Tour de Toona (July 23-29)

I decided about 2 weeks before this race that I was gonna give it a shot. Since the Fitchburg stage race fell through for me, I decided that I wanted to do some more road racing and was looking for a challenge. Well, I needn’t have looked any further than the tour de Toona, arguably the hardest women’s stage race in North America.

For those of you who might not be familiar with this particular race, it is a 7 day stage race in and around Altoona, Pennsylvania, that covers 667 km of racing, has equal length races to the men’s racing and attracts the best teams in North America. It is a key event for all the big teams so it is very competitive. Over 100 women started the race.

I was guest riding with “Verducci Breakaway” women’s professional team for the race. We had 5 riders for the race: U.S. Crit Champ, Theresa Cliff-Ryan, Americans Kacey Manderfield and Jackie Crowell, Australian Jess MacLean and me. Here is a brief blurb about each stage.

Stage 1 – Team Time Trial (17.1 km):
Since our team had never done a time trial together, we decided to play it safe and just ride it on our road bikes without any TT equipment (not that we actually had any anyway). While the big teams hauled out their TT bikes, wheels, helmets, skinsuits, etc, we just rode it on our road bikes.

It was a hard effort and I think we did quite well considering we’d never done a TTT before and had never raced together as a team. We placed 14th, 2:53 behind the winning team, Webcor.

14th: 2:53 behind winner

Stage 2 – Vintondale to Cairnbrook RR (78.2 km):

Since this was a new stage this year, noone knew exactly what to expect. Since I have never done Toona before, I didn’t know what to expect with any of the stages. Looking at the race manual, it looked like there was some kind of climb 10 miles into the race. The pack raced to the start of this climb, and the climb hit us like a wall. Steep switchbacks split things up immediately. A few groups formed as a result of this early climb. About halfway through the race, we got hit with torrential downpours, at which point my SRM decided to check out. (dam!) We had trouble seeing at times, and had to take it quite easy on the many descents. I finished the race with a group of 18 riders, 18 min down on the winner. I get to start tomorrow!

89th: 18:39 behind winner

Stage 3 – Johnstown to Altoona Point to Point Road Race (154.3 km):

I hung in with the pack all the way to the start of the big climb, Blue Knob, where groups formed and I finished with a group of 15 riders.

I felt good today and enjoyed today’s race.

72nd: 16:39 behind winner

Stage 4 – Circuit Road Race – Downtown Hollidaysburg (96.6 km):

The race started out FAST and stayed that way. Single file from the gun. I got gapped and dropped on the climb on the first of 3 laps. There was a small group of us who chased through the caravan harder than I’ve ever chased. We made no ground and eventually lost contact. Apparently the pace did not let up the entire race, and the peloton averaged somewhere around 40 km/h. Once everyone in my chase group caught their breath, we rolled through and tried not to lose too much time. We got pulled with one lap to go and were given a prorated time within the time cut. Starting tomorrow.

79th: 18:17 behind winner

Stage 5 – Circuit Road Race – Memorial Park, Martinsburg (123.6 km)

Today’s circuit was one of the flatter days. I felt good. A group of 13 or so riders got away with a couple laps to go. There were torrential downpours and at times I could not even see in front of me. My teammate, Theresa Cliff-Ryan, won both sprints by a healthy margin. I finished with the main pack in 53rd.

53rd: 1:27 behind winner

Stage 6 – Road Race – Jaffa Shrine to Altoona (158.5 km):

The race started on a hilly, fast circuit which was fairly technical. We started the race at 8am today which meant a 5 am wake up call. The lack of sleep didn’t help with my recovery from the previous day and I got dropped 20 km into the 158 km stage. Not good. I was hoping to regroup with a few others and perhaps catch up to the caravan after the sprints but a marshall directed me and another rider off course and we lost at least 10 minutes. By the time we found our way back onto the race course, there was no way we were catching anyone, we were so far behind. We knew the race was over but decided that we wanted to finish the race anyway. We did, but were outside the time limit and not allowed to start tomorrow. Just as well since my legs were utterly fried after riding 150 km without a group.

78th: 50 min behind winner (OTL – Outside time limit)

Stage 7 – Criterium – Downtown Altoona (48.3 km)

No racing for me today. The race was won by Laura Van Gilder. Theresa placed 6th today and also placed in the sprints, putting her 2nd in the final standings for the Sprint jersey. Congrats Theresa!

For full results, reports and photos, check out:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/road.php?id=road/2007/jul07/toona07/default

Thanks to Gary Ryan for having me on the team and for working hard as our manager all week. Also, thanks to the team’s sponsor, Phil, for helping us out!