Tour De Toona-Stages 1 and 2

by Tim Henry (West Virginia)
July 25-26, 2003

Stage one of the Tour de 'Toona was a 3.5 mile uphill time trial. I  would use the word uphill lightly as the grade is very gradual except for a few  short kicks. I thought I rode well and put in a good time as far as what I  can do. Mark Walters (Navigators, 2002 Canadian National Champion, 2002 U.S. Pro Winner), who started 30 seconds behind me, did not catch me until 1.5k to go so I was proud of that. Anyway, I ended up 84th, 1:50 behind winner Chris Baldwin. Hard to believe I could lose one minute and fifty seconds in 3.5 miles but there you are. My teammate Scottie had a good ride for 21st place and Robbie was one place and six tenths of a second ahead of me. Stage two was a 73 mile circuit race around Johnstown. This is supposed to be the easiest of all the courses and it was not really that hard. There was only one major climb and it was a gradual one mile grade. We only did three laps so the hill did not have time to wear on you. My plan for the 
week is to play it safe and rest as much as possible. I did not hit the wind but stayed up front. A two man break got away on the second lap and the pack seemed to be fine letting them ride away. With fifteen miles to go they were five minutes ahead. Then the real chasing started. Chris Horner of Saturn attacked on the big climb and split the field (momentarily). I was in the second group because as I shifted into my big ring to accelerate and catch the front group, I threw my chain and nearly 
crashed. Excuses aside, we caught back up and Navigators went to the front to chase the leaders hard. With 10k to go I was moving up with the crazy idea that I might try to sprint for a placing at the finish. The gap to the leaders at 10k to go was 3:30. We went flying back into town and moving up was tough. Fortunately most of the people at this race corner like old women (no offense to old women, but these are supposed to be elite racers) so I moved up quite a few spots through the turns. With 5k to go, the gap was 1:45, and we were going at least 40 mph from there in. We made a left turn onto a bridge with about 2k to go and I must have hit every bump on this bridge. I thought I was going to get shaken off my bike but I just gripped my handlebars that much tighter. Things were getting hairy but it was too late to back down now. There were lots of cars stopped on the side of the road that we had to avoid but fortunately there were no crashes. We made the final 90 degree left hand turn and saw the 1k to go sign. 7up took over the leadout and I don't know how fast we were going but it was fast. I was sitting around top 30 and realized that I was not going to place so I decided to play it safe and just stay where I was 
rather than risking trying to move up any further. Not to mention hitting the wind at that speed is not a good idea. So I ended up 40th, safely in the pack. The gap to the leaders at the finish was only 35 seconds. So an interesting day and a good confidence builder. Tomorrow will shatter that confidence as we have a 100 mile point to point race with 8,000 feet of 
climbing. The first climb, a five mile grind out of town, starts just two miles into the race. Needless to say the GC will be shaken up a good bit. Now off to bed to rest up for the suffer fest they call stage 3 of the Tour de 'Toona. Thanks for reading,
Tim