The Tour d’Altoona is a 7 day multi stage race held in Pennsylvania.  It is one of the few North American tours where the women receive more prize money than our male counterparts but as part of the deal to feature the women more prominently, we raced the same distances each day as the men.  Here is how it unfolded for Team Rona.

Prologue – 3 miles (5.7km) individual Time Trial

At 7pm and in the pouring rain, we set off at 1min intervals to ride the point to point individual time trial.  It was a gradual uphill course and after travelling from Vancouver yesterday my legs felt heavy and I had trouble opened it up.  I know I have the ability to time trial well and in time I know I will get my head around the art of time trialing.  Both Gen and Willy (Rona) rode well, finishing 4^th and 5^th, only 15sec or so behind the race leader, Lynn Bessette (Quark).  Rona is leading the team competition over Quark by 2 seconds, determined by accumulating the times of the fastest 3 riders from each team for each stage.