Tour de Hans -7th overall. A great season finisher!

I was a little hesitant at first to do this, as I said I was going to avoid mass start events, but Ryan Roth did it last year so I knew it had to be good. And it didn't disappoint! At first I just signed up knowing it was in the KW region, but then it turns out it was closer than I thought! I normally ride a lot of the roads it was on, so it was good for me. The weather was perfect, and I wanted a good confidence booster to go into the off season with to fuel my training for the winter.

I figured a break away would go, so I tried to be apart of them. The race started and Mike Novo went right away. Everyone let him go for a while and then after a couple km’s a group of strong riders went across. I didn’t want to miss out on it so I went with them. We were off the from for maybe 2km then everyone sat up as the pack got close. I decided to keep going. They let me have my gap and I continued on solo for a few more km’s. The pack caught me just before the turn onto Greenfield. I stayed near the front until we got over the train tracks, then I drifted back to get better recovery in the peloton. At this point Rivers attacked (listed as Bozek on the results), and the group made a half-assed effort to get him. I thought they were going to pull him in so I didn’t try to go across. Firek noticed this was sticking and jumped across. Unfortunately I didn’t see who went across, and I tried to ask people and no one I asked knew so I figured it was a nobody and it wasn’t an issue. (It definitely was)

The group stayed together, not really working well together for the next 20ish km. With about 40km to go (on Oxford road, right out of Drumbo) a group of about 5 strong riders got off the front with Niles, Larbi, Peter Morse and Patrick Kings. I was stuck a little too far back to make this after having tried to go with a few earlier attacks. At this point no one wanted to work, the people that did, just wanted to bridge across. When we turned onto Bridge St. there was 3 or 4 of us in a rotation at the front trying to reel them in (Tony Morelli and Mike Little were taking consistent turns). We did this until the hill after the bridge and we got frustrated and sat in.

We made the turn onto Huron Rd and Shane Lavell attacked. I knew he had a good engine so I jumped across. I was hoping he would come with me but he sat up when I caught up and I just continued on. Right after that, someone with a BMC jersey bridged up and brought the pack with him. He nicely said “Nice try”, after his previous attacks, I knew he wanted to break loose. In my head I thought, “there is no try, just do,” so I countered my own attack and they let me go. I was able to open up a solid gap and I could see the group up the road.

I kept chasing hard, and I saw the chase group ditch a rider, Tim Burton. I worked a bit harder trying to get up to him, because an extra person would mean a little bit of rest. After a couple km’s I made my way up to him but unfortunately he slowed the pace slightly. During this time Ryan Aitcheson and Aaron Hamill bridged across. This helped drive the pace and Tim dropped. Aaron was too tired to take many pulls and I started trying to match Ryan with pull time. All my solo efforts got to me though and I started to fade. He did a great job over the next 10km to get us super close to the break (it was mostly him, I did maybe 20% of the pulling). I thought we had them as they were maybe 50m up the road. My legs were screaming and we turned onto Whistle Bare Rd (2.5km to go). That’s when the group of 4 started to hammer and fight for 3^rd. Aaron and Ryan sat up, and I TT’ed hoping the 4 riders would ease up waiting for someone to take the front. Unfortunately I never made it and finished a couple seconds back from them.

 

Sweet bottle opener medal I will need to open up my Hoegaarden beers during my week off. 

Why do I always look like I hate every second on the bike? This was coming into the finish so I was pretty sore. 

I finished 7^th overall and 2^nd in my age group. My best finish all year so I was happy with it. I was 1:25 back on the winner but was able to put 1:40 onto the pack in the finishing 25kms. I was hoping for overall podium but I think I raced my best I have and I was happy with where my fitness is. My confidence is boosted and I am ready for next year!

Now I am taking my regen week, so no biking for the next week (asides from my two spin classes, a man needs his money to survive). This was my last race with the CoachChris.ca/Ted Velikonja team as well. I was happy to end it on a good note with them and it has been a great couple years with them, and with my coach Jeff Kehler. I am working on doing something different next year but it is still in the works! I will update when it is figured out.

As always, thanks for checking in and following my race season! Hopefully the stories start to be filled with more glory and less blood and cracked bones.

Results: here

Garmin data: here

GMSR - Stage 3 and 4

*******Stage 3 - Mad River Road Race******
 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.

Green Mountain Stage Race- Stage 1&2

Down here in the Green Mountains in Vermont is a lovely little stage race that happens during Labour day weekend. I first heard about it from a buddy a few years ago that prided himself on his top 10 GC finish in the Cat 3 field. Here I am trying to one-up him by trying to do good in the Cat 2 field.

Stage 1 was a short 5.7mile time trial. It was uphill for the first few kilometres. then it flattened out and was slightly downhill for a while to let you get some speed back. It finished with a nice down-up and a slight uphill finish. I left the start gate, I was going slow and my legs felt like crap! I looked down and to my relief it was because the hill was hitting 12% gradient. I pounded up the hill and had my 30-second man in sight. I had a little mental lapse and eased up slightly at the top. I didn't gain anymore time on the guy ahead of me until the end. I picked up the hammer and started to drill it again. Passed him on the down-up and gave it my all until the end. In comparison to my normal Indian Trail time trials, I averaged 6bpm more for heart rate. Wish I had power data to share but I don't. I finished 14th/71, which was good. 36 seconds off of the lead. When I checked the race website that night, they had my pic posted right at the top! Here it is:

 Results are here

Stage 2 was the circuit race. Komar warned us that there was always crashes on this day, so my goal was to be safe and not lose time. This day was a complete mess. The race went well for the first half. I kept it easy near the back. I made sure to stay on top of food and water (which was hard because it was so hot!). A break was up the road when the Junior field caught us. We were neutralized, but I don't know if the break was. After one more lap, just before the turn onto route 100B there was a bad crash in the junior field. We came up to a blocked road, one SUV sideways blocking the left lane, and cars and ambulance on the right side. We were able to come to a stop and get around. I was near the back and chased to get into a group. We slowed because I was told it was neutralized to let everyone come back together, which was fair because you shouldn't lose a race because of something outside of your race. Little did I know 20-something guys had attacked up the road. We ended up stopping at the finish line (1 lap short) because they weren't neutralized and we wanted to know why. They told us to stand at the side of the road and wait for a decision. Eventually we were moved across the road to the parking lot. We were then told after about 10mins that we would be given a finishing time but they don't know what kind of gap they will put in. They could have said "tough luck, just keep going". Or they should have neutralized the group up the road and brought us all back together.

As of right now they just posted results. Seems like everyone but the first break was given a 3min gap. Tomorrow will be fun trying to make this up on the climbs...