Tour de Grandview Grand Prix - Day #3

Joe worked his ass off the lasttwo laps to get me in position for the win and I failed. Got out sprinted on the uphill finish. Sorry Joe!!!

The hardest and hottest race I have ever done! After a long week of traveling for work, delays getting home from storms and then no power really made it tough to find the mental strength to push through, but so glad I got out there and finished this race. I was proud to be on Team Echelon for all the support and encouragement from Tony, Blair, Katie, Chris and Danny. The sportsmanship of all the other women were like no other race I have ever been in. For my first Crit race, this experience rocked and can't wait to do it again next year...just going to reach for that podium! Congrats to all the other amazing racers out there today who crushed it.

Another blistering day for the hometown race. Got caught up in a crash on lap 3 or so. Didn't go down hard but dropped the chain and took a few minutes to dig it out from between the cassette and frame. Took it easy getting to the wheel pit. Got back in and quickly to the front. With about 3 laps to go one guy got off the front and got a 100 meter lead quickly. I knew Blair was close behind me and I knew I wasn't going to do much in a sprint finish so I decided to chase down the lead rider and try to keep things strung out to the final time up the hill. The lead rider came back quickly on the back stretch - obviously out of gas - and Blair said "Go Joe", so I went. I just kept it pegged about as fast as I could maintain for the last lap and a half, going as fast as I could through the turns to keep the race strung out. I hit the bottom of the hill hard the final lap but couldn't hold off the early sprinters for long. Blair was able to hold on for third and I rolled in just out of the top 10.

Hot Hot Hot race and the hill did not help or did the amount of breaking that was taking place on the decent... only to make more work between corners. I may have had better results staying closer to the front of the group from the start (lesson learned). It was cool hanging out with the team and cheering them on. Also nice seeing most of the Columbus cyclist hanging out and watching. Going to get my training on and seriously raise the bar! Great Job to everyone racing today... it was not easy.

23rd - better harder race. Had a good battle with the pace car until two laps to go when I could no longer keep neither the pace car or the field behind me. Was able to finish the race.

Finish 23rd, my warm up was setting up the Trek neutral support tents and all my stuff. Many thanks to Christopher, Debbie, Ivan, Kari, Jim, Noah and everyone else for tagging, moving wheels for each race and breaking everything down before the storm hit. Great Job Johnathan (RGF), Blair (Echelon-Trek) and Katie (RACING FOR RILEY) in thier races!

Race the Bike Shop too, thinks I finished 4th maybe 5th not sure

32nd today