Stage 5 – Altoona – Blue Knob Road Race – 94 miles – 150km

In yesterday’s fall, I must have hit the ground awkwardly because although our soigneur massaged the area well, I woke up feeling stiff and sore in my lower back and gluteal area.  For me, today’s race comprised of two parts – the 80km undulating section before the Blue Knob climb and then the remaining 70km which included 3 KOM’s.

Today, I rode my Colnago with deep rimmed carbon wheels which felt amazingly stiff but also super light.  Both Andrea and I had instructions to ride aggressively and get into a break that excluded any GC contenders.  Our attacks started early but Team Quark were attentive in shutting everything down and only allowed a solo non-threatening Victory rider to dangle off the front.  Whilst our aggressive riding was designed to soften up the Quark workers, it also completely softened up Andrea and I.  At the base of Blue Knob, our job was done and we joined 20 riders for the remaining 70km.

At the top of Blue Knob, the Canadians were showing their strength with Lyn Bessette and Manon Jutras (Quark), Sue Palmer-Komar (Genesis) and Willy (Rona) cresting the ski resort summit with a 1 minute lead.  Behind this front group, there were about 12 riders with Rona, Genesis and Quark represented.  Rona’s attempts to bridge Gen across to the Canadians was unsuccessful and the 4 riders stayed away to the finish.  Willy finished 3^rd in the stage, which moved her into 3^rd in GC.  Gen and Katrina will start tomorrow’s stage in 6^th and 10^th, respectively.  Unfortunately in the team competition as we only had one rider in the break, we slipped to second place, behind Quark.

I found it amusing that Andrea and I both improved our own GC position, although this was obviously not a team objective of ours.  My lower back was really aggravated from my fall and a day of attacking and climbing.  I had trouble getting off my bike after the stage and hoped a massage and anti-inflammatories would ease the pain and get me through the final stage.