Tour of the valley

52 mile race on hot day over a challenging hilly course. It was nice to have Dane racing with me as he was racing in the 40+ field and the two fields raced together. Started out with a field of about 50 and although the pace was not overly fast the effort increased on every climband every time a few people were spit out the back.
On the second and last lap, Gunnar Shogren started attacking on every climb. I tried covering him but on the last climb just did not have it (one climb too many). Maybe 12 guys left in the sprint and I found myself in the bad position of being out front. Tried to go off the front with maybe 1/2 mile to go. Wound up dropping my chain (first time on this bike, not sure why it dropped) and wound up 6th.Kudos to Dane, he put in a lot of work up front.

I spent way too much time on the front and paid for it with debilitating cramps with 9 miles to go. It was fun to finally get to work with Pete in a race. He is a beast! In the end it was a great learning experience for this runner who still races the bike like a runner...