SRS Kickoff Weekend – Albany

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Memorial Day today
Kinda puts bike racing in perspective – so many people have given their lives so that we can enjoy the freedoms we have here in America. Thank you all present, past, and future soldiers!

Quick summary
Yesterday, I ended up 9th in the road race after having finished 15th in the criterium on Saturday in a really strong pro/1/2 field. Would have liked to finish a few spots higher, but it was still a great start to the inaugural SRS series, with five races in five southeastern states spread out over five months. In the criterium, I missed the six-man move and ended up ninth in the field sprint to take 15th in the race. Then in the road race, I was aggressive to get KOM points managing two third place finishes in the sprints to get some early points in that competition. I fought hard to stay towards the front and ended up 9th in the race fading at the end having started my sprint too early.

Finish videos

The detailed adventure
The last time I raced in Albany was 2009, and I knew I wanted to bring my family back down with me some day. This year it was just me and my wife making the trip, but next year I definitely want to bring the kids with us to experience the River Walk, Riverquarium, and other fun stuff to do right there on the crit course. Even the drive down was awesome – I65 to Montgomery to AL-110 to US82 – awesome rural roads with long distances between the towns so you can make some pretty good time while enjoying scenic rural southeast Alabama and southwest Georgia.

Roadside market on the scenic rural driveRoadside market on the scenic rural drive between Birmingham and Alabama

We drove down Saturday morning with the relatively short drive (4 hours) putting us into Albany well in advance of the criterium. I spent a good two hours rolling around easy underneath the huge oak trees draped with Spanish moss getting my legs ready for the intense 75 minutes of racing. This was my first hot race of the year as we’ve had quite the extended cold, rainy snap hanging around the southeast for the early part of the season. This race was HOT, and as I was sitting on the start line excited to race the strong, large field I my heartrate was hovering around 120!

I started out towards the back and raced somewhat conservatively trying to stay towards the front but not trying to get in every move. There were a number of good looking breaks, but fortunately the field came back together. The break of six that eventually formed got away about midway through the race. Then about 10 minutes later, a large chase group formed that I also missed. I attacked a couple times to try to bridge across or at least get a chase going, but each attack got brought back and the overall pace in the field was high enough that we caught the chase group and made it to within about 10 seconds of the front group. But then towards the end (see the video of the last eight laps below), we had some slow-downs in the field and the break’s lead went out again to about 20 seconds by the end. Shawn Gravois took a flyer from the lead group with three to go, got caught, and then went again with two to go holding it to the end for the win. Andy Crater won the sprint behind for 2nd followed by Oleg Tanovitchi taking third. I fought hard to stay towards the front, but ended up sliding a bit too far back and spending a bit too much time out in the wind so I could only manage 9th in the field sprint, 15th for the race.

For the Sunday road race, I had planned on attacking literally from the gun but before I could even attack Finishstrong had already set itself up at the front. I figured they were trying to setup Crater for the KOM but as it turns out they were trying to set up a different rider for the KOM. Still I followed their train to a third place finish on the first two KOM sprints. Finishstrong controlled everything in the race for the first two laps as they brought back attack after attack. I stayed very close to the front to go for the KOM sprints and also to make sure they didn’t try to slip anyone into a break. On the third lap, Brendan Sullivan (Lupus Cycling) got into a strong three-man move that swallowed up the KOM points. Shortly after the KOM, we caught the group of three and started setting up for the finish.

I had slid farther back than I wanted to, but then there was a crash in the middle of the field that unfortunately took out Michael McBrien (Bikes plus racing). In the crash chaos, I ended up sliding up a few spots and then continued to move up for the next several miles until we made the left turn with 2.5 miles to the finish. I was able to ride all the way up to back of the High Country Devo team sitting right behind their sprinter. They had a great train going, but it wasn’t quite fast enough to stem the surge from the field that sent me maybe 15-20 riders back from the front. When the big surge went up the lefthand side of the road, I swung out even farther to the left and was able to start my sprint with a clear line to the finish. It was at this exact moment when I went left that there was a bad crash on the right taking down Birmingham rider Payne Griffin. I was thankful not to go down, but I had started my sprint too early and even with a clean shot at the line I faded back to 9th by the finish. You can see the crash and the last 2.5 miles of the race in the two videos below:


Not quite the results I was looking for, but I was very happy to race against some of the strongest riders in the southeast and am very excited for the rest of the series! Here’s all my data from the races …

Albany criterium - annotated heartrate plot (click to enlarge)Albany criterium – annotated heartrate plot (click to enlarge)

Criterium heartrate zone summary - note the high average speedCriterium heartrate zone summary – note the high average speed

SRS - albany criterium
Pro/1/2 - 15th place
Lap	Time	AvgPow	MaxPow	HR	RPM	MPH
1	1:38	295	871	151	86	24.9
2	1:26	221	752	164	82	28.6
3	1:24	301	833	163	90	28.9
4	1:24	224	884	168	83	29.2
5	1:27	234	768	168	83	28.2
6	1:24	260	848	165	85	29.5
7	1:26	187	694	164	82	28.5
8	1:30	223	790	159	83	28
9	1:25	248	583	166	85	28.7
10	1:22	264	762	167	80	29.5
11	1:27	238	770	165	82	28.9
12	1:27	255	579	163	88	28.4
13	1:28	246	608	165	82	28.8
14	1:27	252	822	164	81	28.6
15	1:29	225	629	163	86	27.8
16	1:26	270	700	164	85	29.1
17	1:22	294	704	173	85	30.5
18	1:28	324	1084	176	83	28.9
19	1:27	233	546	173	83	28.5
20	1:30	272	616	166	83	28.2
21	1:25	352	927	175	81	29.7
22	1:27	255	786	182	79	28.8
23	1:30	245	858	167	81	28.4
24	1:26	410	879	183	81	29.5
25	1:24	230	731	182	80	29.5
26	1:28	272	949	172	79	28.6
27	1:29	274	834	172	79	27.8
28	1:23	336	877	179	81	29.3
29	1:28	312	996	184	84	28.1
30	1:29	264	597	185	81	27.6
31	1:32	204	636	172	78	26.7
32	1:27	246	745	171	79	28.1
33	1:27	253	863	169	81	28.3
34	1:25	266	691	179	80	28.9
35	1:21	282	867	180	77	29.5
36	1:27	233	593	177	74	27.6
37	1:31	292	1044	170	76	26.9
38	1:27	301	985	179	79	27.7
39	1:32	258	610	179	84	26.8
40	1:31	228	728	170	77	27.1
41	1:26	227	739	173	77	28.7
42	1:24	319	689	174	83	29.4
43	1:30	285	833	176	81	27.5
44	1:31	282	817	179	75	27.4
45	1:27	286	749	180	78	28.3
46	1:26	225	573	179	79	28.2
47	1:29	303	707	173	81	27.8
48	1:30	303	756	181	82	27.4
49	1:27	310	872	183	82	28.1
50	1:26	302	886	183	84	28
51	1:18	409	1016	192	82	30.5

Leesburg road race - annotated heartrate plot (click to enlarge)Leesburg road race – annotated heartrate plot (click to enlarge)

Road race heartrate zone summary - note the amount of time spent in Zones 2 and 3Road race heartrate zone summary – note the amount of time spent in Zones 2 and 3

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