Tour de Tooona
Altoona Mirror Time Trial
August 1, 2000

Here I am back at Tour de Toona, where my cycling career began - sort of.

The time trial I won in 1992 is now a 3-mile downtown Prologue through the twists and turns of the city streets. In keeping with my new warm-up schedule I rode long and hard before my time to race against the clock - 7:30 pm. It's a technical course with a really tough start of a few shallow rises and a short very steep kicker climb.

I rode well and hard and still didn't finish in the top 20. The winning time was 5:52 done by Sarah Ulmer of Elita, the defending champion. Lyne Bessette was 2nd (5:53) and Tracey Gaudrey 3rd (5:54). Pam Schuster 4th, then came Anne Samplonius, Erin Carter, Mini Pizzini, Anke Erlanke, Kim Bruckner. I did a 6:07. Catherine Cardwell was 15th with a 6:03 and Laura was 18th with a 6:05. And as my newest teammate Katrian Berger would say "Oh, and her newest teammate (which is why I'm sure she almost forgot...:-), Katrina Berger, got 9th, in front of Kim Bruckner by mere tenths of a second....."

The biggest news is that there are 125 women here in our race, the biggest field Toona has ever had. It's so great to see the women's field get more competitive and so much larger.