanted to go. For those of you who have never experienced 3rd world driving….you should. We finally made it to Ocho Rios around midnightish, with a 9 A.M. start in the morning. We got checked in, and hit the sack.
The next morning, we woke up, packed up and went to the town square, where the start was…..delayed by an 1.5 hours or so….remember ISLAND TIME? During our pre-race meeting, we decided we would be aggressive from the gun, just to see who was interested. Not even 1K into the race, I jumped out to the left, and laid down the first attack of the race. It was covered, and as soon as it came back, Thomas went. We continued this until we reached the first “bump” of the day. On that bump, Eric went to the front and kept the pace high enough to keep it strung out, and shake some folks out. Coming into the “invisible” finish line, Casey smelled victory, and came away with just that. Needless to say, we we’re quite happy. The win put Casey in the jersey. Not bad for our first international race. First stage, first stage win….we we’re starting to feel a bit more confident and in control. Results looked like this:
1st Casey Magner, MYOGENESIS
2nd Marlon Williams, Heatwave
3rd Richard Smith, Monte Carlo
4th Oneil Sinclair, Herba-Life
5th Anthony Taylor, High Cadence
That evening, we we’re at a nice hotel, with the only beach we would experience for the week. (picture). The next day, the stage would be from Montego Bay to Negril
Friday, June 15th. Montego Bay to Negril
The start would be in “downtown” Montego Bay, but what would be a day without adversity, right? Everything seemed to going as scheduled, until we were about 5 miles out from the start. TRAFFIC JAM. We got word the cause was a water main break, and washed out road on the only road into to town…….we finally made it thanks to some skillful off-road driving by Ken. The start today was only delayed by TWO HOURS….ISLAND TIME, MON!
So I guess the teams are starting to figure out who we are, so we decided to change our plan a bit, since we were in the jersey. Heatwave came out swinging, sending attack after attack up the road, until they had a solo stick for a while. Eric eventually ordered Thomas, Clay, Cleve and I to the front to pull it back, in a stiff head wind. After chasing for 20 some odd miles, we finally pulled the Heatwave rider back into the fold, and things looked good for our sprinter, Casey. At the 10K banner….er posterboard, the wheels started to come off of the peloton. Casey, and Eric made the front group, Cleve flatted, took a wheel change, chased, made a wrong turn, had a Red Stripe, then found his way to finish line. Casey and Eric would wind it up for the sprint, but unfortunately, it’s hard to see tape on the road as the ONLY indicator of the finish line. Casey had the win wrapped up, but sat up looking for the line, and was nipped by local hero Oneal Samuels. Guess being a local helped this time.
The results looked like this for the stage:
1st Oneal Samuels, Monte Carlo
2nd Casey Magner, MYOGENESIS
3rd Eric Murphy, MYOGENESIS
4th Marlon Williams, Heatwave
5th Marloe Rodman, Jamaican National Team
After the stage, we collected our thoughts and headed off the hotel in downtown Negril. After everyone cleaned up, we went to Rick’s Café for a little grub, and to watch the cliff divers. (pictures). After dinner we headed back, had the cab drop us off early, so we could walk and take in some of the local flavor. (another picture).
We would retire to our rooms fairly early, as the next day held for us the “mountain” stage. From all accounts, we had a nasty category 1 climb at the end of 100K. Our cab driver told us it was a “truck killer”. Such good news for those of us that are flatlanders…..
Somewhere around 2 or so in the morning, the power went out. That meant no AC! We went to the front desk, and after a bit of bickering with the new front desk guy, finally got more rooms to sleep in. The rooms were being renovated at the time, so there was sawdust, board cuttings and nails all over..but hey, it had AC and a bed.
Saturday, June 16th , Negril to Mandeville
Orders for the day; Keep the race together until the climb, then the climbers, Eric and Cleve would take over. Everything went as planned for the start of the race today. Well starting close to on time. Shortly after the start, the attacks began, just as we had figured. We thought the teams that were down in GC would try and get folks up the road, for a “headstart” on the climb. A couple of non threatening riders got up the road, but we made sure to keep the leash fairly short. About 30k in Cleve had a flat (man if you saw the roads……….), Clay dropped back and swapped wheels, and got Cleve back into the fold, only to have him flat about 30K later again. This would effectively take one of our climbers out of the fold, as we were approaching the run in to the climb. Casey stepped on the climb as was able to carry Eric a good ways before launching him. Eric was able to go clear with several others in tow. This would be the race to the top. It would eventually shake down to Eric and Marloe Rodman, Jamaica National Team, breaking free from Guy Costa, Oneil Samuels, and Jassette Broomfield. Now I don’t understand this tactic, but Jassette, Marloe’s teammate, made a final surge after cresting the top, and brought the other guys back up to Eric and Marloe. Those guys were GC threats to his guy, and because of this Oneil took the stage win, put us out of the jersey by a mere 1 second and caused his guy Marloe to get 4th on the stage!? Not quite what we expected, but oh well….
So the results for the mountain stage look like this;
1st Oneil Samuels, Monte Carlo
2nd Eric Murphy, MYOGENESIS
3rd Marlon Williams, Heatwave
4th Marloe Rodman, Jamaica National Team
5th Jassette Bromfield, Jamaica National Team
With the mountain stage over with, and looking forward to a restful night in Mandeville, the guys got checked into the hotel, showered up, and decided to venture out by foot to find some food. Just our luck, it was market day in Mandeville. Throngs of people everywhere selling their wares, buying others. Everything under the sun could be purchased. I think the favorite of Casey’s were the eggs. I don’t think it was so much the eggs, but the guy selling them…out of the back of his truck. He had this little call, something like “eggie, eggie, eggie”, like he was a vendor at the ballpark. Those of you that know Casey, will have to get him to do his rendition. After cruising around a while, we settled in to a little out of the way restaurant, that had a wonderful outdoor seating area, under a forest of the biggest bamboo I’ve ever seen. Not only was the bamboo big, but so were the local native snails. (picture)
After a fine meal, we cruised back to the hotel for a goods nights rest, because, although the next stage was primarily downhill, we had tall orders, since we we’re now just a mere 1 second out of the jersey. We had to keep our eye on ALL the GC contenders, and not let anyone get away.Sunday, June 17th, Mandeville to New Kingston
The morning greeted us with the usual schorching by 9 o’clock temps, but we we’re ready and well hydrated. After a night of sucking down MYOGENESIS TRIPLE THREAT, we felt confident in our legs abilities to carry us home. The race started with a downhill out of town, a really long, steep, straight downhill. Heatwave came out swinging again, which had figured they would do. Thomas and Brady patrolled the front, covering anything that tried to go that was threatening. By the time the attacks had shaken out, Brady was several minutes up the road with Guy Costa. The break was 5 strong, but it was up to Guy to drive it. He tried, but with me glued to his wheel, and no one else working with him, the break slowed. Cleve bridged up, so now we had two up to cover anything. Back in the peloton, the chase was on. We we’re caught with about 20K to go..grouppo compacto. That’s good, that’s what we wanted, since we had our ace sprinter sitting in. Coming into New Kingston, the boys in blue rolled the train to the front. Thomas sat up there on the nose for at least 5K, riding such a hard tempo, that the field stayed strung out single file. Perfect! That ensured no last minute attacks. After taking his man sized effort into town Brady rolled through, taking it to about 2K, were Cleve took over. Cleve rolled into to town, through a series of corners, and to the 250M mark, and sent Casey and Eric on their way. Oneil Samuels dove on the inside, and then within 200M dove across the road, chopping Eric and Casey both (which last time I checked was an illegal move), but evidently they left that page out in the Jamaica rules. Not taking anything from Oneil, because he is definitely a strong and worthy rider, but that move caused a simple tap of the brakes from our front guys, and essentially cost us the race. Oh well, lesson in international racing learned.
Results for the final stage looked like this;
1st Oneil Samuels, Monte Carlo
2nd Eric Murphy, MYOGENESIS
3rd Casey Magner, MYOGENESIS
4th Marlon Williams, Heatwave
5th Anthony Taylor, High Cadence
FINAL OVERALL GC
1st Oneil Samuels, Monte Carlo
2nd Eric Murphy, MYOGENESIS
3rd Marlon Williams, Heatwave
4th Marloe Rodman, Jamaica National Team
5th Jassette Bromfield, Jamaica National Team
There you have it. Overall, it was quite an experience, and one heck of a road trip. We can now say that the MYOGENESIS NUTRITION PODIUM is tried and true. Without this stuff, we would have not been able to perform at this level, in the extreme heat, with this much success. I also want to give a big thanks to IONA WYNTER-PARKS ( http://www.wynterparks.blogspot.com ) AND HER FAMILY. What an incredible experience they allowed us to have. Mike Colwell also, for being there for us all week, making bottles, stuffing mussette bags, changing wheels, doing all the stuff at a race that is not any fun! Clay Parks, Iona’s hubby for being there as our extra team member, and the selfless work he put in, in the peloton. Along this trip, I learned how very lucky we definitely are here in the good ole USA. The Jamaican guys showed up day after day, on old equipment, some with anequated 9speed, some with downtube shifters even. SOOO….anyone who has old equipment, clothing, shoes, helmets…anything cycling related, and want to donate to the National Team there, let me know (you can leave it in a comment on the blog or get in touch with any Myogenesis team member), let Clay know, let Iona know, and we will get it to them. I will end this report with one word, that took on a whole new meaning to me there……….
RESPECT, mon!
