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Four of us (Charlsie, Shelley, Pat & I) packed ourselves, bikes, wheels, clothes and food into the van on Thursday and headed for Pennsylvania.
As we traveled through the scenic areas, we were greeted with several road signs bearing different messages like "Beware of Aggressive Drivers", "Slow Down, Save a Life", "Caution, High Crash Area" While the drive itself was quite uneventful, these warning would be a sign of things to come on the bicycle!
Friday- Circuit Race: One 20 mile loop of rolling terrain leading into a technical 7 corner maze with a 200 meter sprint after the last turn. 50 Cat 3 & 4 women raced together for separate scores. With no hills or distance to spread out the field, it came down to 50 women diving for the corners at the end.
Shelley came out with an amazing 5th place finish! I was completely petrified watching all the hazardous riders around me bumping, swerving and yelling but finished safely in 17th. Charlsie also finished safely, 15th in the Cat 4's! The Cat 4 men did two loops, so their finish was fun to watch, a long train of 100 riders rode very smoothly around the corners, Pat finished 57th, had fun, stayed safe.
Saturday-Road Race: Again, the women only did a 20 mile loop with a very gradual 3 mile incline & one very short steep KOM Climb. Charlsie was knocked over by another rider who dropped their chain on the hill, thankfully only a couple bruises, she hopped back on the bike and still finished 16th in her field! There is about 6 miles of FAST downhill leading to the finish where everyone can catch back onto the climbers. I was hoping to shed a lot of the field, but we were pretty much together again for the sprint finish. We had to dodge a man who happened to be riding smack in the middle of the road 100 meters from the finish, it must have freaked him out to have over 30 women yelling and flying by him in an all out sprint! Photo finish for everyone, Shelley again finished 5th, and Marsha 10th. Pat enjoyed the road race placing 37th out of 85. Afterwards, all racers were treated to a free picnic dinner of bbq chicken and salads held at a local amusement park (home of the Altoona curves). :)
Sunday- CRIT: We woke up to thunder, lightning and pouring rain....we stalled, watching the weather channel for an hour hoping for a break! Just in time, the rain stopped, the sun came out and we hopped into the van. The crit course is actually quite nice, a short power climb each lap was enough to spread every field into a long train. Anyone unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place will have to chase to close up the gaps. Riders were getting pulled constantly from the men's cat 4 field, Pat ended up with a 15 minute power interval chasing from the start line and was in the third group of pulled riders. Only 35 men finished the race.
I fumbled at the start trying to get clipped in and also ended up chasing. I wound up with Charlsie and several other riders, we chased to within 9 seconds of the field, but lost all but 4 of us and were not able to
catch back on. Charlsie finished 9th in the Cat 4 field which gave her an overall GC of 16th. Great job Charlsie! Marsha finished 14th in the 3's with an overall GC of 15th. Shelley rode strong at the front and was 3rd wheel going into the last corner when a couple sprinters shot around them in the corner and crashed directly in front of them taking out Shelley and the leader in GC. Thankfully, they all were able to get back up and finish with no broken bones! Shelley came in 9th in the crit with an overall GC of 4th place! Awesome job!
One amazing thing about the Tour de Toona is rolling enclosure, we were given the entire road to ride in each stage with several motopace and follow vehicles to keep traffic off the road.
This definitely is for the sprinters out there, I'll take a long, hilly road race course anyday over fighting for position in a pack of brutal women!
Ride on,
Marsha
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