To Summarize:

• 1st Spring Series Murchie Road Race (C)
• 1st Devo Stage Race Criterium (C)
• 2nd Devo Stage Race Overall (C)
• 1st Random Coastal Thursday Nighter (B)
• 4th Random Coastal Thursday Nighter (A/B)
• Couple of other Top 5 (B)
• Several Primes (B)
• Upgrade to Category 3

Outside of the palmares though, there are some important observations I can make about how this season turned out.

I am a sprinter

This was known, I think. I did not properly appreciate it though. The powertap says I’m pushing 17.5 W/Kg for 5 seconds, 15.8 W/Kg at 10 seconds and about 11.4 W/Kg at 20 seconds. It falls off pretty hard from there, but it appears that that is enough of a jump to get a gap on the vast majority of Cat 3/4 racers around here.

Of note though, I need to be somewhat rested. If the pace ramps up, I can jump at the end, but if the race has a regular sustained high power section, my legs will be cooked long before the end. The Tour de White Rock and the WTNC out at UBC are examples of circuits that I have no real hope of ever sprinting at.

I can read races

This made me happy. I’ve kind of been a slow developer at this sport, which roughly translates into that I raced a lot before I ever saw the front end of a bike race. But now that I’m confident enough to get up there, I’ve been fairly decent at picking important breaks and when to make decisive moves.

My win in the Murchie Road Race came after watching a bunch of breaks come back due to the attacker sitting up, not the field speeding up. It was wet and cold and the field was sad and miserable. I attacked as a cross headwind turned to a cross tailwind then spent 20 minutes alone at the race average speed and didn’t get caught.

In two different races I correctly picked very serious and dangerous breaks and got into them. The first, the Devo Stage Race road race, I hung with the break until a couple of km to go, but stayed away. The second, in Delta, I burned far too many matches in my 1 lap chase to bridge across the 10-12 second gap and got dropped from the break after 4-5 more laps. That break wasn’t caught until 3 to go. Arguably, if I hadn’t been weak or was able to help longer, it might have stayed away.

Lots of times I attacked at the wrong time, followed the wrong wheel or just plain didn’t have the legs, but I felt that my ability to read the races has gotten to the point that I can call it a strength.

I’m not terrible at Time Trials

I’m not great at them either though. Ottawa’s regular TT series taught me how to ride a time trial, so despite not having a huge threshold or anything, I know how to suffer. I placed in the top third of the two TT’s I raced this year, both in stage races.

Race 1 – Criterium

Saturday morning started out with a 35 minute flat criterium. This would be my first crit since August and was shocking. The few road races and most of the riding I had done thus far had completely not prepared me for a criterium.

It was hard and fast and by the halfway point the field had been whittled down from roughly 35 starters to a group of fifteen. Other attacks went out of this group but with 15 minutes to go it was pretty clear that this was going to be the group for the finale.

Of note, the final corner into the finishing ‘straight’ (which was actually a gentle S curve), was tight, off camber and roughly 100m from the line. So hitting that corner in first or second was going to be critical.

With 5 laps to go, another hard acceleration shed the last couple of riders who were hanging on. With 4 laps to go, the pace slowed down a bit and I could recover. Since I had no desire to jockey with the field on that last corner, my plan was an 800m or so attack, right after corner 2, which was the first of 3 on the circuit that required some speed control.

Last lap, I was feeling pretty good and when the pace inevitably slowed around the start/finish, I accelerated to put myself in the top 5 for corner #2. A car on the course which I hadn’t seen due to my tailgunning position slowed the field further and I shot to nearly the front. Kind of unsporting, but I had committed before I saw the car, so whatever.

I came around the corner in about 4th position and when the three in front of me eased after the usual acceleration out of the corner I accelerated hard while staying seated. Quick look back several seconds later to see if there was an immediate reaction. Nope.

Coasted the next corner to get a few seconds of breather and sprinted hard again out of it. Ditto coming into the final straight. I heard yelling behind me as I rounded that last corner so I assumed the field was close. I stood and sprinted and no one came around me. 1 minute attack FTW.

Race 2 – Time Trial

Uneventful. 7th overall. Of note, the official results had everyone down as 1 minute faster than they actually were. Not sure what happened there, but from the dozen or so that I sampled it was consistent so if the timing is wrong for everyone by the same amount? Meh.

Race 3 – Murchie Road Race

64km, the furthest race for us ‘C’ guys so far. Somewhere between 40 and 50 starters, with at least a couple of dozen who were not a part of the stage race. They would be a bit fresher and thus had implications for the GC, which I was now 2nd in. 1st in the GC was right behind me in the crit and over a minute up on me in the TT where he took second.

The race started out fairly sedate with the first lap being fairly uneventful. By the second lap, attacks were going fairly consistently with solo flyers and groups of two getting decent gaps from time to time. I participated in one, but with 50+km to go, it was too far for a two man break as far as I was concerned.

The field wasn’t reacting to these breaks as there were still several strong guys in the field so tiny groups weren’t worrisome.

Then, just before the halfway point it changed. Two guys, one of whom I knew to be strong, had a relatively serious gap. Then, three guys, including two from the same team* flew past the front of the field where I had been monitoring the situation. Two of the three I knew to be strong.

That meant potentially 5 guys off the front where three were capable of going the distance. Crap. I need to be in that break.

I jumped hard and 30 seconds later was at least holding steady with the group ahead and took a peak back to survey the damage. Moderate gap to the field and #1 on GC right behind me. Crap. Decision time here, I could sit up and attempt to drop the GC leader at some later point or I could work to try to get into the break and pretty much settle for 2nd. I took the latter option.

The bridge was hard and took us several minutes as the other 3 were also bridging and working on establishing the gap at that point. We did eventually hook up and at that point, seven of us were off the front. We would not see the main field again.

With two laps to go, I was pretty cooked. With a lap to go, I knew the next acceleration would be throwing me off the back. With a half lap to go, the acceleration came and I was the first to pop from the break. I probably could have hung on for another km or so, but there was no way I would go to the finish with the break. That said, our gap over the field was somewhere between two and three minutes so I figured I could limp in without falling through the field.

I did, 7th on the day and 2nd in the GC. That’s it for cat 4 for me, I’ve got the required upgrade points.

The wins and high placings were great, but what I think I’m most happy with is my reading of races this year. I correctly predicted good places to attack and recognized a winning break when it went up the road and buried myself to get into it. That’s experience I suppose, but it’s nice confirmation that I’ve got a solid base on the smarts of bike racing.

*Two from Escape Velocity, of note, NOT the guy in 3rd on the GC. This effectively meant that two teammates of a potential podium on the GC just guaranteed his top position would be 3rd. Not smart racing on their part. Bluntly, if they had worked with him to shatter the field, I probably would have been off the back.

This particular race was a focus for me as this circuit will be used in the Devo stage race this year. I wanted to get out and race hard on the circuit once so I would know what to expect in early April.

From the finish line, the circuit went into a cross-headwind along a mildly rolling road for a couple of kilometers. A slight rise to a right turn then put you on a flatter stretch with a cross tail wind. Another right and another cross tailwind down the only real hill of the circuit. At the bottom of the hill, another right took us onto Murchie Road and several left and right corners before heading back to uphill drag to the finish line.

Before the race, I had expected a few things. The first, that an attack coming out of the long front stretch onto 0 avenue could be effective. Cross headwind to cross tailwind can stretch things out. Also, with a large part of the course being on some twisting roads, a break could well get out of sight. Finally, if the weather was particularly miserable, that would also bode well for the break.

Basically, I called it.

I had a couple of tactical goals for the race:

1. Stay on the inside and out of the wind on the the long 240th Street stretch.
2. Jump across to and start a couple of breaks.
3. Stay in the top 10 as much as possible.

By the time lap 4 (of 7, for a total of 56km) rolled around I had put in a few hard attacks and bridged up to a couple more. Nothing lasted for more than a couple of minutes. I was also thinking seriously of abandoning. My fingers were numb enough that taking a drink from the bottle wasn’t really possible anymore and the feet were numb so standing up and riding wasn’t really an option either.

Still short attacks went, guys getting a few seconds on the field and then drifting back. Basically no one was willing to face the long headwind alone and it appeared that the field was tired and miserable enough that the aggressive riders just wouldn’t get oraganized.

Three laps to go and I decided two things. One, I would attack on 0 avenue with a lap and a half, about 12km, to go. Two, after I was caught, at the first available opportunity I would head back to the car and call it a day.

Twenty more painfully cold minutes followed as we got to my planned attack point.

I came around the corner in about tenth place and put myself into the fast lane. When I was fifth in line I accelerated hard, about 200m before the right hander onto the downhill. I rounded that corner and took a look behind me to see what had happened, I definitely had a gap and someone was following me. This made me happy. I continued to pull hard, attempting to extend the gap before I rotated around.

Several seconds later, I glanced around again and realized I was alone. Oh. Crap.

The time trial started. I hit the wet, slippery corners at safe speeds and anywhere the road was good enough, I went down into the invisible aerobar position. I didn’t expect the break to last terribly long. But it just wouldn’t end. At the bell, with about 8km to go, I had a pretty sizable gap. After coming off the headwind stretch, I started trying to count the gap by glancing back every now and then. With half a lap, about 4km left to go including the downhill stretch I guestimated that I had a gap of somewhere north of 20 seconds. At this point I realized I had a very real chance of winning.

I pushed harder and checked my six out of most corners. The gap was coming down, but very slowly. Finally, after hours (20 minutes), I checked behind me one last time and sat up, lifted an arm and crossed the line a few seconds ahead of the sprint.

Solo, off the front for twenty minutes to a win. That’s easily my best race by a long shot. I’m over halfway to an upgrade now, that should be coming in the next handful of races I suspect.

At the start of the 2010 cycling season, category 5 was eliminated. Category 5 had been a true entry level category and 4 had some at least mildly seasoned racers. At the start of 2010, these two were merged giving the category a fairly wide breadth of abilities.

In 2010, the various race series, such as Escape Velocity‘s Tuesday night criteriums and Team Coastal‘s Thursday Challenge, did not count for upgrade points. This meant that there really were only about a dozen races that counted for upgrade points. Very few riders rode that many of the larger events.

Several of those races had category 3/4 combined fields. Tour de White Rock, Steveston Sockeye Spin and the Tour de Delta are three criteriums that come to mind. You were given upgrade points in a 3/4 race based on your position in your category, so if you finished 10th in the race, but were the highest category 4 finisher, you would get 8 points.

In theory, this all works out well. Unfortunately, in practice, there were a few problems.

First and foremost, there simply weren’t many upgrade points available. Category 3 and 4 each had about ten people upgrade by the end of the 2010 season. Approximately 60 category 3 riders and about 70 category 4 riders earned points in 2010. (2010 upgrade information) This might be by design. You do not want to push riders up a category until they are truly ready. However, if there are not enough points available you end up with a mushroom cloud situation where there are a large number of people near the top of the category who can earn points at any given race but since the spread is wide, none of them get enough to upgrade.

This makes for good, fun racing.

The failure in the system was that in 2010 many new, inexperienced racers entered their first ‘big’ bike race in the category 3/4 field where a hard fought battle among riders nearly in the 2′s was fought. The fitness and experience gap between a relatively new racer and a rider who was on the verge of category 2 in the old system is enormous.

This makes for a terrible and often expensive experience for your new, enthusiastic racer.

So the situation is, with category 4 being the entry level category, we shouldn’t be having them race with riders who are effectively strong enough to race at a national level. Thus, to improve the situation for the new racers, the strongest category 3 riders need to be moved up to category 2.

As it stands now, 2011 will have three times the number of available upgrade points as 2010. Upgrades are immediate so a number of riders will be upgraded by the time the Escape Velocity Spring Series is over. By the time the race heavy month of May is over, theoretically 30 riders could be upgraded. In practice, this number will be somewhat smaller, but we’re still talking about twice as many upgrades in half of the 2011 season as there was in the entire 2010 season.

Unfortunately, with the sheer number of weekly races available, I doubt this is sustainable. 40 new riders into the category 1/2 races this year might be fine once. It’s doubtful that BC can supply enough strong new cyclists to upgrade that many into the top ranks of the sport every year.

There are two ways this could play out.

2011 runs as is documented. Many 3′s move up to category 2. Many 4′s are properly slotted into category 3 with some going right on through to 2 (you know who you are). In 2012, the rules are changed such that local weekly races count for half points or something like that, slowing the upgrade flood.

An alternate method, and the way I’d personally do it is to closely monitor the upgrades. Once the upper eschelon of category 3 riders has moved up to category 2, slow the tide and count local weekly races for half points or cap them at the ‘races with 5-10 racers’ level, regardless of the total number. (3,2,1 points for 1st, 2nd, 3rd place respectively)

That has the effect of quickly moving up the strongest riders in the various groups as well as still providing a reward for coming out and racing hard during the week without making a Tuesday night race as important to a rider’s development as a 100km road race.

The one variable I don’t know is how many people get out of the sport or go on to only race in the masters categories. Those numbers would have some effect on the outcomes here.

Either way, it will be interesting to see what actually happens.

————–

Primes are a part of racing that I haven’t been overly interested in as of yet. Recovery isn’t really my strong suit and, as a classically pure sprinter, I tend to get one really good effort in a race, then I am cooked.

So I’m out at the Thursday nighter. My plan for the evening was to ride at the front, lifting the pace when appropriate and perhaps get into some breaks. After four laps of this, the first prime was  called. I was feeling pretty good, so my major thought was to stick near the front and if I got a clear lane, go for it. The final corner of this course is really wide and that night the front stretch had a really nice tailwind. As we rounded the corner, I was in about third place, to the back and right of the guy currently leading. He was looking solidly back over his *left* shoulder to watch someone else.

And he kept looking that way, for several seconds. I’m a pretty good sprinter and I’ve done enough of these races that I get marked now. “Well, if he’s busy watching some other dude, I’m going to make him pay for it.” I stood up and started sprinting, since he was looking the other way, I quickly got a little gap and once he wasn’t in my slipstream, I pretty much had it with 200m to go to the line. First ever prime!

Richmond Coastal Challenge, May 27, 2010, C race. Cool and a bit breezy but otherwise a great night for racing. I got there nice and early for the 6:30 start only to find out that the start was, in fact, at 7pm. Ten guys starting, a couple who recognized me as ‘Cannondale guy’ from two weeks ago and mentioned they’d be watching me. That’s cool.

So the race starts, a Devo rider and someone else go off the front almost immediately. A couple of other guys follow, but the two get serious and are off on their own. They take the first prime and are holding a fairly steady gap. The field is not working well together to pull them back, but since they are not really getting further ahead, I’m content to sit at the back and keep an eye on things. A couple of laps later, the gap actually starts to go out a bit again so I work my way into the rotation and when I hit the front accelerate a touch. Two goals: One, bring the race back together. Two, stretch out the legs of everyone a bit.

I got a bit carried away and twenty seconds later had a tiny gap. I eased up, so did the field behind me. In the interest of punishing this kind of behaviour I stood up and crossed the gap, leaving the pack behind. They accelerated and a lap later, as I was coming off the front of the break, the pack rejoined.

A couple of laps later, another prime was called. The Devo rider took it and when he had a gap, continued riding pretty hard. I bridged up to him and when he pulled off, continued onwards. Unfortunately, I think he was blown this time. I eased up a bit but ultimately it all came back together again a half lap later. Four to go.

The next three laps were slow. Really, really slow. My plan was for the last lap heroics so I was content to rest and recover. This was solidified as I had decided that even if I wasn’t going to win, a fast last mile would at least make it a bit safer, so I was going to pull the entire time. The two short breaks had gone well and I felt pretty good. 50m before the start/finish line on the bell lap I sprint as hard as I can. Someone yells something to the effect of “Get on his wheel!” but no one does. I got a few seconds on the field almost immediately and by about halfway through the lap it was clear to me that this might work.

Glances back on the corners showed that the field wasn’t really closing in. 300m to go and I peek and see someone coming across the gap. My brain was totally fried so I took another look to confirm a couple of seconds later. Yep, definitely one dude coming quickly but not fast enough to catch me. Damn, I’m going to win.

Numbers (I need to get a power meter…) : 53km/h to get the gap, up from a ridiculously slow 33km/h or whatever we were going at the time, a pretty decent jump for me. 1:47 for the last lap, which works out to about 43km/h average. Last lap was something like 40 seconds faster than the penultimate and a personal record on the course for me in any situation. New max heart rate of 196.

Realizations: Winning hurts. Granted, a 2 minute max effort is always going to suck, but that was undoubtedly the sharpest pain I’ve ever felt on a bike. I was seriously concerned shortly after the line that I might not be able to stay on the bike. As it was, I did a ‘lift one fist 6 inches above the handle bar’ victory salute, then was too scared to take the hands off again for a solid two minutes.

It was awesome. Taking a week off due to work concerns, but with a mountain bike race this weekend and one or two crits next week, I’m pretty excited.

Coastal Thursday Nighter – May 13

Fifteen or so starters. I arrived at 6:15 due to the website claiming a 7:00 start time for the C racers. That was incorrect, nothing like lining up to a < 30 minute criterium with no warmup. Supposedly I wasn’t the only one who got mixed up and the field was a touch smaller than it should have been.

So we’ll assume 15 starters. Fourteen different jerseys in the race, the only two guys who appeared to be on the same team were both in white jerseys, we will call them White1 and White2. No one else really mattered in this race.

We take off, my plan at this point is to spend the first several laps warming up, then see how it goes. Specifically, I intend on sticking with the lead group the entire race if possible and then attacking with about 1km to go and seeing if I can hold it. Two or so laps into the race, White1 takes off on a solo adventure. White2 works his way to the front and rides at a comfortable tempo. Twoish laps later, White1 takes the first preme of the race. White2 is still pulling and since he’s actually going at a decent clip, no one really steps in to help out. Another lap or so later and the guy out by himself sits and up and chills at the back of the pack for a while. White2 is *still* pulling.

Six laps to go and the bell rings for the second preme of the race. Coming onto the the front stretch, the pace gets high and the two white jersey guys are right at the front, drilling it. The leadout pulls off and I’m pretty sure his teammate snags the second preme. I accelerate fairly hard to stay in the slipstream and am sitting in about fifth place. Tactical thoughts at this point are: White1 spent time off the front and mixed it up in the sprint. White2 pulled a long way and also mixed it up. I bet they are kind of cooked and no one else is doing much.

Screw it.

Out of corner two with just under 5 laps to go, I slide out of the line to the right and start accelerating. When I pass #2 in line, someone yells something about someone going and I stand and sprint hard. I jump somewhere a bit above 50km/h and then sit and ride hard. By the 4 to go board, I’ve got 10 seconds on the group. At 3.5 to go, I make the conscious decision to try to stick it out and get into my survival pace.

I get a maximum of about 15 seconds, 10 of which is eaten up on the penultimate lap and am caught with about 300m to go. Straight back through the field and off the back.

According to the computer, the first 1:40 of the attack was at an average speed of 45km/h and the entire 10 minute duration of the thing was about 39km/h, which is pretty damned good for me. Definitely wouldn’t have stood up to a larger field, but with the small field it almost worked.

One thing I noticed though: Pretty much everyone hangs out at the start/finish line. The first time across alone, there was a bit of clapping. Second lap, a bit more. by the third lap that I was out in front, it seemed that there were a lot of people getting pretty vocal, which was awesome. Sort of a, “Huh, he’s not giving up, I didn’t expect that.”

Campbell Heights Classic

A fun course. Two short climbs, one really steep and the other merely steep. Most of the rest is flat to gently downhill. This was also my first ‘real’ cat 4 race with, according to the results, 28 starters. For me, this race comes down to 16 climbs and how many of them I can get over while remaining attached to the front group. The number was 10. On the sixth climb up 184th Street, I blew up and probably dropped 30 seconds during that 300 metre stretch alone. I kept going and was swept up by the grupetto and finished the race with them.

Plus sides: When I did get shelled, the lead group only had 13 guys left in it, including me. So I did hang in longer than more than half the field, which is a decent sign I suppose.

Also of note, this race did include the longest sustained, “Holy Crap we’re going fast” of any race I’ve been in thus far. After climb 1 of lap 4, we went to ludicrous speed for the better part of a lap. This reduced the field down to the mentioned 13 from whatever it was previously. In the cat 5 races I had done, this kind of acceleration happened, but it would last for a minute or two, not several. This lead to possibly the most pain I have ever felt on a bike.

Well, that or the crit, that didn’t feel overly good either, but it mentally feels better if you’re off the front as opposed to clinging on for dear life.

So that’s three races in a row where I finished off the back for whatever reason. Not for lack of trying though.

Armstrong Road is a short road of about 3km in North Langley. About half of that is smooth, good pavement, the other half is rough and bumpy. Over the first 2km or so, it raises 80m in 3 stairstep pitches. 12%, 10% and the last, on the bumpy pavement is something like 8%. This feature utterly dominates the Armstrong Road Spring Series race.

Not being someone who handles sustained climbs very well, I expected this race to be over fairly quickly. The last truly hilly races I had done, admittedly a couple of years ago, the Ottawa Grand Prix in Gatineau Park generally ended up with me being shot off the back on the first major ascent. I saw no reason why this race would be any different.

The race starts at the top of the course. A straight downhill gets the speeds up nice and  high. A sharp right hand bend into a further downhill. This next stretch is great fun as the road lazily winds down the hill. Bottom of the hill is a hard right, then onto the flats for a couple of kilometers for a few turns. After River Road, you take a turn to the right and head up the hill. The first pitch is the steepest and it tops out with a long false flat. Then it kicks up again. The second false flat is short and is noted by the road surface going from great to horrible. One more climb and then the finish line.

I started out at the front intending to remain in the top ten or so places as long as possible. Going into a climb at the front means you do get a bit of a chance to drift back and use a touch less energy. I hit the hill in about 8th place and to my surprise stayed there. A couple of attacks went off and various people ramped up the pace to bring them back but nothing doing.

I could have been done after that first climb. My heart rate was in to the mid 180’s for most of it, which is well into the not sustainable level for me. If the remainder of the climbs were this fast, it was just a matter of time.

A couple of laps later, a couple of guys rode a fairly serious tempo up the hill. I basically hung on for all I was worth to a chase group and we all came in contact again on the final uphill before the finish line. I was sitting in about 10th place, looked behind me and saw nobody. Great, I was in a break on a climber’s course. This was going to end well.

Due, I think, to some poor rotations and some serious effort on the part of the remainder of the race, the pack made contact again about 5km later at the base of the climb again. I made it to the top in the main pack again, but at this point, 4/7 climbs through the race, I could tell that I was getting into trouble.

I was shelled on the second pitch of lap 5. The lights went out and I lost 50m in probably a minute. What remained of the pack slowed over on the bumpy roads, and I closed most of the gap, but I never actually got back on. I very, very seriously debated climbing off the bike there, but decided I’d at least ride to the corner where I parked, which was about 800m past the finish line and flat/downhill.

“Well, I only have to go up that hill two more times, there are some other dropped guys ahead of me to maybe ride with and I can totally bomb down this descent with guys flagging me through corners. Yeah. I’m going to finish this race.”

So I did. Rode hard on the flats, survived up the hill and bombed the descent. It was awesome.

Placed probably around 20th, based on the size of the peloton that went up the road. 40 starters so that’s pretty good. Considering I spent some time in a break and was riding at the front until said lights went out, I’m pretty happy with the whole thing.

Team Escape Velocity puts on a series of races every spring, the aptly named Spring Series. The first race is a nearly flat 4 corner circuit race in Langley. Specifically, this. Last year’s race was marked by sleet and snow towards the end of it. This year, the forecast called for rain ‘in the afternoon’. I don’t want to give too much away here, but the forecast lied.

Let’s start out with a quick overview of a lap of the course: Go straight with a tailwind. Turn right onto a slightly narrower road. Enjoy a crosswind from the right for a minute or so, then turn right again onto a yet narrower road. This is also dead straight, but undulates slightly with a dip down most of the way through it. Turn right yet again onto the narrowest road in the race, which is also entertainingly the worst pavement in the race. Be bumped and jostled and lose 10m or so of elevation and turn right one final time back onto the front stretch.

I should have remembered this from last year, but the C race at least plays out in such a way that positioning is very important. With the yellow line rule in effect, there consistently is only one good place to move up significantly per lap, coming out of turn 4, onto the front stretch. Generally out of the other three corners, there is the usual acceleration out of the corner, then it slows right down again. As soon as that happens, the pack bunches up and there is no room to pass. The front stretch is a bit wider and takes closer to a kilometer before this happens, so moving up pretty much needs to happen here.

As for how much? Based on the numbers I got from the race, there were consistent accelerations nearly up to 50km/h out of the corners. This slowed down to below 35km/h on much of the rest of the course. What this actually meant was that the accordion effect was somewhat mitigated. Even at the back where you slowed down for the corners, you did not need to hit it too hard to stay on as the field slowed down significantly on a regular basis.

As for my race? The plan was to tailgun for much of it, getting a decent interval workout at the back. If I could position myself well, then try attacking on the last lap or two. I couldn’t position myself and a couple of crashes in the dying moments of the race did not inspire me to take further risks on the wet roads. Finished in the middle of the pack which did break up somewhat in the final metres.

All in all? I’m somewhat happy with it. It’s pretty much the flattest road race of the year for me, which is theoretically good for me, but not terribly exciting. Next week is the Armstrong Road course, which is dominated by a fairly serious climb every lap.

Ottawa has a great series of races each fall and while I knew it was something special, I had hopes that Vancouver would offer a similar number of races. As it turns out, there are a bunch of races, unfortunately, 4 of the 6 in the Lower Mainland are on two weekends as opposed to spread out over the season. Alas.

On the plus side, it’s easier to pretend you are a Serious Bike Racer when you have back to back races, which was kind of cool for me.

Race 1: New Brighton Park

Tough, tough race – Google Earth

Start was paved and slightly downhill into a paved hairpin. Bunny hop up a curb and into a narrow, muddy climb. No need to run up this one. Some up and down twisties then a double barrier for running. Up over some more grass and into some very tight, massively off camber corners where speeds dropped to below walking. Couple more corners, then some deep sand, more grass, two very short steep climbs, if it had been wet, both would have been run-ups, but as it was, riding was possible. Down to more sand and a giant step, then a final climb onto the pavement again.

Tough for me mainly as there was effectively no place to recover. I’m a decent technical rider, but I need to have short sections to ease up for a bit and bring the heart rate under control for a bit. Otherwise, it’s a more pure form of suffering which does not bode well for me. This was the case here. The course was, despite some short punchy climbs, was relatively flat, so there were no extended downhills to ease up a bit. To use some retarded sport dude statement, I was deep in the hurt locker the entire race.

Placed near the back of the pack. On the lead lap though.

Race 2: Vanier Park

More my style and possibly one of the most fun courses I’ve ever raced on – Google Earth

The start on this one was across a flat, hard packed and very bumpy grass field. Quick dismount to get up 6ish stairs and back on to climb up alongside the Planetarium. Winding climb up through the trees, not too steep, but in some thickish grass so it was somewhat of a power climb. Off camber hairpin at the top to drop down to the main part of the course again. Over a bridge and then continue the descent through some fast sweeping corners. Deep gravel hairpin, then some more twisty grass stuff and a couple of barriers on a steep uphill. From there, into what was called the maze. 4 back to back tight hairpins, 2 very off camber. The last part of the course was a hard packed mud out and back and a fun steep downhill into a right/left/right before the finish line.

The nice thing about this course, aside from the lack of places where running was required, was that there were places to recover. The relatively long downhill beside the Planetarium allowed for a few seconds of respite, which I need badly in a ‘cross race. It showed. I finished just behind someone who was nearly 3 minutes ahead of me at New Brighton. I was 2:30 behind the winner at Vanier and more like 6:00 behind the winner at New Brighton. Ended up 14th out of about 40, so not terrible I suppose.

What did I learn here? Not much. I don’t do well in road races that have lots of climbs as I am not terribly good at them. That said, climbing in a ‘cross race seems to be good for me. It means there will be recovery time later. Still, was well above the halfway through the field point at Vanier, so I’m taking that as a good sign.