ToV Stage 7: Charlottesville Road Race

Taking place in the UVA college town, the Stage 7 road race was a short, 93-mile jaunt through the rolling hills around Charlottesville. The race started at 10:30 am, featured a promenade through campus and then the fun began. The night before the race Mark's friend told us that he thought a breakaway group would get out there and stay away. Boy, I should have listened to this advice!

I got in a few of the early moves, but I honestly wasn't thinking that the group would go. Eventually, a 10-man group rolled off and included the race leader (doh!), Jesse Anthony from Sierra and Leogrande among others. The Rite Aid team didn't like the break and I thought (incorrectly) that they would pull it back as they had done all week long.

The course was rolling through the short power climbs and it seemed that everyone was on their riding lawn mowers! Cut grass was flying everything on the course.

We averaged some serious speed over the 3 1/2 hour affair and the tailwind sections kept the speeds over 25 mph. The course ended with 3 laps of a 3-mile circuit through downtown Charlottesville.

We arrived into town and the 10-man group still had over 2 minutes on us. Rite Aid tried in vain, while the leader's team was disrupting the chase.

Mark lives here and decided with one lap to go to attack and try to beat the field for 11th place overall. He almost pulled it off, but was caught 100 meters from the line by Jamie Carney.

Overall, big thanks to the UVA Composite Team and the Race Organizers. I had a blast racing out in VA and hope that this week will help me out later in the season, starting with Cat's Hill next week. I am recovering well from each day, and I don't feel that tired after this race. Let's hope the form is coming back on.

Big thanks to ATN and Martin for all their support, text messages, encouragement, etc. It's truly a blessing to have such supportive sponsors!

Thanks for reading!

BP