Cascade Classic Day 1

This trip is the first to Oregon, a state which I've been wanting to visit ever since being in New Zealand. Bend was one of the places in OR that I had my eye on as well. The other place was where Steve "Pre" Prefontaine is from, but that's for another trip. But while I'm here in OR, I may as well hurt myself just like Pre liked to when he raced.

The race I'm out here for is the Cascade Classic, a 5 day NRC tour. This is my first NRC tour, and I'm quite excited about it. Today's stage was a 133km ride with a KOM in the middle and a steep 2km finishing climb. This was my first race after RAAM, so I was a bit nervous with how the form would be. Today was pretty hot, and all the riders felt the heat. It was also pretty fast, with the winner completing the race at an avg speed of almost 48kph (that's almost 30mph)!

The day started off pretty rough for me, with my legs just not agreeing with me. Within the first 1km, there were cones all over the road, and Chris Horner of Astana went down right in front of me. For about 5 min, my legs were really feeling the lack of racing, but it didn't take long for me to find my rhythm and settle in. The first hour felt pretty quick, with the bunch getting nicely strung out at times. We hit the KOM about a 80km into the race, and i found myself struggling a bit. Though I could see that there several riders behind dropping off the back, I tried my hardest to hang onto the bunch. I did for a while, but slipped off the back as the pace became a bit too high. I was hoping to catch back on the decent, but that certainly didn't happen. The decent was just dead straight, not good for chasing back on. The convey was also held up at this point, so there was no cars to help work my way up.

I ended up in a group of 9 riders, with several more riders behind. How many riders were behind I don't know, but I was glad I wasn't one of them. I ended the day in 122 place. Not a great day, but there is still another 4 days to go.

My thoughts at this time are with my team mate Ben who had a nasty crash today. He hit a cattle stop grove and was thrown off his bike, and is now in hospital. My prayers are with him, and I hope yours are as well.

Tomorrow is another road stage, and hopefully my climbing will be better, and I'll be able to get amongst it. Follow me over the week as I report on Cascade, and the final RAAM report will be up after that.