The Chipotle Development Team, the evolution of our U23 program, recently kicked off their season at the Tour of Langkawi. Director sportif Chann McRae sent in this report on how the team fared and what is next:
The Chipotle boys just got back from the Tour of Langkawi, and it was an incredible way to kick off the new year! Not only was it the first race of the season, it was also the first UCI HC race the team has ever done.
The entire Tour de Langkawi organization exceeded our expectations — great hotels, food, police escorted caravans to and from stages, team liaisons dedicated to each team, two very hard mountain stages, eight wild bunch sprints, and the intriguing Howler monkeys greeting us at the stage starts.
Our goal going into Langkawi was very broad — focus on the present, maximize every opportunity and see what we came out with. It was as simple as that, no distractions and no focus on future races; just being in moment.
With this narrowed focus, we were able to come out with a sixth on GC with Lachlan Morton (the youngest rider in race,) and third in the team classification.
The Genting Highlands stage was an enormous success as well. Seeing Lachlan go for the win in the last 4km of the hardest road climb in Asia was very inspiring.
He was caught in the last 2km — but he made his move, committed to it, and really made Sella (a Giro d’Italia stage winner) dig hard to bring him back.
We were battling the Azad and Petro Chemical teams daily for the teams classification. Those guys put up a hard fight, and it was a lot of fun going to war against them everyday. We hope to have the opportunity to do that again.
In March we are sending a team to Rutas Americas in Urugauy. The target will be the same as Langkawi, keep it simple, focus moment to moment in the race, maximize opportunities, and see what we come out with.
More photos from the Tour de Langkawi:
