Stage 3: Cannon Falls Road Race, 66 miles
We started with the neutral rollout...at 25 mph. In the first 5 minutes there were almost 20 crashes, I slammed on my brakes at least 20 times, and everyone made a conscious choice to abandon all previous notions of good bicycle handling. The race was hard, but it let up somewhere around the middle and we tooled around in the Minnesota countryside for a while. It would have been pleasant, but it seemed every time I looked at my stem notes or the person next to me someone new would be threatening to take out my front wheel. The hardest part of the race was staying upright. Which we all did. About 7 miles before we hit the gravel the pace quickened and people lost control of themselves. There was a huge crash about 4 miles before the gravel, which Sinead and I narrowly avoided, putting a foot down, and fortunately about 20 people missed the turn (there was no corner marshall on the most important part of the course) for the gravel and I ended up about 15th wheel going into the circuits. Thanks to all that gravel riding in Walla Walla, this was the part of the race I enjoyed most. Oh, there's even a photo from cyclingnews.
You can see Sinead in the right of the frame, too.
So we go through the gravel, hit the sketchiest downhill I've ever raced on, and then finally poor out into the circuits. WHOA: the circuits. I had absolutely NO IDEA it was going to be so fast. It was completely strung out, I was holding on to the wheel in front of me for dear life. I glanced back, no one was behind me. Oh shit, I made it to the front group! No big deal, only 5 laps of this circuit. It's sorta flat. Well, I made it through about 1.5 until I realized it was too hard and got blown out the back. I think Tina Pic was mad at me because I kept opening gaps. Oh well. Turns out I should have stuck it out because they sat up about 30 seconds later, but by that time I was too blown to do anything. But on the positive side, my teammates Sinead, Emma, and Erica all came up to me and we finished together. Erica Allar, a Ryan Collegiate alum, won the race!
Stage 4: Uptown Minneapolis Criterium, 25 laps
This was the first year for this venue, and it was a SICK course. It was L shaped and somewhat short, so you were turning pretty much the whole time. This race was so different from Wednesday's race, I had a hard time remembering it was the same pack. Not as fast-only about a 27 mph average, and people were controlling their front wheels (imagine that!). I had a lot of fun, probably should have finished better, but ended up with 46th. I didn't think about dropping out once, and my legs weren't completely destroyed at the end. That's a victory, in my eyes. When we finished there were close to a million fans lining the course and some of them even wanted our autographs! At least half of this million were fixie-doting, rolled cigarette-smoking hipsters, and at least half of that half million were friends of our mechanic Gabe.
91 mile road race in Mankato today. This is the only race that people want to talk to you about. It's long, hard, and the finishing circuit has a mile long hill that averages 14%, but is 22% at times. I do not want to get lapped by K Armstrong.
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