Tour of Ohio Stage 6: A First Last Day

Well, Seth's first stage race is all over. And, for the third day in a row, the peloton stayed together for a bunch sprint. I'm a little discontent with that fact, that the race was decided in the early stages. The way it went was that the second day was the day to lose it if you had mishaps or nerves or crashes or flats in the rain, and the third day was the day to win it (the queen stage). Everything else was just very minor sorting out. I wish there would have been one more difficult stage like the third one on the fifth or sixth day, but, alas, that's how it went.

The positive side of losing time on the second day is that it gave me more courage and reason to attack on the third day, and the time, attention, credit, and experience that that gave me was all more than I could have asked for in my first stage race experience. The even greater positive is that, being in that break with Swain, especially when Hekman bridged, I got to really learn a new level of suffering that I probably could not have otherwise found (certainly not on my own), and that alone makes me feel like a stronger rider, not to mention the fitness six days of racing will give you.

So results ended up like this: I was 62nd overall out of 129 riders (so top half, which is all right for my first Pro/1/2/3 stage race, I think), 18th in the collegiate rider classification, and then, most importantly, 6th for the King of the Mountains Jersey and 5th for the White Jersey. I guess that basically means I'm young, I'm gutsy, and I go uphill fast. So let's hope I stay on the upswing there.

Thanks so much for reading about the experience this week. I'm looking forward to the second half of the season with Team Get A Grip Cycles!