Aldergrove Long Cat1/2

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Eugenehahn
Posts:31
Joined:Sun Feb 16, 2014 1:11 pm
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Aldergrove Long Cat1/2

Post by Eugenehahn » Wed Mar 29, 2017 9:02 am

My original intention this week was to race the Masters Classic race and test my legs against my mainland competition, but after a quick conversation with Aruss I decided to race with him and Ian in the Cat 1/2 and keep my masters buddies guessing about any early season form. The race was a 111km circuit race with the each lap punctuated by a punchy climb (read 12%) at the start finish. Good course for all of us so we had expectations of getting something done. The weather was not good, a balmy 4C and raining, which makes things even more challenging. Shortly after the gun, ARuss was on the juice stirring things up per usual. Early observation was that ARuss was heavily marked by Langlois and AL Murison from TRT as he was not given much room to play. Lots of attacking and counters through the first couple laps but nothing of note until our guy Ian launched himself from the group midway through lap three I think? He was joined by Arturo from Langlois and Amiel from Hewdog to form the the first significant move of the day. Those three rode well together for the next four or five laps and built a healthy gap, causing much stress among the Smart Savvy team as they missed the break. Andrew and I watched from safe positions in the group as the SS team went about a disorganized and underpowered chase of the breakaway. Andrew marked most of the dangerous counters while I sat back conserving for the second half of the race. The group up the road once past halfway began to attack each other which lead to Ian's eventual return to the pack somewhere on lap 7. Great effort from Ian as his sense to start and maintain that move shows just how far he has progressed in the last year, growing his confidence and watts with every race. Kudos Ian who now could just sit back and focus on finishing and contributing where he could. Ian's return meant that I now moved up and began pouring power into the chase. I was so cold I threw away my stupid nonfunctioning gloves and just rode hard. ARuss and I did the lion's share of the chase and reeled in Arturo pretty quick, leaving just Amiel out front. Problem being we still had Dylan Davies in our group, who had been invisible with a guy up the road, but on lap 9 when he started mixing it things happened quickly. ARuss and I were able to mark and contain him for a while, even getting in a small group with Dylan a another I think, but he was massively strong and fresh. He finally managed to escape in the crosswinds of zero ave and put down some serious watts to get away (read 400w plus until he was away for good). Pretty frustrating for us as it felt like the group had resigned from the race with not many others putting much in to the chase. I had long since stopped caring about actually completing the race and had been solely focusing on putting down as much power as possible to keep warm and hopefully keep ARuss in a good spot for whatever counters may come. ARuss even rode up and cautioned me to make sure to keep some reserves for the counter as we both needed to be in it. I heeded his words but kept riding right on the edge of my ability as I was actually starting to feel better as I warmed up. Funny thing as I motioned the next guy through after a long uphill drag to the top corner of the circuit I was off the front by 10m. I was like really? So I blasted the downhill section fulgas and stretched my lead. On to zero ave and I rode the cross section all out to the bottom of the hill where I planned to recover and see whats up behind. NO one in sight. I rode the hill tempo and I thought I heard Duncan yell from the sidelines you have 1:30 keep going! I really didn't know if he meant 1:30 to the leaders or the pack behind but I rode on. Managed my effort as best as possible to ensure I didn't blow, and that the guys behind would have to chase me down. ARuss stayed active inn the group causing panic whenever possible, and splitting the group on the punchy start finish climb on the penultimate lap. I rode the last lap solo, head down checking behind in 2 minute intervals, each time reinvigorated by the lack of visual confirmation of a chase group. By the time I hit the last start finish climb I was pretty wasted, but I still couldn't see the group behind, so I throttled back and savoured the last couple of minutes of the day. Solo for third on the day with the pack rolling in 50 s behind with both ARuss and Ian crossing the line in top 10 spots. Good day out for a small team with big hearts, big watts and great execution.

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