This wasn’t my first rodeo doing a race in Hermosillo, and it definitely won’t be my last.

We knew going into the race that this was going to be a very difficult race as usual, knowing how strong many of the local Mexican teams are.

The P&S Specialized team had four solid riders there and were the most aggressive team.

As the race got under way, there were attacks from the gun, and not really knowing what the 120k race course was like, Rob and I had our hands full.

We covered attack after attack for the first 60k until finally it was just the three P&S Specialized guys, Rob and me.

At this point I thought we might be in an OK position; however, we both were pretty cooked.

After the turnaround at 60k they started lighting it up again until they had dropped both Rob and me.

We tried to keep them within a close distance but kept losing ground every kilometer.

After chasing for more than 30k by ourselves and still losing ground on the three P&S riders, we noticed some riders coming up behind us pretty rapidly.

We were caught by four Norson riders and their team car. We started working pretty well together, but right away lost one of their riders.

The five of us then kept going and still never could catch the three-man P&S train.

Coming into the last few kilometers, we got mixed up with another category which made for a hectic finish.

Rob launched a vicious attack with about 500 meters to go but the Norson team went right with him making their move for the finish.

I jumped on the train and tried coming around the last Norson rider, but with the other category getting in the way he went left and I went right, which was the wrong way, and he edged me out at the line for fifth.

Rob ended up holding on to eighth at the finish and all said and done, we felt like we did all we could to finish where we did with all the odds stacked up against us.

We will definitely be back, and next time we will be bringing the whole team.

It was a great experience and we had and great host with the Los Horcones team. Special thanks to Estéban Armendariz and Javier Armendariz for all their hospitality. Picking us up and taking us to dinner almost every night we were there, along with some home-cooked meals at their place was really nice.

I would encourage anyone from the states who has the opportunity to race down south and take advantage of it.

Brian Forbes (Body by Vi p/b Velo Vie) competed in the Norson road race in Hermosillo, Sonora in Mexico on Oct. 19 with his teammate, Rob Alvarez.