NWA Classic Race Report;
Jay, Bob, and I made the last min. get in ur car decision to drive (bob did the driving) 4.5 hours and go to a one day Road Race in North West Arkansas. The course was for the most part flat with one decent hill and a few rollers, and the weather was a bit cool at first but warmed up nicely. This was the first time we have all three raced together and i must say it was a great experience. The first lap had a few break attempts that got reeled back in and the second lap was more of the same with bob doing a few solo moves that no one wanted to bridge up to him so he came back to the pack. There wasn't a breakaway attempt without either me, bob, or jay in it and that took alot of pressure off of all of us to try and cover everything. It was much easier than trying to guess what breakaway would stick and/or cover as many as you could before you were to tired to do it anymore.
On the third lap a fossil guy got up the road a long way and the pack went nuts trying to pull him back, and due to good pack positioning, and some great blocking by jay and the okc velo team a 13 man breakaway got motoring down the road with a nice rotation. At first everyone was working well together, but a group of three caught us and after there bridge sat on for recover which upset some of the break but with a little verbal encouragement we got it going again and everyone was doing there fair share of the work. Before the big hill i started sand bagging the break big time, so i would have enough energy to cover if anyone attacked the hill and bob took my pulls for me as i sat in the back. I hid to the left of the last guy rotating so he couldn't see me an just sucked wheel for a good portion of the 3rd lap and i think they confused bob for me and him as he was doing a lion's share of the work at the front. As luck would have it everyone was content to go easy up the hill (thank god) and we all stayed together but alot more people started hanging out at the back with me for some reason.
Bob put in a few attacks to try and get away as the others didn't want to burn up there energy before the sprint. It all stayed together for the end and i positioned my self about 4th wheel just before the big spin up for the sprint, bob got pushed a little farther back and got a little out of position for the sprint. The sprint started a long way back and i sat on an Undiscoverd guys wheel and was going to go around him but i thought it was way to long of a sprint still so i just waited until two guys came around me and i hung on there wheel but didn't have enough gas to get around them for 3rd. Bob made up for his lack of position and got stuck behind two guys that quit the sprint early, passed them and passed my Undiscovered leadout man to take 5th. Jay came up in the pack and won the pack sprint for 13th.
Its was awesome to have a teammate block and sacrifice his own results to help other teammates get up the road and try to win the race, even before the race racers where pointing jay out and telling there teammates that he was the wheel to watch for in the end for the sprint. It was with our ability to cover every break and Jays legend of killing everyone in the sprint and doing a great job blocking that we where able to get the results that we did.
Great job Bob and Jay! I look forward to racing more with you two, George, and the next 4's very soon to be threes as the season progress's.
6x 3min Intervals
Kicked out a few 3 min intervals before the big snow storm... blizzard... blowing snow with lightning... snow and lightning... Kansas rocks....Hells Kitchen RR
I took the fam to missouri for spring break to chill at the lake house and figured while i was here i would drive the hour and do the hells kitchen road race. What a great idea! I took the two days prior to the event off, not even turning a pedal so i could be well rested for this race, one that i consider to be the hardest race on the calendar.
For those that dont know the rr, it is a 20 mile loop that cruises up a few little climbs and then near the end of the lap there is a monster climb that takes about 6 min's to climb. Most use a 27x12 gear ratio in the back so they can spin up the thing, but im not most people and figured i'd just suffer up the thing like a real man in the 25x11 (i need the 11 for the sprint you see), anyway as im cruising along on the first lap i notice that the ol legs arn't real happy about taken two days off and feel like concrete. Not a good thing to feel before we even started climbing, so i figure that the 40min spin to the first hells climb they would warm.
I made it to the climb and felt ok but as i started going up these guys ramped up the pace pretty hard, I was pushing 420w for the first two min of the climb till the legs told me to take a hike and the grouped kept cruising along and dropped me like a bad habit, the average wattage for the climb was 367w and took 5min and 45sec to climb, near the top i was wishing i had that 27x12 gearing as it was all i could do to granny up the end standing and keeping the bike going in a forward direction. My power to weight ratio is not so hot and the climb showed it fo sho.
In the end i caught up with 5 guys, and waited for another so we could finish the race and get some good training in just the same, but after the first lap two undiscovered guys that were with us quit and headed to the car so that left 3 of us to soldier on for the next two laps. Looking back on the power files i worked harder out of the pack than i did drafting in it so i ended up with a good workout.
Great results for the folk that kicked it up in kc last weekend. We are having a great start to the season.
Time: 3hours KJ: 2457 TSS: 274 NP:289 VI: 1.25
For those that dont know the rr, it is a 20 mile loop that cruises up a few little climbs and then near the end of the lap there is a monster climb that takes about 6 min's to climb. Most use a 27x12 gear ratio in the back so they can spin up the thing, but im not most people and figured i'd just suffer up the thing like a real man in the 25x11 (i need the 11 for the sprint you see), anyway as im cruising along on the first lap i notice that the ol legs arn't real happy about taken two days off and feel like concrete. Not a good thing to feel before we even started climbing, so i figure that the 40min spin to the first hells climb they would warm.
I made it to the climb and felt ok but as i started going up these guys ramped up the pace pretty hard, I was pushing 420w for the first two min of the climb till the legs told me to take a hike and the grouped kept cruising along and dropped me like a bad habit, the average wattage for the climb was 367w and took 5min and 45sec to climb, near the top i was wishing i had that 27x12 gearing as it was all i could do to granny up the end standing and keeping the bike going in a forward direction. My power to weight ratio is not so hot and the climb showed it fo sho.
In the end i caught up with 5 guys, and waited for another so we could finish the race and get some good training in just the same, but after the first lap two undiscovered guys that were with us quit and headed to the car so that left 3 of us to soldier on for the next two laps. Looking back on the power files i worked harder out of the pack than i did drafting in it so i ended up with a good workout.
Great results for the folk that kicked it up in kc last weekend. We are having a great start to the season.
Time: 3hours KJ: 2457 TSS: 274 NP:289 VI: 1.25
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