Stage 6 – Altoona Criterium – 30 laps – 50km

I had a restless night from the pain in my back, woke up feeling tired all over and was looking forward to my mid season break next week.  With the humid temperature hovering around 95F (30C) it was going to be a tough hour of racing.  We rode 20km from our host family to the race as our warm up.

Tina Pic (Genesis) was only 10 seconds behind Gen in the overall and with intermediate bonus seconds totally more than 1 minute, we had a tough job trying to prevent Pic from earning these bonus seconds.  In one of the bonus time laps, Katrina crashed hard into the hay bales, with Pic somersaulting over the top of her in spectacular fashion.  I wasn’t sure if this was Katrina’s plan to prevent Pic from earning the bonus seconds, but it worked, as I dodged past the strewn bodies and took the points.  Unfortunately for us, Pic and her Genesis team rode strongly and did enough to move Pic ahead of Gen in the overall.  Willy retained her spot on the podium with her overall 3^rd place whilst in the team competition, Team Rona were runners up to Team Quark.

And now I am rest and training at the Falks in Madison, Wisconsin which has become my base for the remainder of the season.  Madison is a wonderful training area that boasts dozens of quiet country roads and a perfect variety of terrain to suit my training requirements.  After racing 800km in Pennsylvania I enjoying a week off, celebrated my birthday and am now refocused for my final stage race of the season which starts in Colorado next week.