The first stage of the Tour of Ohio started today in Gallipolis (in SE Ohio, right on the border of West Virginia). My teammate Sean (from DePaul) and I rolled up to the line pretty skeptical because the pre- registered list of riders was not nearly as big as we were thinking, but when we got to the start line we realized there were a lot of people who must have registered day-of. There were a lot of really good riders lined up to start with a full squad from Jittery Joe’s, a big team called Globalbike, DLP Racing, Kenda Pro Cycling, and Panther. There are also a couple of other collegiate guys that I know which gives Sean and I some other guys to work with.
Today’s stage was meant to be somewhat of a warmup with a shorter distance over what they called a “moderately hard” course. We rolled out of town pretty relaxed and the pace stayed comfortable for the first couple miles. About 3ish miles in people started trying to establish a breakaway. Two people ended up getting away (one Jittery Joe’s and one Globalbike) and then the pace slowed a bit. About 18 miles we hit the beginning of the steep slopes of the KOM sprint. I jumped with a DLP and Jittery Joe’s guy but just missed them at the line. After a pretty sketchy descent, we did a lot of work on the front with another team to pull back the break. With a lot of blocking from Jittery Joe’s and Globalbike we just managed to pull back the break with about 2 miles left. There was a split in the field after going through town and into a tight 90 degree turn heading into the finishing straightaway. Sean and I hit it hard and managed to pick off a bunch of people at the end and come up with good placings in the sprints. The results wont be up until sign-in tomorrow but I would guess that we were right around 20th place.
Tomorrow is probably going to be the hardest of all the stages. We’re going 80 miles around Wilkesville, and the finishing KOM up the feared “Hawk Station Hill” (allegedly 20+ percent grades) is going to be nuts. Hopefully it stays dry and we stay up front. Here are some numbers from today:
Distance: 55.36mi Time: 2:13.31 Avg. Speed: 25 mph Avg. HR: 169 bpm Total
Ascent: 3,216 ft
- Nick
