Today was a mass start 60km race with almost 300 riders. Weather was a
balmy 10C, sun, and 15m/s winds out of the north. That's what the
weather pages say. Wind wasn't quite that bad, but it was still quite
windy.
Here is the profile:
http://tck.no/index.php?catID=72&catname=Baglerrunden
The first 2km are behind the lead car at a steady 30km/h as we are
escorted out of town. This is always bad, as the group bunches up and
as we pass stopped cars, it gets even more squished, and some folks
panic and there are crashes. I saw 2 crashes in the first 3km, and 2
guys hit me and bounced off. (Mass comes in handy sometimes!).
As you can see from the profile, there is an ascent right from the
start. With a 20km/h tailwind, this was super fast. Between the
crashes and the speed, I ended up on the wrong side of a gap at about
km 5. It looked like about 50 riders ahead. I tried jumping from one
wheel to the next as I weaved passed dropped guys, but I couldn't
close. At the top, I was with a group of about 8 riders, including 3
women who all had ridden my wheel the last km or so trying to close. 6
of us knew what we were doing, but 2 of the guys were clueless. We
tried to get an echelon rotation going (as the road had turned and now
we had a sidewind) but they kept screwing it up. It wasn't that they
didn't have the hang of it, they were totally oblivious to what we
were trying to do. Eventually one of the women told those guys to sit
back and watch and learn. Then the 6 of us got something going. I
happened to end up behind one of the women who had a very top-line
carbon fiber/Record bike, and some tights with very suggestive semi-
translucent side panels. I almost forgot I was in a bike race!
We rolled along like that for a while, but it was too slow. At km 15,
I took the lead up a steep hill lined with spectators. I figured I'd
set a good pace I was comfortable with so nobody would do something
dumb like zoom up it and then wait at the top for me so I could pull
them down the other side. At the top, I looked back. Oops. Where is
everyone? One guy was a few meters back, everyone else was gone. He
was pretty big too. I figured anyone we could drop on a steep hill not
even really trying would not be much use once the road turned into
the wind in a few km.
So he and I battled the headwinds, up and down the nasty little hills.
It was open farm country so no respite from the wind. Behind us a
couple hundred meters was saw a big group of 70 riders or so. We sat
up for a second, and looked at each other. At the same time, we said
"Let's try to hold them off!" With [censored]-eating grins we jumped into
the wind again. Several kilometers later, we still had a big gap. I
knew the road was going to turn in a bit for a while, and I figured
that if 70 clowns couldn't catch us in a mean headwind, there was no
way they would catch us in a tailwind. Soon the road turned and we had
about 5km with tailwind. 53x13 smoking, and the group was out of
sight.
At around km 35 on a steep section, I blew up and couldn't hold his
wheel. I yelled, but I don't know if he heard me or cared. I had zero
power. I eased off for about a minute or so, but I picked it up again
when I saw the group behind. Hell no! I'm not going to let them catch
me til the big hill at km 42! So I dropped the hammer again, and
really opened up on the fast descent. I could hear the group's escort
motorcycle right behind me. He didn't want to pass, and that gave me
motivation to keep up the pace. But 500m into the 2km hill at km 42,
some of the leaders of that group caught me. (5.5%, headwind, 20km/h,
110kg for those who want to do the math...) I sat on their wheel
almost to the top, but by then I was hurting, so about 15-20 guys had
passed me at the summit. And then these last punks all sat up! I had
to keep braking to weave my way through to the leaders. I got to the
front just as we caught my partner from earlier. "Howdy!" He and I
then stayed at the front and upped the pace. As we got closer, more
people started helping out, but I made a point of trying to be in the
front. The surface was very bad and I wanted a clear view of the holes
to avoid. The finish has a dangerous chicane, so I took it easy, and
lots of guys tried to sqeeze past, and I let them. I didn't care about
place 55 vs 65 (or maybe it was 155...), I cared about the time. No
official results yet, but I think I was about 6 minutes behind the
winning time of about 1:40.
That was fun. My legs hurt. Next week is 100km:
http://www.tender.no/hoydeprofil.htm
Joseph