We had near perfect weather for today's 66 mile road race that began and ended in Cannon Falls. Temps were in the mid to upper 70s with lots of sun, a few clouds and a fair amount of wind. The course was mainly rolling with a few short climbs - a significant one at about 3 miles in that was an opportunity for queen of the hill (QOH) points. Admittedly I was worried as hell about that first climb and I suffered like a dog for the first 10 miles or so - bad enough that I wanted to crawl back into the car.
There were a few little wrecks here and there that I got stuck behind but fortunately none of us got sucked into any of them. I was feeling a little tired after 50mi or so but fortunately my legs came around and I was in good shape going into the half mile long gravel/dirt stretch and killer bumpy downhill section leading to the final circuit where we did 5 laps. I got sort of pinched going into that part and lost some position so I just drilled it and bombed the dirt stretch then rode the right side gutter (with cascading water and potholes) down the hill to the right hand turn - flats and crashes be damned!! My thought at that very second? God, it's like cyclocross...ick. It worked - thankfully or I would've looked like an idiot - and I was on the circuit with the lead group, feeling great. Going into the final sprint we had a downhill off-camber left with about 1K to the line. Someone went down in that turn so we had to take evasive action to get by. At the line I was in 20th - I was very pleased with that, given that I was contemplating having a rough go of things early on and the fact that we started with something like 145 on the line. That's a lot of bikes to fight through!
Everyone got in safely so we all lived to fight another day. That's more than I can say for my power meter...I lost the cpu somewhere along the way so I have to fly commando the rest of the week. I think there are some photos posted on cyclingnews.com - we were lucky enough to have one of the photo guys riding in our caravan car and he snapped some good race shots.
There were a few little wrecks here and there that I got stuck behind but fortunately none of us got sucked into any of them. I was feeling a little tired after 50mi or so but fortunately my legs came around and I was in good shape going into the half mile long gravel/dirt stretch and killer bumpy downhill section leading to the final circuit where we did 5 laps. I got sort of pinched going into that part and lost some position so I just drilled it and bombed the dirt stretch then rode the right side gutter (with cascading water and potholes) down the hill to the right hand turn - flats and crashes be damned!! My thought at that very second? God, it's like cyclocross...ick. It worked - thankfully or I would've looked like an idiot - and I was on the circuit with the lead group, feeling great. Going into the final sprint we had a downhill off-camber left with about 1K to the line. Someone went down in that turn so we had to take evasive action to get by. At the line I was in 20th - I was very pleased with that, given that I was contemplating having a rough go of things early on and the fact that we started with something like 145 on the line. That's a lot of bikes to fight through!
Everyone got in safely so we all lived to fight another day. That's more than I can say for my power meter...I lost the cpu somewhere along the way so I have to fly commando the rest of the week. I think there are some photos posted on cyclingnews.com - we were lucky enough to have one of the photo guys riding in our caravan car and he snapped some good race shots.
