Tour of Ohio Stage 3

I was able to race today! Although I am 1hr back on GC! Oh well, no worries.


Today was stage 3, a 60 mile road race. It was supposed to be flat with a few climbs, but was actually very rolling with some pretty tough and steep hills. From the start, Greg and I tried to cover a few moves but nothing stuck. Dan hung around at the front for a really long time and attacked numerous times and bridged a bunch of gaps. The course was basically started in Mt' Vernon Ohio, went to another town than came straight back. On the way out on the rolling roads, we were absolutely cruising at 40+ Mph. Dave Felpel told us that a few times he saw 55mph on the speedometer in the car while in the caravan. The high speeds make any kind of breakaway short lived, as the main field had an incredible amount of momentum. The pace was pretty high going up most of the climbs, which really put the hurt down on everyone. Heading back to Mt. Vernon there was still no break up the road, so it was evident it would be a crazy finish.

Here is how the finish was: Wide main road, with a hard right hand turn that led up a pretty steep twisting climb to the finish. This meant that everyone was going to fight to be the first through that right hand turn if they were to have any chance of getting a good place. And remember, we are also going down this main road at 40+mph!!! about 5 miles from the finish, a deer almost took out the field. It ran out from a field to our left and just barely missed the front of the field. The deer was running at maybe 20mph, and we were moving at 40 or so.... So it was pretty damn close. Also the distance of the race ended up being 75 miles, not 60. Since we thought it was only 60-miles, we opted out on having anyone in the feed zone (as did most other teams). So everyone ended up being out of fluids towards the end of the race. Mike started cramping up bad and I was afraid he would fall off the back, but he was able to hang on.

Zac and Greg were dropped on some of the earlier climbs, so it was Dan, Mike, Gabe and myself going to the finish. As I expected there was a big crash just before the final right hand turn, as riders tried to move up on both the right and left sides of the field, which compressed everything and caused bars to touch and wheels to hit wheels, which caused riders to hit the deck. I was able to avoid the crash, which held up myself and a bunch of others. Gabe was up front and was able to take 11th on the stage. The pay out only went up to 10th place. DOH!!

Time for bed.
TG