Hi, everyone. Seth Meyer here, reporting daily from the Pro/1/2/3 Bikesource Tour of Ohio this entire week (June 18th-23rd).
Today's first stage was an hourglass-shaped criterium course, offering time bonuses to the first three across the line in the finale, establishing a podium for the jersey wearers for the week. Seeing as the stages I am eyeing are the hillier, later ones, where I'll need all my strength and where the time gaps will really appear, today's goal was simple: Stay safe and stay in the main group.
A lot of factors could have hindered that--it was in the 90s all day, the wind was blowing hard, and the road surface was not fantastic. However, I found, in the end, that there was no need to be nervous, as there were a lot of places to hide from the conditions in a 120-some-person field, and the ones that couldn't be hidden from...well...everyone needed to deal with them anyway.
In any case, during this 68-lap, constantly turning hourglass-race (68x8 means we turned 544 times within an hour and change), I managed to stay tucked in the middle of the field, also staying in the saddle nearly the entire time, conserving as much as possible for the later days. Mission accomplished: I finished just in the top half, around 50th position (results are not online yet; I'll post them with tomorrow's recap).
As the field finished in a bunch sprint, there are no time gaps except for the bonuses for the sprinters, which one would hope will be erased once we head into the mountains. So it was a great first day. Tomorrow is a 10-mile circuit with two 7% climbs that we will do a number of times, perhaps a day for small classification changes, but I will stay try to stay conservative and just in the lead pack without doing any unnecessary work, waiting for Wednesday's summit finish.
Until tomorrow!
Great job Seth! Keep it up...can't wait to read the next few updates!
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