Tour de Tangi - CycleTour

I positioned myself in the front section of the peleton at the beginning. I wanted to be in the "fast" group and try to hang on for as long as possible.

Things were looking good until my saddle bag fell off my bike about 5 miles in... the roads were pretty rough and I guess it was jarred enough to come off. I didn't want to leave it so I went back for it....

Well turns out that the pack of 25 riders I was in had far out-distanced the rest of the ride... and my bag mishap left me and Lonnie about 100 yards behind the peleton (I just grabbed my bag and shoved into my jersey pocket to try to catch back up).

I tried furioiusly for about 10 minutes to pull us back to the peleton but just couldn't make it. We rode for about 15-20 minutes in the middle of the two groups before a single rider came by and we started working together to make up some time.

I never saw that peleton again. I didn't stop at any Sag station until the second to last one (~50 miles) to get some pure water for the last 10-12 miles. ( I did put my bag back on my bike at that point too).

Overall I road solo probably 25% of the time and with 2-3 other people the rest, taking more than fair share of pulls.

Riding in the hilly part of Clinton has helped out a lot. The hills were very doable and I even felt strong.

My strept throat is about gone too which helped, but I hadn't ridden in 6 days due to it before the race.

Due to taking only one very short stop I was among the first 10% back to the staging area (well that and a large paceline went *right* past the last turn) :)



I had a good ride as compared to last year. Definately much stronger on the bike this year.

I ate jambalya drank some cokes and got a massage :)
Since I got back so early it was easy to get all that done.


The bag malfunction was definately a problem. I could have stayed with that front group for a good 30 more minutes at least AND I wouldn't have burned my quads trying to catch back up.


But by the same token I didn't want to lose my bag.


I gave it an 3 mainly because there was no beer at the end. Also I don't remember any music at the end either.