TOG

If you've been craving a hard, hilly road race then add the Tour of Galena (TOG) to your calendar for next year.
Eric, Dale and I went down to Galena, IL for some fine weinerschnitzel and beer, and we did a bike race while we were there too.
Our road race was about 63 miles, with 4,500' of climbing.
(each lap was about 22 miles, and we did 3 laps; different categories did different numbers of laps, from 1 to 4)
Since we were in the "pants-waist above the navel" age category, we had a small, but strong field of 12. There were a bunch of strong "independents", 3 from an IL team, and us 3 beer-seekers. Eric had an unfortunate navigational incident on the 1st lap and broke his front shifter. Very nicely everyone waited while he picked up his bike and the three of us made our way back to the pack. But Eric's shifter was done, and he had to pull out unfortunately. This was a course tailor made for his strength to weight ratio! I had been planning to work for Eric and Dale, and to try and give them whatever I could, given that I am on the "clydesdale" side of "little Spanish climber." But with Eric gone the weight fell to just Dale and me.
Dale was super strong on the climbs, and I was able to chase back on after getting dropped on many of the 15% climbs on each lap. I was mostly trying to conserve my energy for the next inevitable chase back on...
On the 2nd lap the strong XXX guy got away. And then on the 3rd lap one of the IL guys bridged up to him. That let the other 2 IL guys sit on, naturally. Eventually there were 2 of the 3 IL guys up there, the XXX guy, and a strong independent. The 3rd IL guy was in no man's land between the break of 4 and Dale and me. Dale had rested for 2 seconds when the split happened, and I was...probably just doing my "chase back on" thing at that time. It was frustrating for Dale to miss that break, but Dale and I worked well together and ended up towing the 3rd IL guy towards the break once he sat up and joined us. The independent guy fell out of the break when he must have dropped his chain switching from the big to small ring on one of the many climbs, and joined us in the chase. Dale was doing a ton of work, as usual, at one point and I attacked, forcing the independent to close; and getting Dale off the front. I quickly tried to catch my breath before the next 15% climb after the Galena Cellars winery, and we ended up dropping the 3rd IL guy. The three of us tried to close to the break, but they were gone. And the independent guy climbed better than me again; and unfortunately Dale was suffering like I usually do on the last climb before the descent into town. Dale and I worked well together again to try to chase down the independent in the closing miles, but we did not quite make it. I took off after him with 1km to go after a monster pull from Dale, and only succeeded in attacking and passing a minivan as we entered town, then sprinting against one of "the kids" that I caught on the last corner of the technical finish into downtown Galena. So Dale and I got 5th and 6th. Not great, but not bad against the quality of the field and toughness of the course. It was just a bummer that Eric was not there, because I'm sure he would have been in that break too. And then I could have just sat on - some more!
To finish the day off right Dale bought us dinner and a couple fine beers at Fritz and Frites...