The weekend after Capital Stage race I headed down to Oregon for the Elkhorn Classic SR with Colin, Tall Alan, Tyler Stearns and Winger and managed to come home with the overall GC win. Elkhorn is my favorite race in the NW because it has a couple of long, hard road stages over some really scenic terrain. I've done it a bunch of times and always wanted to win it, so I was pretty stoked to get the win this year. Because I like to copy Ian Crane, I'll start this RR with a little trip in the "Time Machine:"
2002: First "big" race as a Cat 4 while on hiatus from running due to a femoral stress fracture. For some reason I decided camping at the school was a good idea. Woefully underprepared, I spent the whole weekend shivering in my tent and eating dry Crispix directly out of the box.
2005: Race Cat 3s, get crashed in the feed zone on the first day... rest of the race hazy, nothing special.
2006: Race with Recycled Cycles Elite Team, spent the whole race on the front with Messrs Hegyvary and Harm riding tempo for Ian McKissick, who won the overall.
2007-08: Spent most of the races off the front in breaks, but didn't win anything. Hotter 'n hell both years.
How it unfolded this year:
Stage 1: 72 mi w/ 4000ft of climbing, one big climb followed by a big descent, then crosswind climbs to the finish. Our plan: be aggressive and put someone every move, then smash the race in the final 10 miles of crosswind climbing. Part 1 of the plan was foiled by more janky negative racing so we shut down the attacks and waited for the crosswind climbs. And watched as some Team 0 and Ironclad guys furiously chased down an attack from Bob's before the main climb of the day. Colin and Alan threw some bombs on the descent off the big climb and then again once we started the crosswind climbs. A couple guys countered, got a gap and I went across to cover it. The guys were Davis Shepherd and Jake Hansen and we got a good gap quickly and we finished with a 47-second gap on the field. I got a little cocky and wasn't that worried about the other guys in the sprint because I was killing them in the last five minutes of the climb (or at least it seemed that way to me), but I got beat in the sprint and came in second. Winger lead out Colin to take the field sprint for 5th place.
Stage 2: 11.3 mile TT out and back from town. It's usually a tailwind/uphill out, headwind/downhill back, so usually better to save your energy for the way back, but I pre-rode the course in the morning and noticed that the wind was the opposite of normal and it would be better to really empty the clip on the way to the turnaround. It was a small detail that likely helped a bit because for the first time ever I had a solid TT when it counted, and finished second which moved me into the overall lead with 1:14 on 2nd and 1:35 on 3rd. Winger was really 3rd but received a bogus 30-second drafting penalty because he got caught by a guy who decided to slow-dance his way around the turn-around. Colin was 5th to round out solid HB representation in the Top 5.
Stage 3: 60-min Crit, nothing that exciting happened, except T Stearns taking 2nd on the stage. No change on GC.
Stage 4: 102-mi RR with 6500ft of climbing over 3 small climbs and a 9-mile finishing climb. Our plan was to put someone in the early move and force another team to chase, then just make sure I got to the bottom of the final climb with the danger guys. The VERY first attack that went got a huge gap right away and it was perfect for us: Alan was in it and he was higher placed on GC than everybody else, although Gabe Varela was in it and although he was down on GC we didn't want to give him too much leash. Team Bob's was forced to chase because they missed the move completely. They started riding the front into the headwind for the next 40 miles but the gap kept going up and up. Colin asked me what kind of a gap we should be comfortable with, and when we should start chasing. I said "hmm... 3:30?" Just then an official came back to us: "The gap is 4:30." Well, shit. Gabe was really driving the move! I started to get a little worried and had Colin and Winger ride the front on the descent just to keep the gap in check without spending any energy (since they are big boys they can go downhill rrrrl fast). On the third climb, the Team 0 guy came back to the field after getting dropped out of the break, so Team 0 started riding. After a bit of re-shuffling on the climb and a patented "Team 0 slow-motion attack" Alan found himself in a second breakaway but then suffered an untimely flat on the descent. The situation on the road was then a solo rider with 2:30 and a 3-man group with 30 sec on us. With no one in the bridge group we had Winger and Tyler start riding the front at medium tempo to keep the gap in check over the next ~25 miles of slightly downhill, cross/tailwind.
Winger and Tyler rode great and kept the gap pegged right at 30 seconds, and we ended up catching them right as we hit the base of the final climb with 9 miles to go. They stayed on the front and kept riding steady tempo and for a while nothing happened. A Bob's guy attacked and Winger towed it back, and then things were pretty quiet for another mile or so. Then Davis Shepherd attacked a couple of times and Colin closed it down every time. At this point guys were getting shelled and the group was down to only 10 guys. I have to apologize to one of the Team 0 guys whom I yelled at because he kept opening up gaps. I though the was messing around so I yelled at him but it turned out he was getting dropped, so... my bad, I should have just gone around earlier. I was getting a little sick of the accelerations and wanted to win the stage so after one of the attacks and right as we were catching Gabe, I countered hard and it was down to just me, Davis, and an Ironclad guy. We started going harder and dropped the Ironclad guy - I felt great and thought I could drop Davis based on the way the final went on Friday, but I couldn't. In hindsight I should have just sat on since I didn't need any time on him but I was all hopped up after having to keep things in the holster all day and really wanted to put the hammer down. Anyway, we came to the last 3k together and really started hitting out with attacks but couldn't get rid of each other, so it came down to another sprint and he won again. I definitely didn't gift it to him and wanted to win the stage so I was bummed about that, but having the overall GC in the bag was pretty satisfying.
Garmin Connect Data:All in all a great weekend for the team with the overall win and numerous podiums. The guys all rode spectacularly on Sunday and made my job really easy. I want to thank Alan, Colin, Tyler and Winger once again for working so selflessly in defense of the jersey, especially since that probably wasn't what they had in mind going into the race given that I was a late addition to the squad. Thanks guys!
2 comments:
I was wondering why Wingfields time on Strava was 8s faster than mine. Bummer. Well, at least I beat Todd fair and square.
well, let's be honest... beating Todd is really all that matters ;)
Post a Comment