A quick picture opportunity in some of the beautiful New Mexico Landscape with the SRAM NRS Team Car

Long, long, long week! I think that is the best way to describe this last week of bike racing down in Silver City, NM. The SRAM Tour of the Gila outdid itself once again and provided all who attended at the races, on the internet and in the newsprint with a spectacular show! The characters, the racers, the locals, the in-race antics, the insanely tough conditions and the all around fun atmosphere provided by SRAM gave us a Tour to remember. For those of you not familiar with the SRAM Tour of the Gila, if you are interested at all in bike racing I recommend you check it out – www.tourofthegila.com.

Fast Tube by Casper

Fast Tube by Casper

Fast Tube by Casper

More great YouTube videos from Jordan at the SRAM Tour of the Gila – The Gear Movement’s YouTube Page

Jordan checked in after day two of working with the SRAM NRS road crew, but doing much more than that was pretty hard for him based on the enormous amount of work that needed to be done at the race. Here is an opportunity to check out some cool videos from a mechanics perspective as well as some great behind the scenes photos from the Gila.

SRAM NRS team bikes lined up and ready to go in the Stage 4 crit at the SRAM Tour of the Gila

Jordan atop the custom SRAM NRS Aprila GT 850 support moto, this thing has a nice kick to it!

That is some beautiful SRAM NRS red and black at the Stage 3 TT...

We hope you enjoy and please stay tuned as Jordan ventures out to the Tour of California with the Garmin Transitions Pro Cycling Team for more bike racing!

Roswell, what? Gotta love the New Mexico state bus, government cover up, what??

Mara Abbott atop the podium at the SRAM Tour of the Gila Stage 1

A few weeks ago Jordan got a chance to shoot on down to the SRAM Tour of the Gila with SRAM Neutral Service Crew to help work the race, hang in the amazing New Mexico sunshine and get away from the office for a few minutes. Jose Alcala – the head of the crew down here, placed Jordan in the women’s pro race caravan. Directely from the source below:

Stage 1, had the women’s race climbing up and finishing ontop of Mount Mogollon, a nasty switched back climb with super narrow roads and racers from other categories riding down! A video of the men’s finish can be be found on The Gear Movement’s Facebook Page.

Working with SRAM crew was tons of fun over the last two days so here a few pics below to prove it!

The beautiful SRAM NRS Volvo's ready for a days work!

Great scenery outside Silver City, NM for the SRAM Tour of the Gila

Number 1 mechanic Todd Downs with the SRAM NRS crew!

Stage 2 brought a late start to the women’s pro race and saw 70mph wind gusts throughout the day. Unfortunately I was not able to grab any pics of this full on insanity, but girls in the race were walking up through the feedzone with their bikes in the hands flying over their heads! Here are some great videos below…

Fast Tube by Casper

Fast Tube by Casper

Fast Tube by Casper

Fast Tube by Casper

Fast Tube by Casper

Stage 2 saw some carnarge with some crashes and bad bad winds. Kelly took a spill just before the finish, which looked pretty bad, but the soldier that she is, she rode her bike back to the finish and finished the race! One of the more impressive things I have ever seen on a bike, go Kelly!

Reigning US Champ Meredith Miller before Stage 1 of the SRAM Tour of the Gila

Tonight we are building some of the new SRAM NRS Specialized Tarmac bikes for the TT tomorrow and going to an amazing restaurant here in Silver City, NM for dinner.

Matt Cooke racing his TT rig to perfection with the Ride Clean Team in 2009

After spending the last two years on big and successful professional cycling teams, racing as an amateur with a smaller budgeted team was not what I wanted to do for the 2009 season. The experience proved to be a really good one for me and turned out to be fun at the same time.  The Ride Clean Team for 2009 was composed of mostly young guys from Arizona and I was the one stand out from Colorado.  Even though we had a small budget we were still supported at every race, I was really impressed with those guys.  At Redlands we stayed in a mansion that makes me think twice about having cycling as a career.  The 12 year old kid at the house could play the cello, speak Chinese and annihilate me at Nintendo Wii.  Redlands was such a hard race, that damn Sunset Loop on the last day never gets any easier.  I really don’t want to think about it, I am only now just getting over that pain.

Matt Cooke on the podium, second from left - looking fit!

The next race was Tour of the Gila where the big news was that Lance Armstrong, Levi Leipheimer and Chris Horner were racing.  The first day was a mountain top finish and I ended up getting 4th and beating Lance!  I was very happy to be riding so well.  All week long everything felt so easy and I was looking forward to the last day’s stage, which featured a lot of climbing and another mountain top finish.  Sadly I never made it that far. After only a few miles the peloton was sheltering itself by riding in the shoulder of the road because of strong winds.  Everyone was racing fast, wheel to wheel trying to stay safe and save energy for later in the race.  Without any warning the rider on my right hit a large rock in the road with his front wheel.  I can still remember seeing his wheel make impact with that damn rock.   He went over his bars and into me.  I hit the ground with my head and shoulder.  I was taken to the hospital with the other rider who had face planted into the concrete.  My collarbone was broken and my whole race was over even before it began.

I ended up getting surgery to fix the collarbone. The doctor did an amazing job by the way, and I was riding again after a month, pretty amazing I think.

I think this picture explains it all, not a fun time for my poor collarbone!

I bounced back and had a good end of the season with a 12th overall at Tour of Utah and 3rd at the Green Mountain Stage Race, a race I had won in 2006.  But 3rd was great and I’m happy with it.

After many phone calls and sending out even more resumes I am happy to say I am on a pro team again for 2010.  It is called Team Mountain Khakis.  They have been mostly a criterium focused team but they are making a strong push for stage racing success next year.  I hope I can live up to what they want out of me and what I want out of myself. For now stay in touch for some more updates from me throughout the New Year, and check out the site of my new team – www.teammountainkhakis.com

Happy New Year!