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Home Image Gallery 2011 Tour de Toona
Tour de Toona Stage Race, Altoona, PA, July 9/10, 2011
On Saturday, July 9th the team finally made it to the Tour de Toona. Paul Low and Mary Cerkey Syrrist coordinated with Dan Netzer and Frank Cundiff to make the most of the trip. Saturday was the road race. The pros and cat 2's went off first and several groups of each category managed to get lost along the way. A helicopter had to be sent out to find a group of women who had veered off course. By the time the Category 3 race took off, the signage problem had been solved and the race finished with Celerity Cycling's Dan Netzer and our team mate Paul Low taking 3rd and 4th in the road race and 1st and 3rd in the King of the mountains.
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Paul's feet were killing him after the race and he felt like crap, so he skipped the cool down and put his feet up. The Women's 3 and 4 categories were combined due to low numbers and their race was delayed for about 45 minutes as the previous categories continued to come back. Mary continued to warm up and we bumped into fellow Virginia rider Ben Frederick, who had won the overall in the ID3 omnium the weekend before. Finally, the Cat 4/5 men's race took off.
The women's event was the last race of the day. The event was 20 miles and therefore too short for road race points and offered criterium points instead. Mary broke away from the pack and won the Queen of the Mountains and managed to solo her way to victory. Several minutes ahead of the competition.
Going into Sunday's Criterium, Paul Low felt pretty bad and it showed as he was dropped from the peloton and pulled from the race. Paul hoped the officials would pull him sooner, but they made him do a few more laps than he really wanted. Finally they pulled him and placed him, so he could keep his 7th position in the GC for the weekend.
Mary dominated the criterium with a few Cat 3's and the GC leader of the Cat 4's. They eventually lapped some fours on the last lap in a bad spot before the final sprint, and Mary had to be satisifed with 2nd place in the criterium. She easily won the GC by about 7 points and retained the yellow jersey.
