App Gap. Basically all you need to know! I thought I would do top 10 on this stage, but I had never had a true climbing challenge before. At least nothing much more than 5 mins (asides from the few hills around Blue Mountain). Anyway it wrecked me, but it was a great experience.
The race started out fast, with the sprinters that missed out on points on Saturday being upset and driving the pace before the climbs. I kept thinking "do they know what we still have to do?". We hit Middlebury Gap and it eased up at the gradual base. As it kicked towards the top though, people started to get popped off the back. I was able to drop to my 39x28 and spin up without too much digging. I got my bottle from Komar at the feedzone at the top and then enjoyed the fast and windy descent. Nearly broke my max bike speed record with a 89.7km/h. Things weren't too bad for the next 20km, then we got to Notch Rd. It was a short steep kicker, and my garmin had it at 23%. After this we hit a gravel road for a few km. Things were strung out a bit here, but I think it was mainly for safety and not because of a high pace. This brought us into the final circuit.
The first time up Baby Gap wasn't bad, I needed some water though. I grabbed a neutral water in the feedzone, and then dropped my actual bottle that Sarah handed me. Oops! I really wanted the mix in the water, especially since it was so hot. There was a break up the road at this point of a few riders, and no one wanted to pull except Mark Brouwer. Even the race leader was somehow allowed to just ride up to the break. I wasn't feeling the best leg wise so I just wanted to sit in and wait. The neutral water bottle got me to about 5km until the second time we hit the feed zone where I was sure to get a good hand on the bottle. I drank half of it immediately, knowing there wasn't much race left anyway. After we finished Baby Gap the second time, we had a little bit of a recovery before App Gap.
So we drove up the climb Thursday when we got there and it didn't look that bad. Could I have been more wrong! I decided it was best to hit it at my own pace instead of trying to hold someone else's pace and just get popped and go backwards. My heart rate hit 190bpm, and there was no way to go any easier. It was too steep. It was getting to the point where my legs couldn't generate the power to pedal seated (one big issue with being a spinner with high rpm), so I would have to stand. In the last km it went to about 5% for a few hundred meters. At 500m you could see the finish, but it was the longest 500m you will ever do. Apparently it was only 15%, but it felt 100x worse than the 23% on Notch Rd. I figure I was already 15mins into the climb at this point, heart rate 5-10bpm above what I would normally do for a 20min TT. I thought walking would have been a good idea, because I was only going 9-10km/h, even though I was pushing as hard as I could. I made it to the top, finishing 18th and volunteers had to catch me from falling over at the top and push me over to the side of the road. What a crazy finish! Unfortunately I lost big time here, 5:55 down on the stage winner that got away from the break.
***** Stage 4 - Burlington Crit ******
Today I was feeling super fatigued from the last 3 days of racing. I made sure to get a long warm up in on the trainer and took some caffeine to give me some hope of being able to ride. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get clipped in when they let us into the course to take the line so I was at the back. Somehow someone crashed and it was because their bike snapped, and they had to get a neutral one. So happy that happened before the race and not mid corner in the crit.
I rode this way too cautious, not wanting to crash. There were 6 corners and only one section of good wide road where everyone tried to move up. I was unable to move up anymore than 5-6 spots from the back of the pack, so I spent my race at the back. Many people were popped off the back from trying to keep up with the accelerations at the back. A group of 5 riders got up the road and built up a gap. I was sad to see this, as my plan for the day was to attack and get in the break. It then became just finish, and do so in one piece. With less than 5 to go, my teammate Sylas crashed in one corner, but ended up being alright for the most part. The next lap two more people went down in the same corner. At this point I kind of kept a little more space at the back of the pack as I did not want to crash, especially with nothing to gain with a break that was up the road with no chance of getting there. I managed to keep hammering the last few laps and finish with the group. I finished with seeing Sylas getting his road race bandaged up, and Komar handing me a congratulatory beer for finishing.
The whole stage race was an awesome experience and we got super lucky with the weather. Looking forward to going back next year!
You can find pictures of the team from the Crit HERE
Results for stage 3: here
Garmin data stage 3: here
Results for stage 4: here
Garmin data stage 4: here
Final GC: here
Up next for me is a lot of school work! I will take it easy for a few days and recover from the stage race and finish my season with Tour de Hans at the end of the month.
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