Today was the first stage of the Tour for me, and Heather’s 3rd. It was a circuit race starting at Thanksgiving Point, finishing up the 6-mile climb on South Mountain. My category did four circuits on a flat course nearby Thanksgiving Point. On two of the laps, they had points sprints. Then we would head up the east frontage road over Point of the Mountain and then head up the new South Mountain road. I tried to contest for the points sprints but I ended up getting swarmed and didn’t have enough leg speed. After that, I realized I should just sit in on the climb. When we hit the climb, I made sure I was always out of the wind at the beginning. We had enough of a headwind to make a difference. But as the pack disintegrated, I ended up alone for the second half. There was a rider just ahead of me that I would yo yo back and forth with, but I never could overtake him.

When we got to where I thought the finish was, I learned that the finish was about 1 KM further up! This was bad news as I divvied out my energy thinking that the finish was at the 4-way stop. To add insult to injury, this was the steepest section of the whole climb! I really crawled up that last section, but fortunately, things were so spread out that I didn’t lose any places…but I surely lost some time on GC. I also only had a 25-tooth cog and I think Heather had a 23. During the steep part, I could only think of how Heather must be hating me for not bringing both our 27-tooth cogs with us. I will have to borrow one from Merle for Sunday’s epic climb up Mount Nebo.