The Inaugural Tour of Galena took place this past weekend and turned out to be a great weekend of racing at a tough stage race.  I have been looking forward to this race since I got word of it taking place this spring.  Having grown up an hour south of Galena and attended college just to the north I know how great the area is for cycling.  After traveling to all ends of the country the past year to compete in some of the biggest stage races the country has to offer it was exciting to have a race right in my own backyard with a similar format.

The first year race consisted of three stages over two days.  First up was a short 4.4 mile time trial on Saturday morning followed by a tough 90 mile road race in the afternoon and then concluded with a criterium in downtown Galena on Sunday.

5:30 Saturday morning came far too quick but we grabbed some breakfast and pointed the van north towards Galena.  We arrived with plenty of time to take one last glimpse of the course and set up the trainer to get ready for the short intense effort.  The course was very unique for a time trial with constant rolling hills, a very fast descent (I hit 50 mph on the way down) and then turning around and climbing back up before heading to the finish. Warm up went as planned and before I knew it I was heading to the start line.  The first two miles went well and I caught my 30 second man before the descent.  After pacing myself up the climb I had two more riders in sight and after going all out for the remaining two miles was able to catch and pass them both on the final climb.  I felt good on the course and catching three riders in such a short effort is usually a good indicator of a fast time but as is always the case with time trials you never really know until the results are posted.  Although anxious to find out the results we headed off to grab some lunch and sneak in a nap before the road race.

A text from my dad was waiting on my phone when I woke up stating that I had won the time trial.  Perfect!  I felt good in the time trial and won by almost 20 sec which is a pretty healthy margin for such a short event.  Excited to have won my second race in a row I was now very much looking forward to the road race. 

The road race started off relatively calm with a few attacks being launched and a couple of small groups and solo riders gaining no more than a small margin on the field before being brought back.  Luckily for me the team was riding great and I was able to seek shelter in the

pack while they put in the hard work to bring back any threatening moves.  After two laps of this kind of riding we had dropped a fair number of riders on the hills but I decided things were not quite hard enough and starting putting in some attacks on the hills.  My first two attacks were eventually reabsorbed but my third attack was finally successful.  Coming into one of the bigger hills the team was just finishing up pulling in a small group, Bryan had taken a long pull to get them close and Hogan had just went to the front.  As we caught the group I yelled to Hogan to just keep going, he drilled it up the first part of the hill and then pulled off for me to attack.  When I finally looked back it was just me and David Moyer from XXX racing, just what I wanted, one of the strongest riders in the field with me and we had a gap.  We immediately started working together and were eventually able to build up a lead on the pack. Although we were both riding well there were still about 40 hard miles of racing remaining so we were far from in the clear.  After keeping a steady lead for the next 20 miles It looked like this might actually work.  However, as the miles in the hills wore on my breakaway partner was beginning to tire and we got word that a solo rider was slowly gaining on us.  Not wanting to get caught I went hard up the course’s biggest hill with about ten miles to go, dropping my partner, but leaving me with ten miles to go and two riders chasing close behind.  As if an exact repeat of last week I put my head down and tried to distance the chasing riders.  I was able to do so and had a little more time to celebrate my victory this week which was great with so many friends and family attending the race.  After getting two wins the first day I was now leading the overall but there were still three other riders in contention going into Sunday’s criterium.

The plan going into the criterium was simple enough on paper: don’t let the three riders in contention get away and then beat them in the sprint at the finish.  However,  things rarely go quite this smoothly in reality.  Sunday however was one of those days.  The team rode great all day, letting things go that couldn’t hurt me in the G.C., which forced the other teams to cover and quickly covering those that did matter.  Coming into the closing laps a two man was just staying away and the rest of the field was together.  Bryan put in some big efforts to chase down several attacks from XXX that were a threat to our overall standings.  This kept the field together with two laps to go.  At this point I found Hogan’s wheel as planned and he kept me safe and then took over with a little under a lap to go.  After a monster pull from Hogan down the entire back straight we had things just where we wanted them going into the final co

rner.  I came around him and began to sprint for the line, not only did no one come around but I actually just nipped one of the breakaway riders on the line which put me at second on the day and easily clinched our overall lead. 

After the podium celebration came to a close another great weekend of racing was in the books.  Thanks again to not only my team but also to XXX for putting on such a great event and offering up such stiff competition.  I felt good all weekend and the team did everything just right to help get the win.  In the sport of cycling wins are often few and far between (not to mention solo road race victories) so it was a pleasant change of pace to have two successful weekends in a row.  Hopefully my good luck continues as I roll into the Elite National Championships next week.

Ben