Here is his race report:
Flyover Silver Creek, Manitowoc, WI
Cross is finally
here and the Wisconsin season began in Manitowoc. There was a larger than
normal turnout for a northern race because heavy rains caused the Milwaukee
Parks Department to cancel the event scheduled for the day before due to soggy
grass. I won the last race of last season with bike handling skills against a
small field on a snowy day in December. This race would be different. The road
and mountain bike seasons had just ended and it was a sunny day with
temperatures in the 60’s.
It was a great
course with flat grass, roots and dirt in the woods, beach sand on Lake
Michigan, technical sections, a big climb (two for the afternoon races) and
some requisite mud. The start was about 150 yards of wide open grass before
pinching into a short technical section in the woods. I knew position would be
key because time could be quickly lost in traffic backups in the woods.
My first race of
the day was the Masters 45+ Cat 4/5. I wanted to be in the first 3-5 riders,
but not at the front so I could let somebody else set the pace while I gauged
the field. Last year, starts were a problem because I didn’t have good
sprinting power and I would redline if I tried to stay in the front. Today was
different, I was able to power into the third spot without without digging too
deep and got to coast through the woods. The exit was a steep, rooted upshot
about 8 feet high with a sharp left turn at the top. The first place rider got
turned sideways on a root at the top of the hill and went down, also taking out
the second place rider. I managed to slip to the inside and avoid the pile up,
but now I was in the lead and the race had just begun. I knew the fall would
cause some backups, so I punched it to make it hard on the chasing riders.
There was a grassy switchback and then a long straight to the flyover. By the
time I got to the flyover, a teammate was yelling that I had a 5 second gap.
The course looped
out and back on the central staging area several times per lap. This made for
great viewing, but also for easy communication from teammates. I was riding at
my max figuring that I would ease up at some point when another rider got close
to chasing me down, but every time through the central area they were shouting
out bigger gaps: 6 seconds, 8 seconds, 10 seconds, etc. I had the power to stay
on the gas the entire race. I punched it up the hills, accelerated hard out of
slow sections and did the run-ups and deep beach sand at a solid pace. I was
able to recover from the hard exertions while never riding below a solid
tempo/sub-threshold exertion level. I ended up winning by over 30 seconds. I’m
not sure what the final gap was, but there was nobody on in sight when I hit
the finishing straight.
This was a great start
to the season, but I thought the rest of the day was even more impressive. This
was my first day a Cat 4 and I had struggled to finish in the top ten last year
in the open Cat 5 races. I managed an 11th place finish in the Cat 4 race and
held onto a top 5 spot against the 20 somethings for most of the first lap. The
biggest surprise was the single speed race which included Cat 1 and 2 riders. I
always got lapped in this race last year, but I rode to a 12 place finish and
stayed easily on the lead lap.
Thanks Gordy. We’re
off to a flying start.
Mike is coached by Elite Peaks Coaching Group Coach Gordy Paulson
0 comments:
Post a Comment