Goulburn Great divide and ITT

Road cycling & upcoming rides
Strawburger
Posts: 595
Joined: 04 Mar 2009, 08:27

Postby Strawburger » 30 Aug 2015, 18:27

Both Mike and I traveled down for the ITT Saturday and James F and Alex C joined us for the road race on Sunday.

The course replicates the NSW masters course. It has wind farms nearby so it's windy! Rolling hills, no major climbs, and this year sunday grades that go down to E! So where was everyone?

My ride Saturday was tough. A huge headwind on the way out meant suffering for 20odd minutes and just trying to hold onto the bike! On the plus side, we were hitting close to 70km/hr on the way back. Did a PB so it was a successful outing.

Sunday, another tough race. The wind had softened so no real excuses. I sat in and checked out the competition but soon got bored, so I went to the front and attacked on every rise of the road. By the halfway mark and creating a few unsuccessful breakaways, I decided to save my legs for the final 10kms. I was boxed in, but I made my way to the front with 5km to go and attacked the bunch. 3 riders got away but the peloton was far too excited about a bunch sprint and closed us down. I sat in again and waited for 3km to go. I muscled my way up and sat on the front for the sprint. One thing about being up a grade is people can sprint! With 500m to go, the bunch kicked. I led out the right side of the sprint but was swamped with 300m to go. I sat up and rolled over with the other non sprinters .

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mikesbytes
Posts: 6991
Joined: 13 Nov 2006, 13:48
Location: Tempe
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Postby mikesbytes » 30 Aug 2015, 18:58

The ITT on Saturday was the worse wind I had ever raced in, I struggled to hold the clips and regretted wearing gloves as bare hands would of given more grip. On the way out, which is the uphill and headwind way I was struggling to maintain heart rate. The way home I fared better getting my heartrate in the zone for most of the time, except when I lost concentration at one point and it plummeted. End result was my slowest time trail since the 2009 world masters games when I did my first one.

Sunday road race I was graded div4, which was just one lap, being 45k. I felt fatigued during the neutral, not a good sign. Went slightly off the back on the first real hill and for the big one, I went off the front and gave me metres, a strategy that worked well as the bunch caught me 3/4 way up and I was able to ride myself back on after cresting. This put us on the fast bit of yesterdays time trail, a piece of road that I knew I was fast on, so I attacked and tried to bridge to the 2 riders off the front, chasing and caught a chasing rider and in turn was caught by another rider making us 3. This had clearly sent the alarms in the bunch and it chased and caught us. Having been caught we sat up and no one set chase of the 2 riders off the front, so I jumped again and this time found myself in between the 2, not strong enough to catch them and I knew there was no cards left for me. The bunch eventually caught me and went past, I went into ITT training mode and rode 25k solo.


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