Well i feel like i could just copy and paste my report from 2 years ago. After getting a 1.5hr warmup in because our race was delayed i lined up at the back of the field since i missed the initial lineup. Luckly there was only a couple rows and once we started i was able to move up pretty quickly to be not too far back at the first turn. There were 29 starters this year which is the most i think i've seen in this race. My objective is always to try and play it smart and stick with the lead group as long as i can. About the 6th or 7th time up the hill i started getting gapped on the hill. I was still able to catch back on and then move to the front of the field before or after turn 5 so i was towards the front at the bottom of the hill. I'd try to get in a good rhythm for the bottom half of the hill and not lose too many spots but on the 8th lap i finally came unhitched.
For the final 4 laps it became a game of how many riders can i pick off. Of the riders being dropped it seemed i was able to catch and then gap them on the hill. I dropped an abd rider with a good kick right out of the turn at the top of the hill. Once i made the turn off of the descent he was gone. With 2 to go there was a xxx rider and then a SSC rider in front of me. I eventually caught the SSC guy on the hill and gapped him a bit but once off the descent he was back on my wheel. I went ahead and led the rest of the lap and tried to out sprint him to the line but he was able to come around and nip me right at the line.
I'm a little confused cause the results say a XXX rider placed 11th. I'm pretty sure that's wrong but who knows. Doesn't really matter. Maybe i did drop the SSC and the XXX is the one that came back. There's about 3 different XXX kits out there.
I will say that I felt pretty good about my technique for entering the bottom of the hill. I would drop it to the small ring and almost cross chain all the way to my 11. then i would literally take a pedal stroke or 2 and then shift up a couple cogs, take to more strokes and shift again. This way i was able to maintain momentum the whole time. Problem was i'd run out of cogs and couldn't match the skinny guys pace.
All in all i had a blast. I was hoping to place better since i've placed 11th the last 2 times i've raced this but i realize that the fields have gotten bigger each year and the climbers are coming out in droves.
TrainingPeaks file
No comments:
Post a Comment