Kristine and the kids are here cheering me on for this race series, and Kristine got some good pics and videos from the race last night and the one on Wednesday night, too.
The video below would have been taken last night around Lap 11 or 12 as our third chase group was getting established.
Here is our finishing sprint for 6th place last night with Thomas Brown taking it and me getting second.
And here is one video from Wednesday night’s super fast short course criterium.
Quick summary
I ended up in 7th place after taking 2nd in the sprint from a four-man chase group that I was in for about 1/4 of the race. The four-man chase group emerged from a 15 rider group that formed after a 8 rider group merged with a 7 rider group. The 7 rider group was chasing a 5 rider group, which ended up staying away for the entire race. The 5 rider group slipped off the front of the 7 rider group at some point during the race when I was part of the 8 rider group chasing what must have been at that time a 12 rider group. Confused yet? Meanwhile, 6 riders from the original chase group of 15 stayed away from the remnants of the original 70-80 rider field and were chasing. I was very happy with 2nd place in the sprint from our four-man group to take 7th in the race.
The details
Here is a satellite picture of the barbell shaped race course. The map is from Golden Cheetah and is color-coded based on power output. Purples and pinks = lowest power. Blues and greens = medium power. Yellows and red = highest power.
Day 2 – Salisbury Criterium map color-coded for power
I ended up starting on the second row, but clipped in well and passed a few people to hit turn #1 somewhere in the top 10, but on the inside. I stayed on the inside going into turn #2 where there was a nasty 1-2 inch drop for a manhole cover. I nailed it and immediately lost position going downhill into turn #3. I was still on the inside and got cut off again and lost momentum going into the uphill out of turn #3. Turn #4 was a relatively straightforward righthander leading into a fast flat section heading into a lefthand turn #5 up a small hill which crested halfway before heading downhill to turn #6, which was an off-chamber turn with a pottery style small pothole cover in the middle that you tried to avoid. Then the course rolled upward again slightly before rolling back downhill into turn #7. Out of turn #7 was a small hill leading into the final turn, which was then slightly downhill all the way to the start/finish line.
All of that is to say that the course was somewhat technical and fast. Having hit that manhole cover in turn #2 on the first lap, I lost a lot of position for the rest of the lap going from somewhere in the top 10 to somewhere near the back. It was awful at the back because every technical corner involved a bunch up where you were going through a corner three and four wide hoping that the person on your inside didn’t fall. It took several laps before I found the spots to move up on the course and before I became comfortable enough with the corners to start hitting them hard. I am the type of person who really needs to pre-ride and know a course before I’m willing to take crazy risks. Other people seem to be willing to dive-bomb corners the very first time they see them!
After a few laps at the back, I decided enough was enough and attacked hard out of turn #4 passing probably 15-20 people (Lap 9). Then coming out of turn #8 on the same lap, I passed another 10 people. Then two laps later (Lap 11), I attacked hard at the same spot coming out of turn #4 and as I was attacking, I saw a chase group being formed. I made it into this chase group consisting of about 8 riders. This group worked well together and worked into a lead of about 10 seconds over the field. At this point, the chase group I was in was the third group on the road. The original break that had already formed with about 12 riders had split into a group of 5 and a group of 7. As our chase group started to close in on the group in front of us, I could tell from Chad’s announcing that that group was chasing a group of five with a small lead. It took about five or six laps to catch the second group somewhere around Lap 15.
At this point I heard Thomas Brown talking to Adam Myerson and could surmise that Thomas was about to attack so I swung to the inside coming out of turn #4 right as Thomas was attacking on the outside. I was able to pretty much immediately grab his wheel. It was a struggle though to stay there as Thomas absolutely drilled it for the rest of the lap. By the end of the lap, there was about 5 or 6 of us left as the second group on the road chasing 5 riders. Thomas had a Mountain Khakis teammate (Travis Livermon) with him. There was also a Bissell rider (Shane Kline), another rider with kit that has an eagle on the shorts, a Cleveland Clinic rider (Nick Inabinet), and me. We started rotating pretty well, but at least one rider was struggling and at one point the eagle rider opened up a gap coming out of turn #5. I was right behind him and was able to come around him and immediately onto the back of two riders in front of me. Only Nick (Cleveland Clinic) was able to chase around and catch back on so we were down to four riders at this point.
The four of us worked well together and brought the gap down to the 5 riders in front of us to 14 seconds. But we couldn’t bring it any closer and in the closing laps where we knew we weren’t going to catch them, the gap opened up again. With five laps to go, the Mountain Khakis duo attacked together, but Nick and I were both able to catch back on. We started working together again fearing the chasing group of six behind us would catch us. With two to go, Travis attacked going into turn #4 (popular place to attack for this race!) but took it too hot and almost went into the barriers. He recovered though and basically went to the front and drilled it to start a very long leadout for Thomas. Thomas ended up winning the sprint by 0.8 seconds with me and Nick tied on time behind him (I think it was my bike throw) and Travis only 0.1 seconds behind.
The data
NAME DIST SPEED POWER HR TIME Lap 1 0.8 mi 24.0 mph 339 watts 136 bpm 0:02:02 Lap 2 0.8 mi 27.5 mph 270 watts 161 bpm 0:01:49 Lap 3 0.8 mi 27.6 mph 271 watts 164 bpm 0:01:47 Lap 4 0.8 mi 27.3 mph 266 watts 168 bpm 0:01:49 Lap 5 0.8 mi 26.0 mph 268 watts 169 bpm 0:01:53 Lap 6 0.8 mi 27.8 mph 251 watts 170 bpm 0:01:47 Lap 7 0.8 mi 27.9 mph 282 watts 169 bpm 0:01:47 Lap 8 0.8 mi 26.9 mph 255 watts 170 bpm 0:01:51 Lap 9 0.8 mi 28.8 mph 343 watts 177 bpm 0:01:43 Lap 10 0.8 mi 27.7 mph 338 watts 182 bpm 0:01:46 Lap 11 0.8 mi 28.0 mph 300 watts 180 bpm 0:01:46 Lap 12 0.8 mi 27.5 mph 276 watts 181 bpm 0:01:48 Lap 13 0.8 mi 28.1 mph 299 watts 175 bpm 0:01:46 Lap 14 0.8 mi 28.7 mph 329 watts 184 bpm 0:01:43 Lap 15 0.8 mi 27.2 mph 285 watts 178 bpm 0:01:49 Lap 16 0.8 mi 28.1 mph 281 watts 183 bpm 0:01:46 Lap 17 0.8 mi 27.9 mph 267 watts 180 bpm 0:01:46 Lap 18 0.8 mi 27.2 mph 285 watts 182 bpm 0:01:49 Lap 19 0.8 mi 27.5 mph 287 watts 183 bpm 0:01:48 Lap 20 0.8 mi 27.0 mph 288 watts 181 bpm 0:01:51 Lap 21 0.8 mi 27.5 mph 269 watts 182 bpm 0:01:47 Lap 22 0.8 mi 27.6 mph 277 watts 180 bpm 0:01:48 Lap 23 0.8 mi 27.3 mph 267 watts 179 bpm 0:01:49 Lap 24 0.8 mi 27.5 mph 272 watts 179 bpm 0:01:48 Lap 25 0.8 mi 28.6 mph 341 watts 185 bpm 0:01:43 Lap 26 0.8 mi 27.5 mph 303 watts 187 bpm 0:01:49 Lap 27 0.8 mi 26.9 mph 270 watts 181 bpm 0:01:50 Lap 28 0.8 mi 27.7 mph 290 watts 178 bpm 0:01:46 Lap 29 0.8 mi 27.4 mph 263 watts 184 bpm 0:01:49 Lap 30 0.8 mi 26.3 mph 249 watts 177 bpm 0:01:53 Lap 31 0.8 mi 25.8 mph 258 watts 179 bpm 0:01:55 Lap 32 0.8 mi 26.3 mph 350 watts 177 bpm 0:01:53
The link to the interactive ride data on Strava is here: http://app.strava.com/rides/1104825.
Here is the graph from Golden Cheetah:
Day 2 – Salisbury Criterium – Heartrate/power/speed/cadence annotated
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