Jeff Cup Report

Today was my first race of the 2010 season and it was certainly memorable! The race was the Jefferson Cup in Charlottesville, Virginia. Obviously, the first interesting thing about the race was the 5 hour drive down. Of course, stupid me just checked directions online and Alaina and I ended up driving just blocks away from the Capitol Building in DC and adding more than an hour to our trip. The way home, thanks to Robin - we made it back in just around 5 hours with barely any traffic issues! :)

OK...but about the race. We got down to VA and got ready this morning under cloudy skies. Still, we managed to laugh our way through warm up...

We hit the road at 9am with a rather lengthy neutral roll out. It was actually pretty fun, with everyone in the peloton laughing and chatting and just getting relaxed on the bike. We hit the start finish, lined up for an official start and headed out on the first of four laps of 10 mile course.

There were about 40 women at the start line - half were Cat 1/2, half were Cat 3s. It was a strong field with 4 riders from Fruit 66, 2 Vanderkitten women and our team. The course was really, really fun...lots of rollers, one longer climb and a wicked fun descent. It also had a few potholes, just to make it interesting!

The race, in general, was really nice. As a team, I thought that we really worked well together and made a good impression on the race. We attacked, we covered, we countered, and we worked (as did the other big teams and riders in the field). I was pretty happy with the few jumps that I made off the front. I really didn't have a Jump (with a capital J), it was more like a jump (with a little j), but I think that if I'm making jumps like this now, I'll be really happy with the jumps I'm making in May and June! :)

After the first lap or so, it started to rain and continued to do so at different intensities for the remainder of the race. Keep in mind that it was chilly to start with, so rain made it feel a lot like Mt. Joy last year. Brrrr...

The team worked really hard to try to put Mitch in a good place for the finish, sitting at the front and trying to control the pace. This worked pretty well up until about 500 meters to go. As some of the riders started to get excited about the finish, they started to get twitchy. A touch of wheels caused a large section of the peloton to hit the tarmac. I ended up staying upright, but riding off the side of the road into the grass. Managing to get back onto the road, I had lost contact with the leaders and just pushed myself home to the line for 8th. Alaina was 7th, Mitch podiumed with a 3rd place, and Sonja finished in 10th. All in all, I thought that we had a GREAT race and we worked well together. Not to mention, we had a BLAST together! It feels so RIGHT to be on this team and I'm really proud to be GREEN!