RICK REITMAN - FAYETTEVILLE STAGE WIN - 3rd GC

Rick Reitman pulls off a long solo run in the final stage of Fayetteville, TX Stage Race last weekend and secures the win.

In Rick's words:

Two quarts of cottage cheese, one box of Fiber One, one box of Kashi Golean, and a 2 liter plastic bottle of cherry 7-up – What? So I have a healthy appetite. Ok, so maybe that is a little over kill for a 10K ITT.


So, after my snack ( meal for a large family ), I managed onto my TT bike and time trialed to a 4th place finish in the ITT. This left me 45 seconds down in GC.


On Sunday, I was somewhat content with hoping for a pack finish and settling for 4th over all with the payouts go to the top 6. Our field had to traverse 3 laps on Sunday’s road stage. The hotspot had a 3 second time bonus and the 2nd and 3rd GC men were tied. So they both attacked very early for the intermediate time bonus. Along with 5 other riders, I went with them. At the top of the hill, we had about 30 second on the pack. I was just about to open my fat mouth and yell “let’s go, we’ve got a gap”, when everyone sat up and seemed content to go back to the pack.


That’s when I buried my head and floored it. After 10 minutes I looked back and I was out of sight. I said to myself “what the @#$%! are you doing?” Well the die has been cast, and I have to stick with it for better or worse. The official gave me time splits around every 5 minutes or so, and the largest gap was 2:45 at the bell lap. I thought “whoa, maybe I can do this?” I was the virtual GC leader.


The time gap began to shrink down to 1:15 at the feed zone still no sight of them. But along comes a Charma rider. He looked totally destroyed. He said, let me recover and I’ll help you stay away. Sounded good to me. At one Kilometer, I could see the field coming up behind us. I could see the 500 meter sign straight ahead. At the 500M to go sign, I attacked. That move was enough to take the stage win and 3rd in GC.


My wheel choice for the day was a set of Williams Cycling 85MM Full Carbon Clinchers.