Thrilling race weekend recap –
Wow, what a weekend. The Go Tri Sports Cycling team made it to the French Broad Cycling Classic and it was spectacular! This would be my first complete Omnium and given my general lack of form, I really just wanted to do the three days of racing for the experience. Little did I know that the “experience” would be so epic.
Day one started with an ITT that followed the French Broad River. A fantastic course, slightly uphill to the turn around then slightly down but into a headwind on the return leg. I did not go into the red very far as I really needed to ride my way into this weekends racing. Still, I felt slow, and slow feels rotten. Lynn on the other hand was free to ride hard as she had opted out of the road race and so would get a day of rest in between events. Congrats to Lynn as she set a PR for her solo average speed as well as ticking another check box off, first ITT.
Day two of the Omnium was the RR, a short 40 mile course but with 6000+ feet of climbing. Six thousand feet in forty miles, sounded tough but I had no idea it would be that tough. The climbing made a forty miler more like racing for sixty. I was so cooked that both quads were cramping on the last brutal climb, but I did manage to keep the gear ticking over till the finish. The other factor that had a big impact on me was the first large hill after only one mile of racing from the start line. I was not warmed up enough to push as hard as I needed to and had to watch the group ride away from me. I got into a good rhythm and gave chase and I was soon joined by a few riders and we started taking pulls and building speed. It is hard however to match the pace of a speeding peloton and my hope was to keep picking up stragglers to help with the work . At one point our chase had grown to six or seven but after watching two riders almost go down on a 35+ mph descent vying for a piece of road, I got cautious, braked a little too hard into a corner, and was instantly dropped. In just a few minutes I was joined by a Les Amis rider and we worked together for quite a while until getting caught by a group of about 10 right before the first of two serious climbs. This made the climb tough as we were both tired from our two man pursuit and the group soon splintered but I was able to hang on and then there were six of us. The final few miles before the last climb would see the our chase group pick up a rider or two and lose one or two, me being on of the lost. I managed to hold on to 42nd place and was glad to have it.
The criterium was business as usual, I got pushed off the road once which could have been my fault and I shouted at one rider to get off me, which was definitely not my fault. Lynn however had a mishap in corner four and left some skin on the course. She managed to make it in to the pits and after a quick bike check, she was ready to get back in. I managed a 13th place and Lynn hung on for 17th. That made me 29th overall and Lynn 27th.
-On On
Wow, what a weekend. The Go Tri Sports Cycling team made it to the French Broad Cycling Classic and it was spectacular! This would be my first complete Omnium and given my general lack of form, I really just wanted to do the three days of racing for the experience. Little did I know that the “experience” would be so epic.
Day one started with an ITT that followed the French Broad River. A fantastic course, slightly uphill to the turn around then slightly down but into a headwind on the return leg. I did not go into the red very far as I really needed to ride my way into this weekends racing. Still, I felt slow, and slow feels rotten. Lynn on the other hand was free to ride hard as she had opted out of the road race and so would get a day of rest in between events. Congrats to Lynn as she set a PR for her solo average speed as well as ticking another check box off, first ITT.
Day two of the Omnium was the RR, a short 40 mile course but with 6000+ feet of climbing. Six thousand feet in forty miles, sounded tough but I had no idea it would be that tough. The climbing made a forty miler more like racing for sixty. I was so cooked that both quads were cramping on the last brutal climb, but I did manage to keep the gear ticking over till the finish. The other factor that had a big impact on me was the first large hill after only one mile of racing from the start line. I was not warmed up enough to push as hard as I needed to and had to watch the group ride away from me. I got into a good rhythm and gave chase and I was soon joined by a few riders and we started taking pulls and building speed. It is hard however to match the pace of a speeding peloton and my hope was to keep picking up stragglers to help with the work . At one point our chase had grown to six or seven but after watching two riders almost go down on a 35+ mph descent vying for a piece of road, I got cautious, braked a little too hard into a corner, and was instantly dropped. In just a few minutes I was joined by a Les Amis rider and we worked together for quite a while until getting caught by a group of about 10 right before the first of two serious climbs. This made the climb tough as we were both tired from our two man pursuit and the group soon splintered but I was able to hang on and then there were six of us. The final few miles before the last climb would see the our chase group pick up a rider or two and lose one or two, me being on of the lost. I managed to hold on to 42nd place and was glad to have it.
The criterium was business as usual, I got pushed off the road once which could have been my fault and I shouted at one rider to get off me, which was definitely not my fault. Lynn however had a mishap in corner four and left some skin on the course. She managed to make it in to the pits and after a quick bike check, she was ready to get back in. I managed a 13th place and Lynn hung on for 17th. That made me 29th overall and Lynn 27th.
-On On
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