Tasha wins Cycle Smart GP-DSJ 5th!

Well, if you read the last post, you'll know about "one hundred things must fall into place". Well I don't know how many fell into place today, but Tasha did it today. She had the ride I was waiting to see. If I could only explain that I've been waiting to see this for a long time. Never in my life have I seen her ride like she did today. Sure she took those 4 wins early in the season, but she just rode away, used her power. This was different in so many ways. She didn't have the greatest start not clipping in for a quite a few pedal rotations, but stayed calm closed the gaps and got to the front an killed it!

Richard Fries, the Verge announcer told her "I've been waiting to see you ride like this"
I knew exactly what he meant.

Tasha joined a group of 4 girls in the first lap of the race, Mo Bruno Roy slipped up in some turns and Tasha was able to catch her and the rest of the group that included Laura Van Gilder and Deidre Winfield. She drove the pace and used her skill to ride the technical portions of the course and used her strength to punch it out of the corners. It was truly an awesome race to watch.

Her group shattered and it was just Deidre and Tasha, but Laura fought her way back. This caused a little concern as Laura is without a doubt the best female sprinter in America. I kept yelling at Tasha "you know what to do"..."100%". And when I say yelling I mean yelling.

I obviously don't want to yell out to her what to do, cause that kind of the ruins the surprise element, last thing you want is the opponents to know what to wait for, so we had discussed tactics pre-race and she carried them out to a tee (by the way that`s a load of crap, as she had her own tactics in her head and knows what to do). So Tasha goes MENTAL on the last ride up that some girls had to run up, she takes it wide to get around Laura Van Gilder, almost hits a stake and attacks the shit out of it, punches it hard over the top, full throttle, couple turns hard and fast up and over the barriers. She got just enough day light between her two adversaries in the last couple turns that she jumped hard onto the last pavement section and she had it! Everyone was screaming "WOOOOO...go Tasha!" (ok well I was , but it was really loud so it was wicked) Richard Fries and Allen are such great announcers and this course lends it self to truly exciting racing. So Tasha throws the hands up in the air and claims her biggest, best victory to date. YES yes yes.

That's what I'm talking about. OK...I have to settle down. So my race...not bad. I guess I was a little too excited cuz I didn't hear em say 1 minute to go and i started fixing my zipper...so that was really interesting. Well practiced my coming from the back like a freight train skillz and somehow crept up to 5th spot. So I would have to say that it is actually my best US result as of...well...ever. Last year I was 23rd in that race so 5th is better, for sure. But not good enough.

Big thanks to Karl Hoppner for pitting for both of us, Tasha had to get drug tested so she didn't see him after to thank him. Also thanks to Jostève (pronounced joz-stev ...the name that we have randomly given to the cute couple of Steve Proulx and Josée Lamirande..kind of like Brangelina) for bringing the stems and yelling their brains out for both of us.

DSJ