Strava map highlighting one lap of the race.
This has to be one of my all-time favorite criterium courses, although I would not want to race it in the rain. Fortunately for us in the pro men’s field, we dodged the thunderstorms and raced on a completely dry course. This was not the case for races earlier in the day, including the pro women’s field (see pics in the gallery below). The race starts on Pleasant St at river level (Milwaukee River). The first turn takes you onto Brewer Hill where you climb all 68 ft that course gains in one shot. Then after a flat section across the top, you dive down through a series of twists and turns to make it back down to Pleasant St for the finishing sprint. In the middle of the race, I was thinking how beautiful it was to be following a single file line of riders through so many turns at speeds approaching 35mph on the downhill series of turns lap after lap. This was the most technical course of the entire series, and there were no wrecks!
Here is how the race played out – a small break established itself within the first few laps of the race. They stayed away for the entire race, but never lapped the field. Towards the middle of the race, I tried to get into a chase group. This lasted for a lap. Then with 5 laps to go, another move went off the front of the field. I saw it but hesitated. Then I decided to jump anyway and rode the rest of that lap and part of the next one solo trying to chase back onto the chase group. It was all for naught though, because the field caught me and eventually reeled back in the chase group with 3 laps to go. I had burned a lot of matches with that move, but I still really wanted a top 20 result so I fought hard to move up on the last two laps and ended up 19th.
iBike stats – a couple interesting things highlighted in red. The interesting thing about the braking is how little there was of it. You really didn’t have to brake that much anywhere on the course because everybody was so smooth!
6/21/2011 6:10 PM
Dist: 37.37 mi (1:30:12)
Energy: 1608.7 kJ
Cals Burn: 1537.9 kcal
Climbing: 3468 ft
Braking: -24.5 kJ (-1.5%)
Avg Max
Power 297.2 1125 W
Speed 24.9 36 mi/h
Wind 19.1 36 mi/h
Caden 77.0 118 rpm
HR 158.3 177 bpm
iBike graph – note the entire lap solo with 5 to go … not a very good way to save energy for the finish …
And here are my Strava lap splits … with a link to the interactive strava data here – http://app.strava.com/rides/786672
DIST ELEV SPEED POWER HR TIME
Lap 1 0.7 mi 68 ft 23.1 mph 268 watts 151 bpm 0:01:55
Lap 2 0.7 mi 68 ft 25.1 mph 348 watts 160 bpm 0:01:46
Lap 3 0.7 mi 68 ft 25.5 mph 342 watts 161 bpm 0:01:44
Lap 4 0.8 mi 68 ft 25.1 mph 352 watts 161 bpm 0:01:46
Lap 5 0.7 mi 68 ft 25.3 mph 351 watts 163 bpm 0:01:45
Lap 6 0.7 mi 68 ft 24.8 mph 318 watts 159 bpm 0:01:47
Lap 7 0.7 mi 68 ft 26.3 mph 351 watts 161 bpm 0:01:41
Lap 8 0.7 mi 68 ft 26.8 mph 370 watts 166 bpm 0:01:39
Lap 9 0.7 mi 68 ft 24.8 mph 293 watts 159 bpm 0:01:47
Lap 10 0.7 mi 68 ft 24.4 mph 306 watts 154 bpm 0:01:49
Lap 11 0.7 mi 68 ft 25.8 mph 331 watts 156 bpm 0:01:43
Lap 12 0.8 mi 68 ft 24.4 mph 349 watts 158 bpm 0:01:49
Lap 13 0.7 mi 68 ft 25.8 mph 341 watts 162 bpm 0:01:43
Lap 14 0.7 mi 68 ft 23.9 mph 296 watts 157 bpm 0:01:51
Lap 15 0.7 mi 68 ft 24.8 mph 323 watts 156 bpm 0:01:47
Lap 16 0.7 mi 68 ft 25.3 mph 347 watts 157 bpm 0:01:45
Lap 17 0.7 mi 68 ft 26.3 mph 349 watts 158 bpm 0:01:41
Lap 18 0.7 mi 68 ft 25.5 mph 350 watts 158 bpm 0:01:44
Lap 19 0.7 mi 68 ft 24.8 mph 319 watts 158 bpm 0:01:47
Lap 20 0.7 mi 68 ft 25.8 mph 351 watts 159 bpm 0:01:43
Lap 21 0.7 mi 68 ft 25.3 mph 368 watts 159 bpm 0:01:45
Lap 22 0.7 mi 68 ft 26.6 mph 381 watts 162 bpm 0:01:40
Lap 23 0.7 mi 68 ft 25.8 mph 372 watts 165 bpm 0:01:43
Lap 24 0.7 mi 68 ft 22.5 mph 287 watts 156 bpm 0:01:58
Lap 25 0.7 mi 68 ft 24.8 mph 310 watts 161 bpm 0:01:47
Lap 26 0.7 mi 68 ft 23.9 mph 335 watts 159 bpm 0:01:51
Lap 27 0.8 mi 68 ft 24.6 mph 358 watts 156 bpm 0:01:48
Lap 28 0.7 mi 68 ft 25.5 mph 353 watts 159 bpm 0:01:44
Lap 29 0.7 mi 68 ft 25.8 mph 365 watts 159 bpm 0:01:43
Lap 30 0.7 mi 68 ft 24.6 mph 340 watts 157 bpm 0:01:48
Lap 31 0.7 mi 68 ft 26.6 mph 391 watts 161 bpm 0:01:40
Lap 32 0.7 mi 68 ft 24.1 mph 317 watts 158 bpm 0:01:50
Lap 33 0.8 mi 68 ft 25.1 mph 368 watts 159 bpm 0:01:46
Lap 34 0.7 mi 68 ft 23.5 mph 302 watts 155 bpm 0:01:53
Lap 35 0.7 mi 68 ft 23.7 mph 300 watts 153 bpm 0:01:52
Lap 36 0.7 mi 68 ft 23.5 mph 302 watts 153 bpm 0:01:53
Lap 37 0.7 mi 68 ft 24.8 mph 340 watts 155 bpm 0:01:47
Lap 38 0.7 mi 68 ft 25.1 mph 352 watts 156 bpm 0:01:46
Lap 39 0.8 mi 68 ft 24.6 mph 330 watts 153 bpm 0:01:48
Lap 40 0.7 mi 68 ft 24.8 mph 328 watts 152 bpm 0:01:47
Lap 41 0.7 mi 68 ft 26.3 mph 362 watts 159 bpm 0:01:41
Lap 42 0.7 mi 68 ft 23.5 mph 322 watts 154 bpm 0:01:53
Lap 43 0.7 mi 68 ft 25.1 mph 334 watts 155 bpm 0:01:46
Lap 44 0.7 mi 68 ft 21.8 mph 257 watts 151 bpm 0:02:02
Lap 45 0.7 mi 68 ft 22.5 mph 258 watts 153 bpm 0:01:58
Lap 46 0.7 mi 68 ft 25.3 mph 352 watts 164 bpm 0:01:45
Lap 47 0.7 mi 68 ft 24.4 mph 353 watts 165 bpm 0:01:49
Lap 48 0.7 mi 68 ft 27.4 mph 397 watts 163 bpm 0:01:37
Lap 49 0.7 mi 68 ft 25.1 mph 382 watts 161 bpm 0:01:46
Lap 50 0.7 mi 68 ft 25.3 mph 339 watts 162 bpm 0:01:45
Lap 51 0.7 mi 68 ft 28.0 mph 439 watts 168 bpm 0:01:35
Finally, here is a gallery of pics from the day. Hover over each one for a caption.
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