Cheyne's Owasco Report

Rain , Rain go away , come back another day

The Owasco Stage Race started off with great weather ( Ha ! ) Saturday morning , and a ITT for Stage 1 . Being my first cat3 race and not being a Time Trial specialist , I was only able to get 32cnd and was 3:32 off from the leader's time . Later on Saturday we had Stage 2 the JW Dundee's Circuit Race , and the weather , well it had stopped raining until right before we started racing . During the Circuit Race , I attacked up Duck Hill and was able to stay away from the peleton long enough to get a time bonus sprint for 9 seconds . After getting caught , I sat in the peleton and finished 17th , getting the same time as the winner . Sunday morning , whew , the sun and Stage 3 , a 66 mile Hilly Road Race . Roughly 20 miles into the race the peleton hit the first real climb of the day. Immediately the peleton began to shatter and I had the wheel of Don Sproull , 2cnd in the GC . We weaved our way to the front and the pain really kicked in . After summiting in the lead group it seemed no one had any legs or wanted to work to hold the gap and so nearly the whole race came back together including the yellow jersey. The next climb really decided who was there to stay and so we ended up with only around 10 or 15 guys. We started working a paceline but some people wouldn't work . As we started up another major climb we saw Don Sproull behind us about to latch on but thanks to the hill he wasn't to be seen again and it was on this hill that I suffered the most just barely being able to hang on. From there on there were a lot of fast and rolling roads. Coming downhill into a corner Jeff Zygo crashed and struggled to the finished with a broken bike . On one of the last major climbs of the day I saw two guys starting to pull a decisive gap so I put the gas on and worked my way up to them and we left everyone else behind . From there the race was to be settled between us 3 , we worked together and got over a 2 minute gap on the chasers . I was stuffed for the finish and could only get around 1 guy and ended up finishing 2cnd . And the time gaps were big enough that I was able to move up to 3rd on the GC , 2:59 off the winner , a podium finish !!!

Thanks for reading , Cheyne .

Also , in the Womens Open Race , Yvette had some great results , she finished 2cnd in the TT only to get beat by a Canadian Pro . Then she finished 4th in the Circuit Race and 5th in the Road Race . All this translates into a 4th place on GC 4:41 down , but only 2:20 back from the non pro people . Very nice riding !!!!!