Venti Velocity

Two weekends ago was Velocity Stage Race in Edmonton.  My one year anniversary to road racing!  It had been blowing a gale up North all week, so it was going to be a tough weekend out on the barren prairie.  Riding in the wind and on the flats are definitely not my strengths (compared to basket weaving or cross-stitching, for example) so I was ready to hurt and hopefully improve on these weaknesses.

Friday we made the all-to0-familiar haul up the QEII to Edmonton and got right down to business with Nachos and my first attempt at slack-lining:

Saturday morning we were up at the crack of dawn to get to the Time Trial, my favorite event.  As per usual, I had wonderful intentions of warming up really good for this stage, but naturally found lots of excuses not to warm up properly.  Such as when I pulled the disc wheel out of its bag and realized it was lacking a cassette.  Oops.  I swapped a cassette over from another wheel, installed carbon brake pads (which should have been done the night before), pumped up the tires and started a warm-up half an hour before my start time.  Not too bad.  Except..cassette  needed a spacer.  Went and looked for a spacer and got distracted looking for 4-leaf clovers in the grass.  OK  that’s a joke, but I probably would have had more success looking for a 4-leaf clover than a cassette spacer in my kit-explosion of a duffle bag.  Brian Robinson came to the rescue with a spacer and I rocked up to the start line with enough time to ponder why I insist on being such a gong-show for Time Trials.   The 10 km course was a square and the first leg was into a head-wind which should have tipped me off to be in an easier gear than normal.  It did not.  I mashed away for 30 seconds and finally wound my cadence up to 40 and started finding a rhythm.  Rounded the first corner and battled a cross-wind.  I was obviously losing this battle when Pepper came whistling by me spinning like a sewing machine (I guess this was relative because she later told me that I looked like I was doing 1-legged squats).  Anyway, I ended up in 6th place after the TT, 1min 7sec down on the lead.  Pepper was in 2nd place and 16seconds down on the lead.  Most importantly, I made the revelation that I should be spinning a higher cadence in the wind rather than trying to stomp through it.  As Pepper pointed out, I spin easier gears when up against the resistance of a hill, so why not while against the resistance of wind?  Roger.

Saturday evening was the criterium in South Edmonton.  The full fan squad was out to watch, including my parents and good buds Tommy, Christina, Adam, Agata, Neil and new bud Charlie (the dog).  Everybody stuck together for the majority of the race and with 2 laps to go I decided to try and make a dent in my GC deficit.  I attacked coming down the home stretch in the headwind and got a good gap going into the 3 chicane corners.  On the second corner I looked back and thought I saw the pack 30′ behind me and sat up.  Rookie mistake.  I was only one corner away from hitting the long tailwind section where I could have recovered…and I later realized that there was only one rider 30′ back and not the whole pack.  Moral of the story:  Never give up until they’ve made contact!  (Why didn’t Aesop write road racing fables?)  Pepper did an awesome job of opening up her finishing sprint up before the last corner (earlier than any of us expected) and holding it to the line to gain a few seconds in GC with time bonuses  I finished in 4th place.

Sunday it was back out to Josephburg for the 90km pancake-flat road race.  The GC was still tight with the Pedalhead Road Works  team occuping 1st, 4th and 5th in GC.  Pepper was in 2nd (by 9 seconds), Christina from Top Gear/Road was in 3rd, I was still a minute down in 6th place and Shantel from Redbike was just behind me in 7th.  Pedalhead was in a great position and all they had to do was keep an eye on Pepper and Christina to maintain their GC dominance.  This put me in a fun position because I had nothing to lose by initiating a move off the front of the race.  There were several favourable outcomes that could potentially occur from this:  1)  The break sticks until the end and I potentially move all the way up to 1st in GC, or 2) I stay away long enough that Pedalhead has to work hard to bring me back while the other riders sit in, and then somebody counter attacks the (hopefully tired) Pedalhead team.

Using experience gained in Stages 1 and 2, I attacked towards the end of the cross-wind section and didn’t do 1-legged squats nor sit up too early.  I already had a decent gap when I hit the tailwind and looked behind me and see Shantel and Rhonda (Speed Theory) bridging up to me.  Awesome!  We joined up and started working the echelon and growing our lead on the main pack.  None of us were marked riders and we were going strong until we hit the tailwind section on the second lap, about 35km into the race.  I was in the lead and riding in the middle of the lane when a gust of wind flicked me at the ditch.   Shantel was sitting second wheel and wisely stayed on the road but Rhonda followed my bad lead and rode into the ditch.  I ended up riding through the ditch and back onto the road without dismounting and tagged back up with Shantel.  Rhonda wasn’t quite as lucky and took a bit more time to get back on the road, but we were optimistic she could catch back on. 

Going through the feedzone at the start of lap 3 I was led to believe we were on the final lap.  We were intended to do 4 laps but I figured they had cut it down due to the savage wind.  We still could not see the womens pack behind us and I was feeling strong and starting to think we might be able to stick it all the way to the end.  I wanted to take a long pull on the headwind section but pushed too hard and accidentally rode Shantel off my wheel.  Now I was cooked and on my own, but I figured I only had one lap (20km) to go so I might as well try to hold it.  By this point the wind was downright nasty and it wasn’t long before I was gobbled up by the remainder of the womens pack.  Pepper went to the front and slowed it down so I could recover.  Shortly thereafter, two of the Pedalhead girls (1st and 4th GC) got away with Pepper.  I tried to get up there as well and was followed by Kristin (remaining Pedalhead rider), but didn’t make it.  Rolled the rest of the lap with Kristin while the lead three drilled it.  As we neared the finish line there were soo many people standing around that I really did believe we were finished.  We were not.  That bell I had heard on the previous lap was for somebody else and we still had another 22km to go in the vicious wind.  I pleaded with Kristin not to leave me alone on the course and she kindly obliged.   Pepper ended up winning the race by 3 seconds and taking a 6 second time bonus, but still finished 4seconds down in GC for a hard earned 2nd place.  Pedalhead took a much deserved 1st, 3rd and 4th place in GC.

And that was that!  My 2nd Velocity Stage Race Experience.  Great weekend with lots of experience gained and lots of catching up with friends and family!  Really awesome to see a good womens field out at the race who weren’t afraid to mix it up.  

Mutual of Enumclaw Race was last weekend (May Long) and that post will come to you this week!

Next up for racing is Summer Solstice mountain bike race on Saturday at COP, then Pigeon Lake Road Race on Sunday at Mulhurst Bay!

Surf’s up.

Katy.