7/30 - 8/1/04 by Phil Esempio
The International Tour de 'Toona is a multi-day stage race held in and around Altoona, PA. For Pro-1 men, it is a 6-day event; for the Women Pro-1-2 field, the race is 7 days long. For the rest of us with resting heart rates above 40, there is a 3-day long, points based stage race held for men in Category 2, 3, and 4, and for Women in Category 3 and 4. There is also a 2-day event for Cat. 5 men, and a one day criterium for Masters 35+. Representing the Freewheelers were myself in Cat 4, and Anastasia Birosh in the Women 4.
Before I left for Altoona late Thursday night, Catharine Scott, who had competed in this race before, gave me a quick rundown on the individual stages. She warned me that the climb during Stage 2 was brutal, and to bring a 27-tooth cogset if I had one. Because of the Freewheelers picnic, which Tricia so graciously hosted, I didn't get to leave Ohio until nearly 11 PM for the 4 hour drive to Altoona, with my race going off at 8:15 in the morning on Friday. I knew this wasn't a good thing, but I figured I could handle it. I arrived in Altoona around 3:30 AM, got about 2 hours of sleep, then went over to the race site, which was about a half-hour away in Martinsburg.
Stage 1: Hoss's Martinsburg Road Race
The Martinsburg Road race was held over a rolling, 19-mile long loop through Pennsylvania Dutch farmlands. But "rolling" doesn't adequately describe the course; there were actually two significant climbs, as the course went out over a long, low ridgeline, ran parallel to it, then crossed back over it. The final 1-km was a series of tight turns through the center of town, with the last turn ending right at the 200-meter mark. The Cat 4 Men would do 2 laps of this course, and the Women 3/4 would do 1 lap all together, with the two categories scored separately.
The first lap went off at a quick, but not unreasonable, pace. Several attacks were launched, but all of them were reeled back in. I hung on over the first ridgeline, and again over the second, when we were neutralized at the side of the road for about 10 minutes while the Women's field was allowed to go around us. By the time we restarted, everyone was fresh and ready to go again, and the pace reflected this. Going out over the first hill on the second lap, I fell off with a few others as the M Street Racing team from Rockville, MD launched a vicious attack that strung out the field. The attack went for naught, in the end, as the wind had picked up significantly on the second lap, and the open fields left breakaways nowhere to hide. The race came down to a sprint finish, with myself dragging behind by a few minutes. It wasn't terribly surprising, given that I was trying to race on 2 hours of sleep, but it was still disappointing, given that the course was well suited to my style of riding. Anastasia finished off the back of a field that was led in by Sinead Miller, a 14-year old who had just upgraded to Cat 3 that very day. We would be hearing a lot of her name over the weekend, it turned out.
Stage 2: Verizon Blair County Road Race
This was the stage I was very wary of. The Category 4/5 course was relatively short at 20 miles, especially when compared to the 2/3 course at 70 miles, but it turned out there were good reasons for this. The hill was so severe leading up to Horseshoe Curve that when they had run it at 2 laps the year before, the field became strung out beyond the considerable ability of the marshals to manage. With hundreds of volunteers on hand, along with dozens of caravan vehicles, I knew that it must be severe indeed.
As it turned out, Mother Nature decided to add a level of difficulty. The 4/5 race was going off at 1:15 PM, and there were scattered showers all morning long, up until about 30 minutes before start time. Some of these turned into major downpours, and at one point I began to seriously expect a wet race. The Pro-1, 2, and 3 fields all got quite wet, but our race stayed entirely dry; the sun even peeked in and out of the overcast at times. But the roads would still be quite wet, and I was sure the descent would be dangerous unless it dried up before we got there.
The course layout was unusual, in that the direction of start and finish were opposite - you came back down the same road you went out on. It was for this reason that the starts were carefully timed so that riders wouldn't be heading out as another field was coming in. Also, the course was run in the opposite direction it had been last year, so what I expected wasn't what I got.
After riding out for about a mile on the start/finish segment, we turned uphill almost immediately. The road pitched upwards at about 5 or 6%, similar to what you might expect when riding up Everett or Major, with occasional pitches to 11 or 12%. There was only one problem: this went on for just over 8 miles. Still carrying extra weight, I slid off the back early, but the entire field splintered, and I was able to pick my way back through the pursuing riders. I would catch one rider, draft for a minute or so to recover, then go around him to pull, only they never got on my wheel as I expected. I passed mostly Cat 5 racers, and a few Cat 4 riders, before two of the Cat 5's got on my wheel during the last 2 km or so of the climb. During the last 200 m to the KOM line, I rode away from them, and reached the corner that lead down to Horseshoe Curve.
Sure enough, the road was tree-lined, and still quite wet from the rain. In fact, the wind was blowing some water off the trees, so at times it seemed to still be raining. The road was, however, in excellent condition, and even with the wet surface a fast descent was possible - until you reached Horseshoe Curve itself. This was an off-camber, wide radius 180-degree turn with about a 12 to 15 % downward pitch. With the road surface still so slick, I backed off some - to about 30 mph or so - to be safe through the turn. Just then, I heard one of the Cat 5 riders coming up behind me, screaming - "Let's go - get on my wheel!" As the two of them slid past me, I jumped on the back, and down we went at over 40 mph. It was almost terrifying, but at the end of the long curve we shot through a tunnel, and on the other side was sunshine and dry roads. Three other 5's, and one 4, joined us on the long shallow descent as we scooped them up. The last 7 miles of the race was pure fun my sole goal was to stay in front of the other 4, which I did. I tried to make a break from them about 2 km out as we went up a small rise coming back into town, and nearly got away, but one of the Cat 5 racers from Yellow Breeches marked me and reeled me back in. But the attack dropped the Cat 4, and one of the 5's, leaving only 5 of us charging towards the finish line. At the finish I let them fight over the field sprint, since they were still competing for position.
In the women's race, Anastasia struggled on the long hill, but did very well for her first year racing, especially on a very tough course the day after a demanding circuit race.
As some of you already know, Kevin Lutzke of Stark Velo was seriously injured in the 70-mile long Category 3 race when an ambulance tending to other riders who had crashed, parked around a blind corner on the descent from Blue Knob. And John Lowry, while finishing 6th in this brutal stage, and sitting at 8th overall afterwards, had fallen and fractured his ulna, so that he was unable to compete in the following stage and perhaps make a run at a top-5 position.
Stage 3: Atlantic Broadband Criterium
The last stage was a 0.9-mile, 8-turn criterium run over downtown streets. The course was like a very narrow rectangle, with a dogleg turn on each of the long sides of the course. The front stretch was uphill, and over some cobblestones at the start/finish, turning right into a short steep side street, turning right again and heading downhill into the first dogleg S-turn - a quick left-right combo - and then going almost immediately into another right into the short side of the course, right again, and then the final dogleg was flat, ending 200m before uphill run to the finish. The course was generally smooth, with a few bad spots where dangerous drain grates were covered with plywood. The descent into the first dogleg was tricky; coming at well over 30mph, and the grade up to the finish was steep enough to notice after a few laps of racing.
This year of racing has taught me one thing, if nothing else; I am definitely not a sprinter. And, I still need some serious speed work to be competitive in technical criteriums such as this one. The M Street Racing boys launched an attack right from the start, stringing out the field almost instantly. Those who could hang on to this pace for a few laps did, the rest of us got dropped like bad habits and were eventually lapped by the field in varying degrees. The winner's average speed was over 26 mph, and he won it on a solo breakaway 6 laps from the finish, and as a result took the win in the overall standings. The field waited too long to respond, and by the time the yellow jersey moved up to start driving the pace, it was too late. Another lap and they would have caught him; but as it was, they came up short by 50 meters.
Anastasia suffered a similar fate in the Women's 3/4 race; Sinead Miller drove the pace brutally, splintering the entire women's field so badly that the officials had some of the Cat 4's sprinting for position early so they could be pulled before they were lapped. I highly suspect that you will be hearing a lot more about Sinead Miller especially when the 2008 Olympics roll around.