Das Tour de Frankenmuth 2013

This was my third year racing Frankenmuth, and my first year racing in the women's cat 1/2/3 race. I like this race since it is flat, and seems like a good opener for the road season. It was my first road race of the year. Sue Donnelly, a Hagerty cat 4 racer traveled with me and we went down the night before and stayed in a hotel. I heard of many hard core racers leaving from 2:30 and 3:30 in the morning from the Traverse City area to get to the 8:00 start time. Yeah, not for me.

The weather at 8:00 a.m. was brisk, although the sun was shining and it was not too cold. No rain! It was raining pretty steadily at the start last year. There were about a dozen hot air balloons in the sky, making for a colorful and festive start. Frankenmuth  may be the best race to bring a family, since there is the Zehnder's Splash Village for the kids, a dog show, hot air balloons, among  other things to do in the town. It reminds me of Mackinac City. The race goes right through the town and there are multiple laps which makes it nice for spectators. My poor kids have often come to a race in the middle of nowhere just to see me for 10 seconds at the finish. They stayed home this weekend because they had their own exciting plans.

But anyway...we lined up for the start and had a field of 16 women. There were about 4 Cat 1/2

Great morning for a race!

riders and 12 Cat 3 riders. We took off, and settled in pretty quick. A few women tried to attack early, but everything got reeled in pretty quick. It is pretty hard to get away on this course. Very few would work at the front so the race putzed along for three laps. I think we were going as slow as 13 mph at one point. Our average speed was 18 mph for the race. We had to stop the race twice and start again because we got off course once and there was an accident at the finish and they didn't want us coming through until it was cleared out.

We came into the final lap with only one dropped rider, and I thought I would try to stay out in front for the last mile to get a good position, and maybe even attack. My legs were not there for me though, and when we came into the last corner I was 3rd, but I wasn't able to corner like I needed to and lost my position. I pushed as hard as I could but couldn't regain them before the finish line. I came in 10th overall, 5th for Cat 3 women. Amy Stauffer, Dori Leib, and Sarah Demerly got the podium finish.

Sue Donnelly's cat 4 race had a crash and Sue almost went down so she had a sketchy two laps. The men's cat 4 race had a crash at the finish also. There are some pretty large fields so this is not uncommon! I am happy to have finished rubber side down, and am ready to take a few things I learned from this race on to the next one.

Thanks for being a great host Frankenmuth!!!!