ABRT President and Masters Team rider Stu Waring brought the Tour of the Battenkill race to the Masters Team’s attention months ago. After checking the website (http://www.tourofthebattenkill.com/)the Wheelsucker thought this could be an epic race. The ABRT Masters team had agreed to focus on road races over crits, and doing some high profile away events. And Battenkill fit that description perfectly.
So the Wheelsucker registered for 40+ rather than 50+ so as to race with team mates. But then Stu pulled out, so we had five riders on the start line for the 40+ race , another five in cat 2, and Bob Walters in 60+.
Stu had taken care of logistics before pulling out, and Matt Albanese stepped up to do this afterwards, so it was relatively easy to get there with four out of the five car pooling.
None of us had raced Battenkill before; no one knew how bad the gravel roads actually were.
We were all in the area by noon on Saturday. We had a nice easy ride Saturday afternoon and then drove the entire course, taking notes. From the cars the course looked brutal and endless.
The 40+ field had the second wave start, at 9:00am. It was about 42 degrees F, with the forecast indicating it would be in the 60s by the time we finished; this was a little challenging to dress for.
The five of us got to the starting area early and had a front row start. Knowing that there was a narrow bridge very soon after the first turn, the Wheelsucker rode second wheel for much of the first easy five miles. He was well protected in the middle of the second row of riders, and was putting out almost no energy for the one kilometer neutral rollout. When the moto-ref released the field, one rider yelled to the rest of the field that we could start racing, but everyone was content with the easy ride pace.
But the Wheelsucker was not the only rider who wanted to be near the front for that first turn, and as the peloton neared the turn riders were surging up both sides. The Wheelsucker was too well protected in the middle and could not get to a side to move up. He felt swarmed as the peloton squeezed in and -- unwilling to jam the bike into a small hole – he quickly ended up at the back.
The peloton stretched and narrowed going through the bridge and immediate right turn and stayed stretched as the leaders hit the gas on the first shallow climb. The Wheelsucker was holding on at the back, knowing he should try to move up, but was trying to conserve energy. Riders were being dropped one by one on the rollers as the gravel sections tired them, and they could not surge to stay on.
Then the climb steepened – the first real climb -- and the race became quite a bit harder. Beyond the attrition at the back, the peloton split. Desperately clinging on at the back, much of this happened out of the Wheelsucker's sight, particularly as he was focused on the riders immediately in front of him.
As the wheelsucker was going off the back, three strong riders got away together. A decent sized chase formed with Jim Johnson in it and Ace McDermott able to get to it, and a second chase behind that which included Matt Albanese, with a lot of single riders and small groups behind that. Brian MacLean was initially with Jim and Ace in the first chase, but was gapped. He chased very hard, could not make it back on, and was blown when he was caught by the group Matt was in, and promptly dropped by them.
Meanwhile, once over the first climb, the Wheelsucker chased down a few riders in front of him and that small group slowly reeled in single riders ahead, slowly growing in size.
That group eventually grew to a 10-15 person chase group that caught Brian. Early on the Wheelsucker struggled to stay with the stronger riders in this group on the long climbs, but others seemed to tire more than he did, and he became relatively stronger as the race went on.
Brian had recovered and was clearly the strongest rider in the group, gapping everyone on the climbs without really trying to get away, and then slowly being reeled back once the group was over the summit. Having a team mate frequently ahead apparently trying to ride away from the group was enough of a reason for the Wheelsucker to limit his pulls, and go quite easy when he was on the front.
After all, there is a reason the Wheelsucker is called the Wheelsucker …
Up the road, the three leaders were opening a significant gap. They reportedly gained one minute on a long descent and they eventually finished five minutes clear of the next riders.
As riders in the Wheelsucker’s group tired, over half stopped taking pulls, and only four or five were pulling through. As riders tired, the climbs and some of the gravel descents became harder, and the Wheelsucker’s chase slowly shrank. By the last climb it was down to five riders with Brian still the strongest, and the Wheelsucker finding he could hang with the survivors on the climb.
Brian opened a small gap with one other rider while the Wheelsucker sat on the other two. Eventually a slightly rested Wheelsucker saw an opportunity to jump across on a gravel downhill followed by a short gravel climb, and jumped as hard as an aging Wheelsucker can jump. AND IT WORKED! He made it up the short climb, got to the wheel s of the two riders in front and encouraged them to go hard while he wheelsucked and recovered. The two riders behind were outgunned and outnumbered and the gap quickly opened.
Down to three riders, past the last climb and nearing the finish, the Wheelsucker’s chase was passed by a cat 3 field lead car and then a decent-sized cat 3 lead group. Several more groups of cat 3s came by as the Wheelsucker’s group was careful to not try to stay with the cat 3s by drafting.
Then as one more cat 3 group rolled by, the Wheelsucker’s chase grew in size as three or four more 40+ riders came up (the Wheelsucker suspects they took the pull from a cat 3 group) and rejoined. “Darn!“, thought the Wheelsucker, that well timed jump had amounted to nothing.
But the group shrank again and was down to four riders for the last five kilometers.
Somewhere around three kilometers to go one of the four got a small gap in the cat 3 confusion and the Wheelsucker decided to close it. Putting his head down he pushed 300 watts as long as he felt comfortable doing it (not long at all), pulled back a little over half the small gap, and pulled over and flicked his elbow. One of the remaining riders took over the lead, and the Wheelsucker got to the back with Brian. The Wheelsucker had planned to lead out Brian, but at about one kilometer Brian – to the Wheelsucker’s surprise and apparently the surprise of the other two riders as well – launched from the back and opened a gap. Being very tired the Wheelsucker instantly concluded it was not his job to chase Brian and followed the remaining two riders. Neither of them had enough left to go after him, so Brian went clear.
The Wheelsucker still followed. Mixed in with cat 3 riders, Brian and then the other three 40+ riders made the last right turn to the finish. Brian had the gap. The Wheelsucker dove for the right, was temporarily slowed by potholes, came back behind the other two to accelerate again, and then launched to the right. And for the first time that the Wheelsucker can remember he “outsprinted” two other riders in a race and got them on the line.
Wheelsucker data:
Time: 3:12:45 as per chip timing
Average power: 219 watts. Average HR: 140 bpm. Normalized power: 264 watts.
Average speed: 19.83 mph
Climbing: 5775 feet
It was a very hard race, indeed epic for the Wheelsucker. There were 150 riders registered for 40+, 103 finished.
The Wheelsucker found his team mates just outside the finish line barriers and learned that Jim had finished 12th trying to lead out Ace. Ace had been forced to “lock it up” coming out of the last turn when a rider in a leadout train had overcooked the corner and locked it up to avoid hitting Jim. After restarting his sprint, Ace finished 15th. Two riders from their chase had jumped clear about ten miles from the finish and had stayed away with a one minute gap, still five minutes behind the three leaders.
Matt had ridden strong in his group, trying to get up the road from them several times, but being reeled in each time; he finished 46th.
Brian and the Wheelsucker had seen their group shrink from about 15 down to four, and had finished 65th and 66th respectively. The Wheelsucker finished 22:39 behind the winner, and 1:25:11 ahead of the last place 40+ finisher.
In the cat 2 race, Hef2 had to lock it up similar to Ace in his sprint and ended up 20th with the rest of the team strung out not far behind. Apparently Yanni rode a Jens Voight-style race and kept the lead group going fast all the way to the last climb.
The amazing Bob Walters had ABRT’s best finish, 7th in the 60+ race.
The Wheelsucker’s lessons:
There are an awful lot of riders stronger than the Wheelsucker.
One cannot do much for one’s team mates if they are up the road without you.
Once the stronger riders are up the road the racing gets easier.
If one cannot outclimb them, one might be able to outlast them.
If race organizers suggest an 11-25 cassette, wheelsuckers need at least an 11-28.
Climbing standing in loose gravel is an acquired skill.
While 25mm Gatorskins, heavy tubes, sealant inside the tubes and training wheels may have been overkill, none of the ABRT 40+ team had flats (or any mechanical issues) and the Wheelsuckers group passed several riders on the side of the road fixing flats.
Results: http://www.velocityresults.net/results/309/tour-of-the-battenkill-cambridge-ny
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
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