Healing Cycle Racing at O-Cup #6

The weekend of June 6/7, Bruce and Stirling headed to Prince Edward County for the Milford-Picton Stage race. The racing started on Saturday with a 20km time trial in the morning and a circuit race in the early evening that was 110minutes in length. To cap of the weekend’s racing, there was a 127km road race on Sunday.

We were on the road Saturday by 7am which should have given us plenty of time for the 2.5hr drive and about 45mins to warm up for the time trial. Unfortunately, unexpected construction resulted in us arriving just in time to unload our bikes, sign in and line up for the start with no warm up. Time trials are definitely better performed with a good warm up! In the end Stirling managed 7th and Bruce just rolled through the course content to save his energy for the weekend of racing.

With an afternoon of relaxing, we were back in race mode for the start of the circuit race. The course was 6.9km and had the mix of a road race with some tight turns through the town of Picton that also made it feel like a criterium. The course had a steep climb (about 1km in length) that immediately started to break up the peleton. About 10 of us made the final selection, and the racing continued to be aggressive. With 2 laps to go, Bruce jumped away from the group and soloed to his first victory of the season! Stirling rolled in 9th place and Bruce moved up to 4th place in the General Classification.

Greg joined us for the Sunday road race, as did about another 30-40 riders who didn't want to race all the stages. With all the fresh legs, it was going to make for some tough racing for those of us who had already been racing. The plan was to work for Bruce to try and improve his overall placing in the GC. Stirling and Greg worked to keep things in check for Bruce as there were constant attacks coming from the field. With 2 laps to go (32km), Stirling moved to the front of the pack to chase a Cyclery rider who was 100m up the road, and opened up an unexpected gap. He bridged up to the other rider and were soon out of sight from the pack. With 6km to go, they had a 1 min gap which was just enough to get them to the finish. Stirling came across the line to win his first race of the season! Greg sprinted for 5th place and Bruce came across in 15th place. Stirling's win was enough to move him into 3rd place in the overall GC, and Bruce finished 7th.

A great weekend of racing and a special thanks to the Midweek Cycling Club, Craig Fagen, the towns of Milford and Picton and all the volunteers for a great weekend of racing