TOA

I completed my first Tour of Anchorage on Sunday and it was a fantastic experience. Last Thursday was the first stage up Potter Valley road - it was really windy and after a mediocre performance, I was sitting in 32nd place. Friday evening was the Fort Rich road race and I stayed near the front for the majority of the race and ended up somewhere toward the back of the top 10. Saturday morning was another crit around the last block of the Park Strip. It was a cold, wet August morning but the race kept a fairly high speed throughout. The only really slippery part you had to watch out for was turn 3 with big "turn only" arrows painted on the street. I was able to stay up at the front for that finish as well and was somewhere between 5th and 7th... the Arctic Bicycle Club doesn't have a sweet OLN instant replay of the finish.

Saturday night brought me the most satisfaction. The Moose Run time trial is a race ABC holds roughly each month during the summer up here and it's a 10 mile (5 out and back) course with a few hundred feet of climbing on the way back. In mid June I alerted my vast readership (grin) of a PR that I had set at Moose Run of 25:02. Tony was a great motivator during this tt as he started 30 seconds behind me and caught and passed me within about 8 minutes. But that was really of no consequence to me because I was really focused on racing my own race and in so doing, I was able to knock over a minute off of my previous best and roll in at 23:57.

I did my best to carry that personal excitement over to the final stage which was the Kincaid Loop road race. Each lap was 3.7 miles with a moderate 3/4 mile climb. We were set to do 16 laps (which in the end equaled 3500 feet of climbing over 60 miles) and I was a bit nervous because the last time I raced this course, I stopped racing and limped home after the 8th lap. Thankfully, this day was different for me. I was there at the front for the finish and was narrowly beat by Tony B. and Tony T. to come in 7th at the line.

Overall, I finished in 14th of the 26 that completed all 5 stages and had a great time - it felt good to be back in the mix. Now there's a 6 race cyclocross series coming up and I'm looking forward to some epic autumn mountain bike rides on the Kenai Peninsula. Thanks for reading (Bobby) and perhaps the next post won't be about cycling (right).