Bike the Bruce: Provincial Time Trial and Road Race

The past weekend near Wiarton and Owen Sound were the Provincial Championships for the road race and time trial. Both had stellar courses, and you certainly missed out if you weren't able to make it. They were reasonably priced, very scenic route (if you were able to notice it), and the roads were wide and smooth. The road course had a demanding kicker each lap that I noticed my garmin say was 16%, and there were a couple nice corners and downhills. It had a bit of everything. The weather even held out for the elite race starts, although the rain and cooler air might have helped me.

For the TT, I wasn't feeling great. I have been coughing for over a week now, and slowly it feels like a cold is building. I got a nice warm up and my legs were feeling meh. Brought my bike to bike check at the start, and the sticklers that the OCA are, made me remove my aero bottle because it was 12cm long, 2 cm past the accepted range. I had no idea about the rule, but this just meant no water for me for the TT.

They had a nice little start ramp set up, and they counted me down and I was off! It felt like a great start. I got my speed up high, hit the first downhill and did a nice little tuck hoping to get a little extra speed. I hammered for another 4-5mins before checking my heart rate and watts to see how I was doing. Pain wise, it felt like I was at or above where I needed to be. My heart rate was 10 beats lower than I wanted, and I was missing about 30 watts... This wasn't good. I wasn't too concerned about the watts, as I noticed the stages powermeter I put on my TT bike has been low (it could be the powermeter, or my left side is incredibly weak). At this point I was around 172 heart rate and 340watts. I looked at my speed, and it was OK, so I told myself I could still do good just keep pushing.

I am paying money to feel this bad...

At the turn-around, I noticed my minute man was close, and so were a few others... It wasn't long before Robert caught me. Then Derek Gee (the eventual overall winner). I had to stay positive, and keep pushing to the end. My power kept dropping... 340, 335, 330, 320... I couldn't even get any more power out, no matter how hard I tried. Just before the hill Mark caught me, and I was able to use him as a pace guide for the hill. I ended up finishing just behind, with an average watts of 315. Pretty terrible showing from me considering in March I was able to do 358watts for 1hr up Palomar mountain. I do have an issue going on with my left side, so I was probably closer to 330W (Stages only measures left leg then doubles it). The TT overall was just under 40km, and I averaged 43.8km/h. Still a half decent speed, but I should have been at least a minute faster. Gaelan pulled a TT out of no where, finishing a few minutes ahead of me, just off the podium. Good to see his TT skills really improving.

iPhone has live pictures. Here is what happens when you screenshot a live picture!

I spent the rest of the day with my Bro, Sister and mom. We went to Sauble and I rested up in the cold lake in preparation for the next day's ass whooping.

To prevent this from getting too long, I will try and keep this shorter. The race started off fast, nothing was getting away with everyone wanting to be in the moves. On the second lap Gaelan and Peter Disera broke off the front, I believe around the hill and they were to stay away. At most I believe their gap got to 1:40 going into the final lap. As the race went on, the pace stayed high and it started to wear into my legs. Again I was missing a good anaerobic push to make it up the steep incline. On the third lap (of five) I ended up off the pack with a few Neworld guys that pulled us back on. The fourth lap, the peloton split on the climb. Larbi and Mark thought to tag team a chase on their own, while a group of about 8 of us rotated through an echelon and caught back on around the same time Larbi and Mark did, before hitting the main road. The fifth lap I started to cramp up. I never ran out of water, and I wasn't thirsty. Maybe I just needed more electrolytes. I just had to make it through the last lap. Up the climb it blew up. A few Neworld guys looked like they had nothing left at the bottom. At the top, I looked up and saw half the pack about 500m up the road and I was completely spent. There were a few of us together, Marc Freemantle, Peter Morse, Christian Ricci and Nigel. At first I couldn't stay with them, but after a little bit of easier spinning I caught back on. The group grew as people were dropping from the front group, but then some dropped from off. I had to skip a pull in the echelon here and there as I was dead. I gave it everything I had just to finish with that group and roll in with 12th in the elite men. I was completely spent physically and mentally. Word on the street is that a few riders in the front group were able to bridge up to Gaelan and Peter (Jeff Schiller, Derek Gee and Mark Brouwer) and mix it up in the sprint. You can see how that played out in the results.

Maybe bike racing would be easier if I was a smaller dude...

I finished this race wondering what the hell is going on. I have been training my ass off and the races here seem to keep getting harder. In the states the racing is much easier it seems. Racing here I feel like I am a brand new Cat 4 rider. I get it, racing is supposed to be tough, but I sat in and conserved the whole race and had absolutely nothing to give at the end. And by no means do I consider myself to be a weak rider. This off season I have some thinking and reworking to do, to see what needs to be done moving forwards.

Keeping up with the data sharing, here is my power data histogram for the road race (almost 4hrs). The bins are 10watts wide I believe. 

Time trial results: http://racetiming.ca/results/1643-1.htm
Road race results: http://racetiming.ca/results/1644-1.htm
If you want more pictures from races, there are a lot of great ones here: http://www.ivanrupes.com

Provincial Crit Champs -2nd!

I am starting to learn that in order to get results, I need to race with my head first, then my legs. Keeping this one short again, I was able to ride a bit smarter on Sunday than all other crits this year. There is still work to be done, that is certain, but at least I am heading into the right direction. The bigger news is I picked up a used stages power meter before the race, so I can now share power data from the races with you. That is the fun stuff! If you want to see specific kinds of data just out of curiosity, or to help with your training, leave a comment and I will try to include it in future posts!

I could talk about how the race went, but Canadian Cyclist has a beautiful gallery that should tell the story. You can find it HERE. And yes, I have been racing crits with a mouth guard. I don't feel like going through a whole bunch of dental work again if I can avoid it, plus it looks sort of menacing. 

Histogram of power. It includes my warm up and cool down so it might be shifted to the left a bit. My max 1min power was just about 500W. I wouldn't mind if it were closer to 700...

Cadence histogram. The peak is centred close to 100rpm. I am more of a spinner meaning my cardio is stronger than the musculature pushing the pedals. If you are new to cycling, it is typically the reverse, so you tend to ride with lower rpm (70-80). 

Up next for me is Provincial TT and road race this coming weekend, then the big Green Mountain Stage Race to finish off the season! I am also doing Tour de Hans for fun at the end of September. If you are around, I would suggest checking it out, a free* beer awaits at the finish! (*you technically paid for it when you signed up). Hope everyone has been able to enjoy their summer. Hopefully a beautiful autumn awaits!

Rochester Twilight Criterium

It has been a while since my last update. My racing has had it's up's and down's with a highlight 5th in Buffalo in the mens 1/2 field. I also finally pulled off a 45km/h time trial at the Hamilton cycling club's Indian trail 14.6km course. That has been a goal of mine for a few years, so it was amazing to finally check that off.

This past weekend I went to Rochester to race their Twilight Criterium in the 2/3 field. I went into this having not finished a crit this year. Every time I have been pulled, so I wanted to change that. There was forecasted thunderstorms for the day, and we could tell the weather network was right for a change as we drove into Rochester. When we got there, it was raining and we had time to pre-ride the course before the races started for the day. There was lots of crosswalks painted on the roads and sewer grates, which meant you had to be careful in the corners or be ready to slide out.

This was what the sky looked like about 10mins from Rochester. It was beautiful and sunny in the other direction...

Proof that I didn't spend the whole race at the back!

I am a poor starter, so I did a nice long warm up hoping it would help. Unfortunately it didn't do too much for me as once the race started, it took me a few minutes to have my legs fire on all cylinders. This doesn't go well for criteriums as it brought me to the back of the peloton, and I was doing too much work getting the back end of the accordion around the corners. People started to drop, and I was stuck behind them and wasn't able to bridge the gap. I chased hard for a couple laps and finally caught back on. I did the smart thing and moved up immediately. With the next surge in pace though I found myself back at the back of the peloton. The effort required to get back into the pack killed my legs.

I was also being a little too cautious perhaps in the painted, wet corners. The only time the paced slowed allowing for pacing would require a more sketchy line through the corners and I wasn't feeling brave enough to take on the challenge. In the last few laps, there were 2 crashes in the final corner before the start/finish line as I assume people were trying to take these sketchy lines to move up. At least being at the back has its perks, as I was able to ride through the crashes without being brought down. I hung on to the pack for the finish and ended up 16th of 43 starters. Teammate Tanner Cookson rode a great race, and finished 5th. One day I might be able to pull something like that off. At least I got a killer workout and built some more confidence moving forwards to Provincials and Green Mountain stage race coming up.

This was the first time I stayed and watched other races. The womens Pro1/2 and mens Pro1 races were after mine. Rochester sure knew how to put on a killer event. The course made for lots of exciting places to watch. The food truck rodeo was a great addition, providing lots of delicious food and provides something for visitors that maybe don't care about cycling to much (anyone got that special someone in their life that you drag to races? Here they too can be happy!). Both races provided lots of excitement, and it was crazy to watch the speeds the men were taking the corners at. I have some more confidence to build up before I can tackle that field!

Field trying to chase the early break. 

UHC rider driving the break. 

Finish for the field. Some tired looking riders!

Solo winner after sitting onto the UHC rider in the break for the race. 

The men were moving too fast.