Waterville Valley TT - Women's 6-12-08
Waterville Valley Time Trial Race Report
June 7, 2008
Julie Lockhart
Masters Women – 1st
Arriving the day before has its benefits. Katherine and I previewed the uphill portion (I at my recovery pace, which I was supposed to be doing) and it turned out that the 2% average grade included a short but toughly placed 7+% at about the 9 mile mark, reminding me that I am not yet a stellar hill climber. On the morning preview of the descent I flatted my fancy new HED 3 wheel (tubular), and ended up doing the race on my Mavic ES front. So, then I totally missed my start (my watch said 29 after when I rolled up and then through the start) and the race was just as I expected, all my team mates passed me (Lisa was my 30 behind who must have started immediately). I had a great uphill ride keeping steady and strong, the turn around was very gradual and nice with a little up-tick just to keep me on my toes. Loved the downhill, used some rec riders as rabbits to overtake and pass Lisa, then totally missed the finish ‘chute’ and turned around but they said it was OK. Great, fun, well run race … but tough. Every NEBC TT aficionado should do this race.
Lisa Ludwig
Citizen/Cat4 – 1st
This was my first race being part of NEBC or any team. And though this was just a TT, as I saw car after car pull in with special TT bikes, I was feeling that my trusty plain road bike and enthusiasm may not be enough to do well! Anyway, I gathered with my new team mates and tried my best to stay calm. Julie started just ahead of me so during the climb I followed her pace. About half way into the climb, a few flashes of red breezed by me… It was Clara and Katherine! I continued to stay at pace behind Julie. Eventually, two more women passed me. At that point I got a little angry with myself thinking “what am I thinking, trying out bike racing at 47. Am I nuts? Maybe this is a bad idea”. I kept pedaling. Another steeper incline ahead. I saw the two women who had recently passed me and they seemed to be getting a little closer in sight. Motivated, I picked up the pace and felt relief when I got to the top. It would be mostly all down hill from there. So I got into the most aerodynamic position I could attain and pedaled my little legs off. I love speed, not afraid of it. But even so… there was another magnificent flash of red that blew by me as if I were standing still. It was Julie! Though I have a long way to go and a lot of training to do, I was glad I got out and did a race.
Clara Kelly
Open Women – 1st
Local riders gathered in Compton, NH on a foggy morning with an impressive array of fancy TT bikes, disk wheels, and pointed helmets. The fog cleared and it turned out to be a great day in the mountains (on the 1st hot day in Boston this year).
I’m not a strong time trialer (dead last in my previous attempt at the sport), but I had decided to give this one a shot because of the 9 uphill miles. I rode the first 3 miles on my warm up and it looked disappointingly flat. Also, not promising was the noise of disk wheels zooming past me on the warm up. However, Julie told me to save some gas for a steeper bit at mile 8 and promised that the grade did increase. The course makes a little loop at the top, then goes back downhill.
I had a very fortunate starting position in that 3 slower ladies were in front of me and my main competition, several ladies in full aero position were right behind. I planned to ride the 30k in the drops to be in the most aero position possible on my road bike. I cleared out my computer and was ready to pedal hard for 5 miles, pick it up for 4 miles and let the downhill part take care of myself. I figured I would have no problems going uphill, but was ready to listen for approaching disk wheels on the downhill.
I got into a good rhythm right away and focused on maintaining a steady heart rate and breathing. This pulled me past the ladies ahead of me and kept me focused as the climb steepened. As I neared the turn into the loop, I saw a jersey up ahead struggling on the climb. I rolled by one of the Master’s guys and started the 2nd half of the race with no one in sight. The loop was quick and I was very excited to see Katherine still on the hill when I came out of it. She had started right behind me and I figured could well pass me in the 2nd half – so I was happy to see that I was well ahead.
The bad part about the descent was that it was not as downhill as I had envisioned. In fact, there was quite a bit of pedaling involved, especially on the last flattish miles. However, this was more than made up for by the sight of a steady stream of riders heading uphill. Most of them were clearly suffering, so there was a devilish thrill about zipping past. Some of them were looking quite strong and professional though, a real joy to watch actually. Based on the race results, one of those guys beat me by almost 10 minutes – no wonder they looked so good!
I felt happy about the race as I was able to maintain a steady pace climbing and maintained energy throughout the race. Post-race, I climbed the Kancamagus pass with Katherine and Julie. What a wonderful road! I can’t wait to go back. The highlight of the day was soaking in a freezing river after two hours on the Kanc.
Katherine Snell
2nd Open Women
Warning! This is a boring race report about a time trial, there are very few tactics and there should be no crashes. The Waterville Valley TT is a new race this year and was well organized and executed by NHCC. It is an out and back course with more or less constant 2% grade over 9 miles and about 1000’ total climb. It’s a little flatter in the beginning (1%) and steeper at the top (3%) with a couple rollers (5% average grade, 10% max) between 7.5 and 9 miles. Total distance was given as 31.5 km. Being a new race, attendance was low with only a total of 8 women participating (6 in Open 1-4, 1 in Masters and 1 in Citizen/Cat 4). The Men’s numbers were also proportionally low with 65 total.
I previewed the uphill ride with Julie Lockhart Friday evening riding up from Campton to our hotels in Waterville valley. We previewed the downhill ride in the morning by riding down to breakfast at the start and then warmed up a bit after registering. It wasn’t a great warm-up in that I did get any redline efforts in – I should have setup the trainer so I could. Anyways, I started two minutes behind the first starter (Julie) and 30 seconds behind teammate, Clara Kelly. I managed to pass everybody in front, except Clara, before the climb started (there is about a 4 mile flat-ish section) but was unable to close on Clara who then got well ahead of me on the climb and started her descent as I finished the climb. A gal from NorEast who started behind me also managed to get ahead of me on the climb. However once the course flattened out on the top I was able to start catching her and passed her on the first mile or so of the downhill. I then tried to make up my time on Clara but she still finished 0:01:19 ahead of me to take first place. I finished second at 0:01:27 ahead of the third place finisher. After the TT, Clara, Julie and I enjoyed a little ride up Kancamagus Pass followed by an icy cold soak in the Pemi to cool our tired muscles.