Colt's Neck

A great circuit race in Colt's Neck, NJ. The entertaining aspect is how they split the prize money—$100, split evenly between the top 5 riders. It's all about the honor of the placement, not the money, at this race!

Nan flatted during the first lap of the W123 race, so it was every woman for herself (well, me for myself) in that field. A handy early sprinter gave me just the jump I needed to get past almost the entire field and to take 3rd.

In the W4 race, Andrea, Caroline and Ann-Marie were similarly bedeveled by the fickle hand of fate—A-M was knocked out of contention in the early laps. Caroline and Andrea took 9th & 10th in the end.

Tour de Ephrata, PA

A two-day, three stage points race. Mags, Nan and I headed there thinking it would be a nice, easy, early-season opportunity to score some upgrade points.

Hah. Pull the other one, it's got bells on it.

The women's field maxed out at 60 before we arrived, so our first order of business was to start praying that someone wouldn't show so Maggie could register. 10 minutes before the start, she got numbers and we got to business. Sort of. The Saturday stage was a 24-mile road race, but it wasn't a very hard course, it wasn't long enough to get rid of all that many girls (and most of the girls were cat 2's and 3's), and it finished on a downhill. Maggie threw out a last-minute attack that might have stuck had an ambulance coming toward us *in our lane* not thrown her off her mark, but still pulled out a top 20 finish.

The next morning, after a good night's sleep at the actually very nice Black Horse Motel, it was uphill time trial time. 3 points just for starting so even I, a girl who is not a fan of hills or time trials, threw on the bars and did my part. Lucky for me, the first five miles were flat to rolling— I beat Nan by 8 seconds. Maggie beat us by 3 minutes, taking 4th. I knew we liked her!

A mere 4 hours later, we set up camp in downtown Ephrata. The women's crit went off about an hour behind schedule, and from where I was riding, seemed awfully fast. Having started on the front line (there's actual photo evidence!), by the third lap I was at the back. Lucky for the team, Maggie was up front and Nan figured out how to ride a crit over the course of 40 minutes—they took 7th and 15th, respectively.

Ultimately, Maggie took sixth in the overall, a nice surprise for all of us. And it was a fun weekend, with lots of laughs, bad movies and good weather. Who could ask for more?