So the plan was to ride with the boys out to watch the first day of racing which is only seven miles from our home. Dark skies and the boys rolling out of bed after 10am change the ride to a drive out to check things out.
We parked too far from the steep part of the big climb on the route and ended up watching riders come through the feed zone. We missed the leaders as we were parking but that left some pro1,2 riders and the cat 3,4,5 and women yet to come past. We were among a handful of people watching that were not involved in rider support, I guess that is to be expected on a Thursday morning. After watching a few riders drop out we walked back to the car and drove down the hill to the steeper portion where we pulled over as what I would guess was the main pack of cat 3s came up. From the look on some of the faces that went by it was a good thing that was the final lap for them, one rider behind the main group was walking his bike. Another was negotiating a ride with the passing UPS truck driver, at least he still had a sense of humor.
The boys had seen enough so we headed down the rest of the hill passing the rest of the field as we went. The rain started just as we passed the last few riders and we headed for home glad we were not going to be riding the bike back home in the rain.
Race info can be found here Tour of America's Dairyland
