ToV Stage 6: Harrisonburg Criterium

With an early start to Stage 5 and a late start to Stage 6, we had our first qusi rest day of the tour. We were staying at a ski house in the woods and we had a nice BBQ with burgers and steak the night before.

You would think I would be "muy tranquillo" at the start of the criterium, but Mr. Coffee intervened. I downed 16 ounces of the bean juice and was wired and just plain twitchy the whole crit, a 32-lap affair throughout downtown Harrisonburg.

I talked to one of the race directors before the start and negotiated call-ups for Mark and myself, since we were sporting the UVA kits. Great, positioning at the front yet again!

The course reminded me a lot of the Manhattan Beach GP. There was a long, headwind section on the backstretch into a sharp left hand bend and about 800 meters with a tailwind to the finish.

I was just having a bad day. I crossed up wheels with Andy from Colavita and hit the pavement pretty hard. I ripped the shorts and got some nice road rash on the left hand hip, among other places. Yeah, my bad!

I took a free lap and got back in the race. I grovelled for 5 laps and moved up to the first third of the race and was actually in pretty decent position for the final sprint. I thought the left hand side of the road at 350 meters would be the place to go, but unfortunately, everyone else thought the same thing. I was boxed in and sat up at 200 to go and rolled in somewhere in the top 30. At this point, I was just happy to not have lost more skin.

After the race I spoke to Andy and apologized for the bad move. He was super cool and didn't sweat it. Luckily, no one else went down in my little solo mishap.