In brief: - hills- 6th place (3rd top-10)- good alliance and first successful use of sneaky strategy- don't take clear cyto at feeds - it ends up being too confusing No team mates in the race, so I was a solo renegade warrior like Trudy B.Right after the neutral promenade the race proper began with the longestclimb of the loop. The winner of Friday's circuit race went at the climb assoon as the motorcycle could get out of the way after waving us on. Threewent with her. By the end of the climb, the field was completely blownapart, and I was in the first chase group of 5. I dropped all but one on adescent, then someone caught up with us, towing a group with her. Shedropped most of this 'dead weight,' and for a little bit there were four ofus. Then we split apart on the climbs, leaving Christine from Dolce Vitaand myself a bit back. Christine and I worked together over the rollers andflats to catch the other girls. We turned ourselves into a fantastic team.She was better on the climbs than I, and I seem to descend like a rock (Iguess I'm densely built) and we worked well together on the hills. She wasa great alliance-mate and would cheer me on when I was lagging behind on theclimbs. (Trudi H, she wanted me to let you know that the DBC-Dolce allianceis doing well). We managed to bridge to those girls after the first toughclimb, but didn’t end up making up the gap after the second. Later, we saw that Sarah had been shelled from the twosome just ahead, andshe ended up with Christine and me. She clearly wasn't going to work, and Ilater learned that the same was true up front. On a short climb, Christinerode next to me and mouthed, "DROP HER." I signaled my plan to drop her aswe came over the crest of the feed climb. That plan didn't work, as Sarahended up on my wheel with Christine 3rd wheel. I pretended I was justpicking up the pace and pulled off to let Sarah rotate through. Later, on a flat-ish section, Sarah was taking a very slow pull and I wassecond-wheel. I looked back at Christine; she smiled and nodded. Sarahpulled off and waved me on, and I threw it down. The fact that she had beengoing so slowly left me a lot of range for acceleration, and I was restedfrom riding behind her. I dropped both of them, but I dropped Sarah muchharder. I went super-hard for a little bit, then gradually eased to mediumhard until Christine bridged. She said something to the effect of "goodGod," and I apologized for not having had the chance to warn her that I'vegot a kick. The 5 times through the tough climbs had worn on us, and shewas fading more, so it was my turn to motivate. I told that it was the lastlap and we just needed to give it what we had. We did, and found ourselves at the long final climb with no one near usahead or behind. We took advantage of the opportunity to ride a bit easierand chat. At the final stretch, she said, "well, Ruth, we did it." "Yes, we did," I replied, as I stood up to throw the hammer down one lasttime and take what I later learned was 6th place. Happy cycling, everyone, and see you next time! Ruth
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