Racetiming.ca Crit - Finally cracking the top 10!

As the title says, finally I was able to crack the top 10 in an E1/2 Ontario Cup. For some reason this race wasn't very well attended. It could be because of Killington Stage Race and Bristol Mountain Road Race being run the same day. But I also saw many fellow riders on strava that just opted to do their own ride, and they missed out on a great day of racing in beautiful weather!

So for this race it was just Aaron and I as we had two other riders at Bristol. It always takes me a bit to get into gear in a race, but Aaron was at the front right from the gun. I watched as he covered basically every move, potentially overworking, but always making sure we were represented. After things started to settle in a bit then I moved up and started to contribute. A break got away with Dan Doddy and Jordann Jones and I knew there would be no catching them as they were two of the strongest riders in the field. I saw Phil Sheffield attack and then thought I saw him panting at the side of the road about 1km later and it turns out he rolled a tubular. Ouch.

Shortly after that a chase group of 5 went up the road. I went to try to bridge across and Scott Elliot came with me. Peter Morse also bridged up but was just sitting on. The group of 5 was pulling away, and it didn't help that every time Morse did a pull, the speed would drop 3km/h. Stupidly, I always ended up pulling the entire headwind section, at 41-43km/h, maybe because I didn't trust the others to keep the speed high enough. With around 3 laps to go we somehow managed to catch the chase group. This is two races in a row that I have caught up to Veal's chase group because no one has wanted to work. Coming into the last lap, I had this idea in my head about attacking. I realized after that it was vivid in my head because I tried it last year and it failed horribly. Well this year was no different as they quickly caught on then let me pull the rest of the lap. They started to launch the sprint about 75m before the final right hand turn. I went to jump in but a couple riders were coming into me, so I ended up dropping back, not wanting to crash. I managed to come by Scott right at the line to finish 9th.

I don't have any good race pictures to share so I have some data to share! Note the following plots from Golden Cheetah software (free!) also contain my warmup and short cool down.

Garmin data: HERE

For cadence, you will see the peak is a little over 100rpm. I am not a big muscular rider, so I have to get the power out by turning over the legs faster. 

For heart rate, the peaks were around 175. Turns out I averaged 174bpm for the race, a number I didn't think I could do! My 1 hour threshold heart rate is 180, so I was pretty close. I had a bigger than expected taper into the race because of the bad weather, so that may have helped out. Max heart rate was 191. 

Power data! From garmin, my average for the race was 286w, and normalized 304w.  The histogram is hard to get a good idea of the upper intensity needed for a crit as the low values are filled up more from the warm up and cool down. 

Steve Bauer Classic - still trying to crack into the results with the Elite 1's

This is the well-known Niagara Classic race that has been re-branded with Steve Bauer helping to promote and grow the race. The Fitwin.com team came into it looking strong, we had 5 guys ready to go (still missing Rob though as he is recovering from the Good Friday crash). We thought the race would be a lot like last year with a few hard laps to start, but the real breaking up coming in the second half of the race. I now see that the Toronto Hustle team likes to shed extra riders as early as they can.

Trying to learn from the previous races, I started right on the line so I would be in the front. Unfortunately I couldn't clip in again, and ended back at the back. My foot also slipped off the pedal and managed the gash my achilles area, but adrenaline kept the pain away mostly until the end.

In lap 1 a small break got up the road, and Aaron managed to get into it. That wasn't to last long and the pack reeled them in. On the second lap, everything stayed together, but a hard effort up the hill started to see things spread out by the top of the climb at the end of the lap. On lap 3 a small break got away including Gaelen, and our new recruit Adam Bird was up there as well. I missed this because I lost a wheel in the crosswinds and was pushing to join back into the pack. The next lap, the peloton split again by the top of the hill and I ended up in the back group with Bryan and Tanner, and Aaron made the front group. The three of us worked well in our small group to keep the pace up as we could still see the group ahead, so we didn't want to give up. After a couple of laps, we managed to catch the group that had ditched us on the hill earlier, containing Aaron. No one really wanted to work in this group. We rode a lap with them, and I found I was on the front way to much for a group of about 15. I told my teammates that we should peg it up the hill which would get rid of the people not wanting to work, and maybe excite the pack to want to work. When we went on the hill, I heard something along the lines "they are all matching!" from a spectator. I looked around and it was only us! We had some people cheering for us at the top of the climb. We did a four person team time trial for a little over a lap before Ed Veal bridged up to us, bringing two other riders. At this point Aaron had dropped off because he was cramping up. About a quarter of a lap later, we unfortunately caught Adam, who had been dropped from the front group.  At this point we had just over a lap left. We knew we would have to send someone up the road with Veal wanting to sit in, and the 2 guys he brought with him looking fresh. Bryan did a flyer on the back stretch and no one followed. Shortly after, Tanner tried to go too, but the Toronto Hustle guy bridged over and tried to chase down Bryan. At this point I was spent, and was just sitting in, or taking a short pull. Bryan ended up finishing just behind the Toronto Hustle rider, Bradford. Adam, Tanner and I finished together, with our legs smashed.

Aaron sticking with the Veal group

Adam making his group work up the hill

Tanner, Bryan and I at the top of the hill. We seemed to do most of the pulling up to the hill, so we were the last up the hill. 

Adam with the big guns

Me suffering up the last part of the hill

We finished with a best placed rider 18th. Ideally would have liked to have someone in the top 10, but looking at the racer list, that still was a good result. Almost everyone on the results sheet above us was a category 1 racer (minus Jordann Jones and Dan Doddy, who both are super strong and should be). Most of the cat 2 racers didn't finish this race. So being a cat 2 team, I think we ended up doing good! Now we will look to find ways to sneak someone up there in that results sheet before seasons end!

Also, I have to give a big thanks to my brother Jesse for giving up his day to be in the feed zone for us!

Watch the STRAVA flybys here to see how/when things unfolded in the race: HERE
Results: here
Garmin data: here