KSR Mayhem!

KSR Stage 1 Circuit. 53 miles, 3 laps. 6 miles into the race I was victim to a crash. Luckily I was not hurt, but I could not continue on my bike, due to the fact that when I mounted it again, the seat slammed completely down and was parallel with my seat-post. It was terrible! Also, my shoe buckle was gone and my shifter twisted. By the time the SRAM car was able to help me, the field was long gone. One other rider was fixing her wheel and we decided to just pedal easy together and finish. We wanted to save our legs for the next two days. We took turns pulling at a solid tempo pace. Before the 3rd lap to go, we picked up another rider who had never made it back on to the pack. At this point we were 20 minutes down from the group, so we just all wanted to stay happy and finish. Ended up 30 minutes behind the pack at 2:48. Completely out of GC contention but we all tried to stay positive and look forward to the next two days. Amy and Laura had a very strong finishes, placing 8th and 12th in the field sprint. KSR Stage 2 Time Trial 10.6 miles. It was very hot out. I used my water bottle mainly for my body! Luckily not a mass start, so I got to finish this one. I used men's elite team rider, Ben Carbonetti's, wheels from his road bike, that were over 300g lighter than my wheels and more aero. It helped some, considering that all the women I saw that placed in front of me had TT bikes and or really nice set ups for their bikes! I placed 23rd out of 64 starters. Laura placed 38th and Amy placed 47th. KSR Stage 3 RR 60 miles. I was unfortunately victim to another crash, completely ruining my spirit for the day and the entire weekend. What bad luck. It was only 20 miles in after the long decent, on rough pavement, before the sprint and first QOM climb. Juvederm-Specialized had been making very aggressive attacks and were violating the yellow line rule. One swerved on the pavement right in front of me, along with another rider in blue, causing me to rub on her back wheel and go down hard. I was able to get up, but my tire was flat...got Tom in the SRAM car to give me a new wheel, but as I started to ride away, I looked down to see my handlebars also turned 45 degrees. I waited for a few minutes, but he was busy helping a woman who had really hurt herself, so I rode back down to the car. I was going to toss my bike into the back of the car and call it quits at this point. Tom ended up just giving me another bike, but it was a 52 cm men's. He changed out the pedals and off I went, but again I had to stop and have him slam the seat all the way forward, and the reach was still way too long. What an uncomfortable 40 miles that was on the bike. I met up with a few other riders and worked a pace line. We were able to pass about 10 women, which was impressive. Only 3 of them were involved in the crash, but they did not have any mechanicals, so did not loose the 10 minutes+ of time like some of us had. The bike was much lighter than my bike by a long shot, but it did not have compact cranks so that killed me on the final climb, I could not turn over at a higher cadence like I am use to. Oh well, I at least stuck with it and was proud to finish. Maybe next year I won't have such bad luck and get to complete the race as a GC contender. Amy got stuck behind the crash and had to time trial it back on to the pack solo. She worked so hard that by the time she got to the final climb her legs blew up. Laura was able to avoid the crash, but saw it all go down. She was thankful not to get stuck in the mess and did NorEast proud finishing 10th out of 57 finishers. Technically there ended up being 49, due to the fact that all but one rider from Juvederm was disqualified from the days race, meaning they were taken out of GC results entirely. Karma. Laura ended up 13th GC, taking the last payout placement, way to go!!!!