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!
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1 comment:
Great job Seth! Keep it up...can't wait to read the next few updates!
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