For the 2023 racing season (Road, MTB, Gravel) Racing Team includes the following:
- Al Senft
- Tricia Morris
- Fortunato Ferrera
- Eric Collins
- Jessica Goff
- Saul Burns
- Hugo Burns
- August Cox
Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023
The 2023 racing season is off to a great start for Zia Velo. Last weekend, club members Saul and Hugo Burns podiumed in the Bordo Speed mountain bike race in Juárez, México. Saul came in 2nd and Hugo came in 3rd in the juniors category. We’re excited to see more strong races from Saul and Hugo in the coming year. Read on for Saul’s account of the race.
We went to the first part of the race – cyclocross type track – and we were practicing a part where there were some big wooden logs as obstacles (which worried us). When we finished going through that part of the track we went to the start and we were surprised because they were already lining up. It was supposed to start at 8:25 but they started about 15 minutes earlier. The race started and I suddenly had to start recording my Garmin and the GoPro.
Hugo and I were doing well until we got to the obstacles. Because of the speed we were going my bike became unbalanced and I almost fell. Hugo unfortunately fell – we have to learn how to bunny hop. I didn’t know whether to wait for Hugo or not, since the leaders were all from the same team and they were moving away. I decided to go to the front, but when I arrived they wanted to drop me because I wasn’t on their team. They were constantly applying attacks to me, but I was surviving all of them. In one of those attacks I was drinking water, they sprinted and I decided to let one of them go because at that pace they would simply blow me out.
Well, he rode away and I tried to catch him but his teammates were very comfortable behind me and I was pulling them. I turned to see them and they told me we are not going to pull, there goes one of my team. I slowed down considerably. In one of those moments they got distracted because they wanted to look good for a photo – hehehe. That’s when I put in a sprint, to my surprise I turned to see and I had left one of them behind. I only needed one more. Going back to the finish line another opportunity presented itself to me, where the guy behind me wanted to grab a water bottle from his support. I put in another sprint, I turned to look back and I had created a gap, I kept pushing. But that’s when someone with a gravel bike came up and passed me and I tried to catch this guy too. When I looked back, the cyclist was completely exhausted.
The rest was a time trial to the finish line, unfortunately I couldn’t reach the final rider I was missing. I feel that if Hugo had been with me, we would have swept the race. This was a race where I had to attack a lot. I came in 2nd place and Hugo in 3rd place. We were on the podium and we earned pesos $ 🏅
Hehehe 😉
