Bikes and Code

That about sums my weekend up. This post is going to be long, so grab a beverage and relax.

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.

Two years ago at River Road, driving rain and low single digit weather led to a hypothermic Warren. Yesterday at the Murchie Road Spring Series course, driving rain and low single digit weather led to a hypothermic Warren. As of Friday afternoon, the weather reports were calling for temperatures in the 4-6C range, rain and southeast winds upwards of 30km/h. This was going to be awesome.

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.

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.