SoCalCycling.com Team’s David Ruvalcaba recently competed in the Pan American, Central American and Caribbean Cycling Championships, which were held from August 12 to 15, 2021 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
David competed in the U-23 Road Race and represented Mexico. David shares his experience from the Pan Am Games.
The race was held on a 10 km pan flat, hot dog style circuit, it was a narrow 2-way road on each side. Before the start, we knew who the strongest teams were, and with only 4 riders on our team, it was important that we executed good tactics throughout the race.
For the first kilometers, it was raced as a criterium, everyone had fresh legs so it was full of attacks until the Mexican Rider Santiago Rojas went for a solo adventure for about 30 km where he opened a gap of almost 1:30, putting pressure on the big nations like Ecuador and Colombia.
After he got caught, attacks started going again, but none of them stuck due to the fast-paced nature of the race and Colombia, the strongest nation wanting it to finish in a sprint. With around 60 km to go we decided who the sprinter of the team would be. With a temperature of 40-48 degrees Celsius, it was important to work as a team and have our sprinter as fresh and hydrated as possible. We started to line up for the sprint but due to a mistake of another rider our train got ruined, but thanks to the excellent work of Fabrizio Martinez our sprinter Ricardo Pena was in a good position where he was able to finish it off with a 3rd place in the Pan American Championship. An excellent team performance that led to a great result.
