5 down, 1 to go.
Today was a 60 mile road race with 1 KOM. It started and finished in the town of Gallipolis Oh. The course was amazing, the town was totally behind it, and the town had the racers in for dinner afterward. We are all pretty amazed at how well done this race is, apparently it is in its 20th year or so.

Anyway, I started the day with the Polka Dot KOH jersey.(king of hills, as all the climbs are 1 or 2k). Any ambition I had for the day quickly faded when my right shifter broke. I tried upshifting and my sram shift lever just fell off. Awesome.

I spent about 20 miles trying to get my cable tension tight enough that I could be in the 15 tooth cog instead of the 12. This involved dropping through the caravan and pacing back on, and adjusting my rear derailer tension while riding downhill.

A break rolled away with 6 dudes in it. I was happy with the move as long as it didnt get more than 2 minutes, as was the guy who took the yellow jersey from me yesterday. His teammate was in it and had potential to take the jersey, and bump me to 3rd.

I rode tempo a ton trying to minimize the time that the break had and managed to win the group sprint at the uphill finish in my 36×15 for 5th place. The finish climbed up from the Ohio river to a cemetery. It was pretty scenic at the top.

So after the race, I was trying to figure out what to do about a shifter. (Go buy one? Have a teammate driving down to Cincinnati tomorrow stop by with one?) When one of the dudes on the team that I am racing against came over and said “hey dude, do you want to borrow this?” and handed me a sram red shifter. We have been staying in the same hotels as them and have made friends. Its pretty cool to be friendly with your nemesis. Good guys. So props to Happy Tooth Elite Cycling Team who just came back from the Tour of Ireland.

Related posts:

1. Tour of Ohio Diary Day 4.
2. Tour of Ohio stage 3.
3. Tour of Ohio Diary. Days 1 and 2.

Tags: cummings | diary | ohio | stage race | steevo

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