Concord Crit - men's cat 4 - 8-4-08
Concord Criterium, Cat 4
The course is a one-mile loop with one slightly technical turny section followed by a short power climb that almost felt like a switchback of a major climb. There is a long false-flat back straightaway that leads into a fast downhill section with three, left-hand turns. The last turn before the finishing straight is just over 200 meters out, and is tight enough to cause some braking in the pelican if you’re not at the front. Very similar to the Attleboro finish, but maybe just a little bit wider. Cat 4’s did 20 laps for just over 20 miles total.
Oscar and I lined up at the back of the 74-man field with no intentions of getting anywhere near the front early on. I think Oscar maybe have a bit of Jens Voigt Syndrome, and today he wanted to battle it by sitting in and resting. Two laps in we were still hanging out at the back, but things were not easy there. Gaps were opening up in between riders all over the place and I was hurting. Realizing that many people were on the threshold of being dropped, I made a big effort to move up at least to mid-field. Oscar did the same. Once we got there the race was much easier. Oscar looked at me and with a sigh of relief said, “Yeah, that was too far back!” The results show that almost half the pelican got dropped, and I wouldn’t be surprised if 20 people or so were dropped on the first handful of laps.
The course suited me well and I was able to settle into a rythm pretty quickly. I stayed to the right side which was probably the more dangerous but faster side with most of the turns being to the left. This seemed to make the power climb much easier though. The power climb is almost a switchback and each lap I was able to carry my speed to the outside around the turn and gained position with minimal effort.
The meat of the race was very uneventful and I spent the entire time resting. I considered contesting a prime, but each lap that I was close enough to the front to have a chance the bell was not rung. My focus was to place well at the finish so I was unwilling to burn too many matches just to win a prime.
With four laps to go I was feeling pretty overheated in my long-sleeve skinsuit. I reached down to grab my bottle of water and completely showered myself. Back, head, chest, you name it. As I sat there with liquid pouring down my face, a few drops got into my mouth and I thought, “gee, that’s nice and lemony”. I looked at the bottle that I was holding in my hand and realized that I had just poured half my hummingbird-strength Gatorade all over myself. After the race my hair felt so brittle that it’d break in half and my skin felt like I’d taken a bath in glue.
On the turn entering the powerclimb section with three to go I got caught up behind a crash that happened maybe five wheels up. The crash sent two riders down and I ended up going right between the two of them. This brought my speed down to the 5-mph range and I was spat out the back of the pelican. I charged up the hill with Geoff Martin encouraging me to get back in the race. It was a pretty taxing effort though and I was uncertain that I’d have anything left for the finish. Normally I like to make two big efforts before a sprint finish: the first at up to 90% to get myself into the best position possible and the second is obviously 100% all the way to the finish. Making a third big effort so close to the finish would surely kill me I thought.
With two to go I moved myself to the left side of the track. The right side had been good for conserving energy throughout the race but I wanted to be on the left side both for safety reasons and because I had visions of attacking up the inside on the final turns before the finish. I found several teammates here including Colby, Oscar, and Joe. Colby had missed his original strategy of attempting a longer solobreak, and offered to lead out an NEBC train. Oscar quickly jumped on second wheel, I took third and Joe grabbed fourth (I think).
We followed one another through the chicane section and up the switchback powerclimb. There was no one off the front at this point and the pace was moderate at best, and we were riding at least three people wide. As the pelican swung wide up the back straight, Colby took charge and moved us up along the inside. This caused panic and other racers shouted out to watch our attack on the inside. I’m not sure exactly what happened next, but our train died pretty shortly after. I think that several racers pushed their way into our train, including in front of both myself and Oscar. Once Colby realized that Oscar no longer had his wheel, he drifted back onto the front of the pelican. The train was not a complete failure though, and I was psyched to be in decent position about 15-20 wheels back with energy to spare as we approached the downhill.
The downhill was fast, and I was unsure of when to attack. I was considering an attack similar to the one that won me the Attleboro Crit, but I was further back this time. Just as I was ready to attack the inside, Colin Huston (Cl Noonan) moved up on my left blocking me in. I hesitated and missed my opportunity. As he continued to move up the inside going into the last turn, I followed and moved up a few positions. I overtook Oscar and he yelled at me to go now. In hind site, that would have been the perfect time.
Around the last turn I went into full sprint mode and found I had great legs today. The lane was clear to the inside and I flew up it, overtaking a ton of riders. The racers in front of me seemed to be pushing further and further left, forcing me to do the same. With about 75 meters to go I was about 7 wheels back and finally had a glimpse of the leader. For a split second I thought that I had a chance to overtake him, but I got blocked on the left by the racer that ended up finishing fourth. A race official was standing in front of the judge’s stand that jumped up and out of the way just a milli-second before I came by with my handlebars just inches from the wooden platform. I was forced to stop pedaling about 20m short of the line in fear of crashing into either the racer in front of me or into the judge’s stand. After the dust settled I’d finished in 5th place out of 74 starters. The velocity results finishing photo only shows the top 4 for our race because I finished too close to the camera for my number to show up. I had to speak with the officials after the race to verify the results.
Normalized power for the race was very high at 293W and is the second highest of any cat 4 race I’ve done this season (just behind Longsjo Crit). My sprint at the finish was also the best of the season in terms of raw wattage, averaging 1,070 W for the last 12 seconds of the race. Given the high normalized power for the race and the crash that left me scrambling 5 minutes before the finish, I’m extremely pleased with those numbers. Going into the sprint my heart rate was 189 bpm (202 bpm max), and the effort brought my speed up to 37.2 mph max at 120 rpm along the flat finishing straight. My heart rate continued to rise up to 200 bpm 15 seconds after crossing the finish line.
Jay Robbins: 5th
Colby Ricker: 7th
Joe Jussaume: 20th
Oscar Jimenez: 28th
Geoff Martin: 42nd