Sunday, February 17, 2013

2013 Pine Flat - Pro 1/2

After flatting out of Cantua Creek (yes 2nd flat in 3 weeks of racing with tires in good condition... WTF) I was hoping my bad luck streak would turnaround for my inaugural attempt at racing Pine "Flat".

Course: 62 mile near-loop with a gently rolling 22mile start out & back section, then ~30mi mostly flat with a few rollers before the real climbing begins. 2 main climbs in the last 10miles, the first one comes after a false flat with rollers and is about 3+miles long, then a fast relatively non-technical decent followed by gentle rollers and a final steep 1km climb.

Result: 6th good enough for the coveted VeloPromo T-shirt!!!

Report: The 5am wake-up for a 7:30am start was a bit of the shock but was able to get to the start to check out the competition. The notables and marked riders were the Garmin development riders Adrian and Zeke, Chris H-D (MarcPro), plus a handful of climbers types I recognize from the NCNCA and my days racing in SoCal. Then there were a few unknowns which included 5 riders from Japan and 3 riders from Oregon. Total field size was only 25 or so.

At about mile 2 a group of 5 took off on a rolling decent. The pack was not too concerned since it appeared all the watched riders were still in the field. The pack continued along with slightly more urgency with about half the riders pulling through to lift the pace and keep the leaders in range. By the turnaround the group had 45s and included 1 Japanese rider, 1 Oregon rider, Travis (Mikes Bikes), Don Chapin, and Vincent (Dayka-Hackett). By the halfway point Travis had dropped from the break and the gap was now up to 2:30. The pack's pace stayed relatively high, but with no team with more than 1 or 2 riders, it was basically up to each individual to decide how they were going to play their card. I took some pulls throughout the whole race since I was pretty worried it was going to stick, a few other riders did about as much work as me, with a few doing much more work. Matt Gordon (Fusion) did a ton of work, but despite our efforts when we hit the first climb the leaders were still ~2min ahead.

On the rollers leading up to the main climb there were a flurry of attacks. At one point it looked like the main pack was splitting and I decided to jump across, I bridged fast so no one would go with me, but eventually the entire field came back together so turned out to be a pretty big waste of energy. Later Zeke and another rider were given a small leash on the last few rollers, followed by Adrian rolling off just as the main climb began. Don and the Japanese rider from the break were caught so now there were 2 from the original break and 3 others scattered up the road. It was clear it was game on, Chris H-D and myself hit the main climb with some intention hoping to slowly bring back the riders ahead. Chris and I traded steady hard pulls at 5.0 - 5.5 watts/kg for portion of the climb, but the pack had no intention of going this hard on the first climb. After a few pulls only one of the Japanese riders was with us. Halfway up the main climb Chris was doing the pulling and the Japanese rider was fading with significant daylight between us and the pack. We passed the Bicycles Plus rider during this effort, so now Chris and I were racing for 5th.

At about 1km from the peak I started to fade and I regretfully I didn't dig enough for the last few minutes to get some help on the descent and valley (always seems so much easier/simpler in hindsight). As Chris crested the top he caught the Oregon rider from the original break. I hit the top ~15s behind Chris and the next rider behind has about the same gap. Driving this part of the course at 6am was extremely helpful for the decent, knowing there were no surprise corners I was able to descend about as fast as any 57kg rider can, but still it seemed Chris and his new companion were slowly drifting away. I tried to keep my motivation up as much as possible since the somewhat windy gently rolling valley solo TT I was now embarking on is not my forte. Coming into the final climb the two riders ahead were now out of sight and I had increased my gap only slightly on the rider behind with no idea how far back the main chase group was.

When I hit the 1km sign it was a huge relief, it was clear that my legs could keep me from getting caught by the pack and I should have 6th locked up so I simply set a steady threshold-ish tempo, but the rider behind started to close on me. So about half way up I hit the gas to finish strong, then with 200m to go I see the Oregon rider who has clearly blown. I dig deeper hoping there is enough road left to grab 5th, but unfortunately I ran out of real estate and crossed the line in 6th just a few seconds behind 5th. Adrian timed it perfect and caught the last rider from the break on the final climb, Vince 2nd, Chris H-D 3rd, Zeke 4th.

Takaways: Happy with my riding and result, didn't ride a perfect race but had fun, loved the course, and hopefully learned a thing or two about my riding and fitness coming into the 2013 season. Again always easier when looking back on it, but going way into the red during the last 1km of the main climb to get the "free" ride for the decent and valley would have saved me a ton of energy even if I had to use one big match to stay with Chris over the top, worst case I still would have gotten 6th. Also be aware of non-typical race scenarios, since no team had any real representation and with huge efforts coming towards the end of the race, means the race would not have a typical dynamic.

Data Geek info:
Strava Link: http://app.strava.com/activities/41345311 (includes warmup & ride to car)
Race Weight ~57.5kg
Work - 1942kJ
Norm Power: 234w (race only)
5sec Pwr - 948w (stupid for me to attack/bridge this hard in a race like this before a sustained climb)
2min Pwe - 334w (final 500m of the race)
5min Pwr - 294w (main climb)
10min Pwr - 288w (main climb)
20min Pwr - 262w (main climb + decent)

I had a blast racing this weekend Saturday and Sunday and it was great to give and receive support form ALL categories out there this weekend. SquadraSF really showed our strength and class this weekend at Cantua, PineFlat, and Coppertown!
Cheers,
James

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