The Wheelsucker keeps trying to leave work early enough on a Tuesday afternoon to get to the Park & Ride early and get in a nice long warm up before the ride starts, but on this occasion he only had time for a short easy ten minute warmup.
Eric Boone had already been riding. Others in the P&R included Jeff Chun, Stu Waring, Rick Paukstitus and others.
The Wheelsucker's warm up was an out and back on the route. He was riding back towards the P&R, on the far side of Davidsonville Road, as the group rolled out. Fortunately for the Wheelsucker he hit a green light, did the U turn, and tagged on at the back of the group.
Jeff was on on the front after the left turn onto Rossback, followed by Eric, then the Wheelsucker who had moved up, and then Rick Paukstitus.
The Wheelsucker's workout instructions from his coach were:
Group ride. Treat parts of this as a race. Ride aggressively. Experiment with race strategies and test yourself.
The Wheelsucker usually needs some time to warm up before making hard efforts. And his warm up time is surprisingly long; he usually does NOT feel ready at Harwood Hill, but DOES by the time the group reaches the South Polling House stairstep climb.
But knowing it was really easy to just sit in and wait until after Harwood Hill, the Wheelsucker decided to attack earlier. Iain Banks has suggested there is a long-standing unwritten rule that the group ride is neutral until after crossing the Governor Bridge Road intersection. The Wheelsucker has been riding with the team since late 2006 and had not heard of this rule before, but has tried to follow it since Iain declared this to be a rule. So as the Wheelsucker rolled through that intersection behind Eric (Jeff had pulled off), he attacked!
This is a downhill section and the Wheelsucker was quickly up to speed and away. And each time he lowered his head and checked below and behind to see if there was anyone on his wheel, he saw no one. The Wheelsucker hit 866 watts as he jumped, and was averaging 346 watts one and 3/4 minutes later, though the average was dropping as the Wheelsucker was trying to hold more sustainable power levels. And then he looked back and saw Eric and Jeff coming across to him, with Rick Paukstitus on Jeff’s wheel. Eric and Jeff came past the Wheelsucker and he tucked in on Jeff’s wheel. The four continued. There was no chase in site.
Six minutes after his jump the Wheelsucker was averaging 295 watts, but the average was slowly dropping.
The four caught a green light at the 214 intersection and the Wheelsucker decided it was over; he doubted there were enough strong riders in the main group to catch the break when the break had Eric and Jeff.
The pace was steady hard, but without attacks or big power spikes. The Wheelsucker became concerned that the break was slowing, so would take hard pulls when it was his turn, but he kept them short to keep some reserve in case he was attacked. Eric put in the longest pulls, but was not pulling very hard; the Wheelsucker was seeing lower power numbers than usual when following Eric. Every now and then one of the four would look back to see if the chase was in view, but no chase was seen. Confident that the break could stay away, the Wheelsucker was considering what he could do to win the ride. He was up against one of MABRA’s strongest TTers, Eric Boone, and a strong sprinter who had won cat 3 crits this year and just been upgraded to cat 2, Jeff Chun. And Rick can easily outsprint the Wheelsucker.
But Rick decided to short cut and kept going on Bayard when the other three turned right onto Polling House, so it was down to three.
One Wheelsucker thought was that if the pace in the break stayed high, ideally with Eric doing most of the hard work, everyone would be tired and the Wheelsucker’s fitness might help him out. He recalled Jeff tiring on one ride when the pace was really high and hard. But the break was just not going that hard even though the Wheelsucker tried to get it going each time he was on the front. He even told Eric that they should go harder while they were doing the false flat climb on Polling House.
But back at the 214 intersection the three riders were still going steady, average power was dropping and neither Eric nor the Chunster looked the least bit vulnerable. Indeed the Chunster had put in a halfhearted attack on a bump just before 214 while the Wheelsucker was pulling, and had easily gapped the Wheelsucker, who only got back on by wheelsucking behind Eric.
And then just after 214 Eric told the Wheelsucker he was going to go easy. Shocked, the Wheelsucker asked Eric if that meant that the Wheelsucker had to chase Jeff by himself if Jeff went, and Eric said it did. OUCH!, thought the Wheelsucker.
And then Jeff said he was ALSO going to go easy to the finish. That left just the Wheelsucker who was not ready or willing to ease up just yet. So a hot sweaty Wheelsucker fighting off cramps in his calves, tried to TT to the finish alone at threshold.
But it didn't entirely work. He was unable to hold threshold, partly because he kept checking behind him to see if Jeff or Eric, or anyone from a chase, was closing up on him. But there was no one there each time he checked, and the Wheelsucker rolled across the finish line by himself.
He averaged 252 watts for the last 7 minutes, starting with a 482 watt spike to get clear when Eric and Jeff said they were easing up.
While he rolled across alone and first, the Wheelsucker doesn't think this really counts as a win.
Back in the P&R, it turned out that one of the riders in the main group was Steve Doetschman; his first time riding in two years.
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