Cascade Classic Completed - Ali Shanks
29 July 2010
Six days of racing up in beautiful Bend, Oregon flew by. I’m back at “home” in Kutztown, PA now.The tour was a great week of racing through the majestic mountain scenery of Oregon. The second day of the tour, a 120km stage that took us up and over the McKenzie pass highway, a 30km climb which crested at 5300ft amongst a lava field and surrounding snow capped mountains. The following days were also testing with a 24km Time Trial -half up and half down, hitting speeds of 74km/hr on the way home. I finished 5th for a solid day at the office.
We then embarked on some more mountain climbing - this time cruising past several mountain lakes before finishing up Mt Bachelor Ski Field. The tour then rounded up with a downtown criterium on Saturday night and a final 80km circuit race stage where I managed a last final effort of the week to break free of the main peleton just before the final climb, 10km from the finish. Cath Cheatley and Mara Abbott came across to me on the climb and we reeled in the couple of riders who were off the front - well all but one. Tara Whitten convincingly won the stage 1min up the road and we stayed away from the main peleton, giving me a 4th placing for the day.
All and all a great week, in a beautiful area. We had great fun meeting and getting to know our host family the Dapranos, thanks to our good friend Ronnie (and race photographer) who linked us together. The Dapranos treated us to supurb hospitality and the whole family were absolute troopers in the volunteer feed zones on two of the long race days - those water’s were like bottles of gold in the heat. Thank you!
So after just knocking out 12hrs of solid sleep (the body obviously needed it) I’m back into training here in Kutztown for the next few weeks.
Thanks for reading
Ali
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