El Tour de Tucson went very well. I showed up early enough to get a spot at the front, so only the Platinum riders and cheaters (Ywaine Klix from team Rhyno) were ahead of me in the Platinum Box. Platinum riders include past winners of El Tour, Pro riders, elite nationals, and VIPs (who fade very fast). So I started with a great position but my muscles were anything but warmed up. Given the tradeoff, I made the right decision. It took almost 15 minutes for everyone to cross the start line after the gun.
The weather was great except for a strong south wind, about 15mph. Unfortunately, most of the course was heading south--but it is what it is & you just have to deal with it. And although I don't like the wind, I know that I'm actually pretty strong riding against it, so in the end it probably was to my advantage.
My strategy was originally to be up front so I could race my own race. That was naive. About 10 seconds into the race my strategy changed. I was riding with the second group, behind only the people who started 20' ahead in the Platinum Box. I wasn't going to let this group go, and I knew that I had the endurance to punish myself early & still pull out a strong finish. So during the first mile or so I just focused on working my way up the pack. Then I started attacking. I attacked & was reeled in probably 6 times before I got away, but I knew that I was dropping people by making them go harder than they wanted to in the beginning. And attacking was the only way I felt sure that I'd not lose any ground on the hills. Being my weakness, my goal was just to stay with everyone on the hills, but as it turns out I was able to drop quite a few people. By 3 miles in we'd cleared the hills and it was time for some fun. I'd not only defended the hills but attacked & punished a lot of people already. But now...now I knew that there was no one who was going to get past me. As we turned onto Tangerine my AVS was already 21.5. Now with 3 miles of flat & 6 miles of descent, it was time to do some damage. I never let up on my legs and I was passing people constantly (of course, there were riders from every distance race on the course, so there were always people to pass). Only two people from the original group I was with were able to hang on to the bottom of Tangerine, and they drafted me closely all the way.
And the we all got stopped by a fucking train...and this is where we lost sight of the lead group of Platinum riders. Still, at the turn off of Tangerine, my AVS was by now 29.5. From here on it was basically a 1% climb with a few steep bumps over crappy, crappy roads, with a 15-20mph headwind. Yeah. I figured fair is fair, and so I now drafted the guys that drafted me down Tangerine. I held on down the frontage road, across Avra Valley, and even on Airline & Lambert, which are especially bumpy. But once we hit Rattlesnake Pass I just couldn't keep up. If it had just been the hill, no problem. If it had just been the bumps, okay. Or just the wind, aces. But between the climb & the bumps I just couldn't hang on, and even though I tried, once there was some air between them & me, I just couldn't overcome the wind, bumps, and climb to keep up. So they dropped me & I never saw them again. Once over Rattlesnake I was riding by myself...I finally was riding my own race. I never had another group or person to draft off of, but then again, from then on no one--not one person--was able to pass me & keep it for more than a minute. Alaska (the jersey) tried to pass & I suppose I hung on his wheel for maybe a minute, but then he dropped back to my wheel to get out of the wind. At this point I had decided that I really didn't care, that I was just racing my own race, and that I was just going to hammer my legs into the ground, leave it all out on the course. This is where my endurance really helped. I just stayed as aero as possible and hammered on. Soon I realized I hadn't heard anything from behind me for a few minutes, so I looked back and Alaska was nowhere to be found. Okay. I just kept hammering against the wind and passing rider after rider. I got stopped at 3--3 different stoplights on Silverbelle, which let a lot of people catch up to me. But as soon as the cops waived us on, I sprinted out of every stop and quickly dropped everyone.
Come to think of it, someone did pass me after the last time I got stopped and we'd turned onto Speedway. He wasn't racing the 42 so I remember not really caring too much. Once I turned back south on the frontage road the wind was worse than ever, but I knew it was only another 3 miles south, 1 mile east, and then I knew the wind would push me north 1 mile to the finish at top speed. And that's what happened. I fought the wind always staying in my big ring, climbed just a bit on 22nd, and then reached 30 some mph on the northerly 1 mile all-out to the finish.
I finished 39th out of 1280 (3.05%) overall (including tandems) and 34th out of 1216 (2.796%) in the solo division. Official time was 2:19:10, but again, that included a train & 3 intersection stops.
So what did I do right? I quickly adapted my race plan to the conditions. I attacked relentlessly, relying on my endurance to keep me alive after all the attacks. I didn't lose ground on the early hills, I even gained some ground, and I flew past people on the descents and flats which I know are my strength. I trained against the wind and with a lot of climbing which helped me to keep my legs pushing hard at all times. I drank every time I heard the lap alert and I ate about as often as I should have...although it's very easy to lose track of time when racing. Also, my choice of tires seemed about right. I rode a 25mm lightweight tire in the front with a 28mm heavy but durable tire in the back. The durability definitely was worth it considering how many people I saw changing flats. And the larger tires had to have helped on the rough roads. Only a few miles were REALLY bad, but about 1/3 to 1/2 of the course was bumpy enough to justify fat tires. I think the larger tires, which allowed for more deflection & kept more of my energy horizontal and less vertical, were a wise choice.
Areas of opportunity?
1: I overestimated the amount of fluid I needed. I only drank 2 small bottles, but I carried 3. The 3rd required that I installed a 2 cage behind the seat, seatpost mounted triathlon style Profile Design system. So I carried extra weight in both the bottle and the cage system, which isn't light. Would those 3lbs have made any difference? Maybe a little, but not much.
2: I failed in dropping any weight off of me. I was even a pound heavier than when I test rode the course. I'm actually very alarmed by the amount of weight I've been putting on over the past week to two weeks, but that's another matter. I feel like I easily could've gone into this race at 220 or 215 instead of 230, and that WOULD have made a huge difference. That would have gained me a fair amount of time and at least a few positions. I also may have made it over the tracks before the train got there; this is an area of opportunity in itself.
3: My largest tactical failure was losing the two guys I was drafting on Rattlesnake Pass. Had I kept with them over that pass, I would have been able to keep with them the whole way and I'm sure that would've cut minutes from my time. Why did I lose them and how can I do better next time? First, I just couldn't climb as fast over the bumps. I can't change the bumps and my tires were already big, so how do I climb better? A=LOSE WEIGHT. B=Train to basically sprint on climbs when I'm already tired. C=A little more endurance, being able to put out just a bit more power after I lost them may have let me catch them again. So...basically increase my power to weight ratio & train to sprint over that nasty bumpy pass.
I'm very happy with my performance in this race and it's a very encouraging and reassuring reentry to bike racing. I can't wait to race again, and I can't wait to expand my endurance so I can keep good speeds on the upcoming brevets.
So now it's time to address my biggest area of opportunity. The best way for me to increase my power to weight ratio is to drop weight. So that's my target. Figuring out how...I'm working on it.
A note on one benefit of being heavy: carrying all this extra weight around, every step of the day, every pedal stroke, makes my legs very strong. The advantage here is that losing weight quickly will leave me with very strong legs and a lean body. So I could, in theory, work this to my advantage. I'd bet that at 200 or 195 I'd be a frighteningly strong climber, able to compete with riders 25 or so pounds lighter. Hell, at 230 I was able to keep up with and even attack and drop very fit riders over a few miles of 100 to 200 foot rolling hills. That's something! Imagine if I wasn't carrying what amounts to a 30# dumbbell. Now stop imagining & just make it happen.
No comments:
Post a Comment