cycling and spandex is metal!Anyway, it's been a pretty good month so far. I, Robbie, had some races last weekend and feel that they went pretty well.
Saturday, April 5:
Spencer let me borrow his car to drive to the Lookout Mountain hill climb time trial in Golden. I was quite nervous going into the whole thing because I've been more of a flatlander this year. Although, the climb was just short enough for me to do ok. Total distance was around 4.5 miles with about 1220 feet of ascent (yeah, the mapmyride elevation profile is wrong). After a good warm up and plenty of solid and liquid sugar I rode a time of 19 minutes and 57 seconds. This was good enough to place 2nd in the cat. 4's in a field of 74 riders. In addition to being a good opener for the Koppenberg the next day, I was able to get some stats on my maximum sustainable heart rate, which turned out to be somewhere between 183 and 185. Now I might consider aiming at some heart rate zones in the next few months.
Sunday, April 6:
I take it all back Colorado! Don't harden up, just reschedule races whenever the weather is shifty, because in this case it was a damn good decision. The weather for the 2008 Koppenberg was phenomenal, not to mention it was held on the same day as it's predecessor, the Tour of Flanders. I had a rough start in the morning: ran out of granola for breakfast, late out the door, not enough time to drink coffee, and a headwind all the way to the race start (a ride that usually takes 35 minutes took me 55 minutes). I showed up just in time to register for the cat. 4 race and have a few sips of Maté that I brought in a thermos. I was planning on buying a few bananas before the race but I never had the chance, so I had a few gu's instead. Lining up at the start I saw Chris and Spencer on the sideline, which meant things were starting to look good.
The important thing about this race is getting into the 17% grade, dirt, Koppenberg climb first, so as to avoid losing your momentum. Despite riding perhaps a bit too hard I managed to be the first into the climb. Behind me I could hear pedals unclipping, chains dropping, and gears popping. At the top of the climb we had a long tailwind along a dirt road. Knowing that 3/4 of the field was still clawing their way up the Koppenberg I rode hard at the front to string out the field. It was a pretty awesome sight to look back and see the field strung out down the road. Coming into the Marshall Road "climb" I slowed the pace to avoid hurting myself. No one wanted to take a pull so I just rode my own pace and the other riders seemed to be ok with it. I finally got behind a couple of guys coming back through the start/finish area. I remained behind one or two riders all the way back to Marshall Road where somebody had ridden off the front. At this point I talked to Nate from Propeloton about bridging the gap, he sounded up to it. I made the acceleration first and unfortunately he wasn't able to match it. It would have been nice to have him for the 2.5 remaining laps. I reached the flyer and told him to hop on my wheel. Before we knew it we were clear from the field. I certainly didn't want to ride the rest of the race by myself but I also knew that we'd have to ride pretty fast for the the break to be successful. I let this other guy try to take a pull or two but it only slowed us down. When we got back to the Koppenberg I decided to go it alone by putting in a big acceleration up the climb. From there I guess it was just a simple matter of riding my guts out, but not too far out. I turned on my heart rate monitor (which wasn't working at the start) and made sure I stayed above 180 but below 185. This proved to be a good technique. I rode as fast as I possibly could without going into the red. The last mile of the race was a good one. I knew I had won it, which numbed the pain of the last 45 minutes. Just for fun I redlined on the final Marshall climb and the false flat to the finish, but I didn't feel a thing. The next few riders came in about a minute afterward. (Results)
Yesterday, I sent in my upgrade request to the American Cycling Association. Today I got my upgrade to cat. 3!
Upcoming Colorado races
- Haystack Mountain Ind. & Team Time Trials
- Team Tokyo Joe's Spring Criterium
- Deer Trail Road Race
- ColoBikeLaw.com Lookout Mt. Hill Climb
- Rabbit Mountain Time Trial
- Sunshine Hill Climb
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