T-Bones Rare

This past weekend I participated in the Devon Grand Prix, in all four events, sprint, time trial, criterium and road race.

The sprint race was held on Friday, on Devon main drag. The course was a total of ~200 metres with a turn around locate at one end of the block. Not much to say about this event other than it was about the fastest time trial I’ve ever done, 27 seconds. The only unfortunate incedent was Trevor from United Cycle who went down when he was giving it just after the turn around and he went down hard resulting in a broken collar bone. I was sent a couple of pictures of my sprint effort

Saturday morning was the time trial a 31 km course into a rather strong west wind on the way out. But it was nice to have a tail wind on the way back. The course itself was quite nice in terms of pavement but the hill did slow me down a bit, something I’m working on. It’s an interesting course because you hit the hill fairly soon on the way out and then just right before you finish as you can see in the profile.

For myself get spun up again after the climb take a bit of time. That being said, I did O.K. placing 5th for omnium points, with a course time of 53:05. I was also encouraged by number of fellow club members who came out just for the time trial. Sounds like they had fun and who knows, maybe they’ll try a road race soon.

Late afternoon saw the running of the crit. I have to give credit to the event organizers for the little added things to make it more a community event. The kids parade was excellent. With a couple of “neutral” laps led by a 60’s vintage Camero, things were off to a flying start. I kept to the middle of the pack for the most part as I didn’t want a repeat of the Red Deer crit, where I did a lot work up front for little return. Around the 5 minute left mark we overtook a group who had been split off earlier. At this point I made a jump hoping to further split the pack as we went we lapped them. Unfortunately instead of a small group of riders I pulled about 14 along with me again. Although I finished 10th, I still got 5 omnium points for my effort.

Sunday, well it was interesting day. The course is a fairly straight out and back as you can see from the map.

However the profile tell an interesting story.

As you can see right at the middle of the course is a rather nice steep long hill. A good place for a couple of King of the Mountain challenges for points and for the pack to get split and blown up real good. So onto the race.

First off the weather in Edmonton was nice and sunny as left for the course. However there were lots of ominous black clouds hovering over the area when we started the race. Luckily it didn’t rain and we only ran into a few wet patches. Secondly I had a couple of team mates Ken and Rich at the start line. Of course it wouldn’t be a good race if we didn’t have wind, which we did and was out of the west. So I tried to settle back close to to the front, but not in lead. This lasted maybe about 15 minutes before I was caught up doing some chasing and trying to get involved with a pace line. Dan from Speed Theory had this to say about trying to get the pace line organized over at the Speed Theory blog:

The race starts and we are cruising along. There were a couple of camera time for the guys that are going to get slammed attacks and I am trying to organize the guys into riding into a pace line as we were heading straight into the wind for 20km. I got the usual response from the guys around me like “Pace line, what’s that?” So I initiate some surges and get some guys riding in an echelon line trading pulls.

Yep it can be like herding cats. At one point I was out with 4 other riders and the pack just slowed right up, ERTC decided to let us fry. I slowed down waiting for the pack to catch up, I slowed to less than 15 kph! And still I kept moving away from the pack. So I thought to hell with it and caught with a couple of the other guys and we almost got a pace line working. Rich was up with me but he blew up once we rounded corner heading to the 2 big climbs of the day. A couple of km’s around the corner and the pack caught up and so much for that. So the break attempt didn’t work and I payed the price at the second King of the Mountain point. Not much to say about this other than I descend like anvil dropped off a cliff, but getting back up is another story.

I was doing not too badly, but I just was not able to keep my effort for about a minute or so and that was enough. I was out the back of the lead group as I watched Ken pull ahead of me, despite my best efforts to stay on his wheel. Once I crested the hill I put myself into bridge the gap mode hoping to catch up, but it was tough slog. As I reached the corner to head back east I caught up with Scott from Calgary Cycle who had also been dropped. We started working together as two up time trail to try and bridge. Eventually Hendrik Van Jaarsveldt from Cranky’s caught up with us and we put the pedal to the metal. We saw a group of about 4 or 5 riders that we were gaining on and this encouraged us to work even harder as we thought they had been dropped from the lead group. The riders turned out to be from the women’s group.

Hendrick was really pissed at being dropped and we worked hard at trying to make up lost ground. Eventually Scott couldn’t keep up anymore and it was just Hendrick and myself. As we came around the last corner we decide not to contest the sprint and we crossed the finish line together. I’d work with a rider like that anytime. At the end of the day I finished 13th in road race good for a 3 more points in the omnium. Also Ken ended up taking 1st.

I like to think that other racers in Cat 5 can’t accuse me of not putting my share of effort in during a race. Once again Dan summed it up quite nicely:

To all the guys in Cat 5, pace line riding, echelon riding at supporting each other as a team is the only way to succeed. Learn the tactics from the big dogs like Jared, Steve German and Trev and practice things. The points will come and you will be more satisfied that you went in and you raced the race and not wheel suck and hope to outsprint at the end.

Dan good luck in Cat 4. Ken and Rich I’m looking forward to working with you as team next time. To all my other fellow Cycle Logic riders who came out and rode the time trial hope you’ll try a road race soon.