Apr 20, 12:48 AM by Steve | Sea Otter Circuit Race: A Whole Lotta Suck
Posted in Cycling & Race-Report
From the moment I arrived at the venue today I knew the race was going to suck. At the hilltop dirt lot where we parked, the winds were whipping over us at what felt like at least 30mph. For some bizzare reason I decide to put my 46mm rims on and rode around for a few minutes and thought I would be ok. I ran into Marco on the way down to the circuit—he looked at my wheels, then looked at me, and ummm, convinced me to change them when he said he was tossed around on his regular wheels.
I remarked to Dawn as I watched Mark in his race that I need to buy stronger rubber bands, because mine keep breaking. I was watching race because, well, see what I just said about needing better rubber bands. Mine broke on the 5th lap—or actually stretched to its limit as we came down the start/finish straight at the end of the 4th lap. The field was completely strung out and gaps were starting to form and I had to chase hard to catch back on. I was dangling just behind as we went up the climb and nearly made contact before it pitched up again.
You can see in the chart below that my HR increases much sooner than previous laps and when the pack crests I pretty much give up and cruise back to the start. You can also see that my HR does not recover as far each successive lap. In my final analysis, my biggest limiters today were that I lacked the acceleration to avoid the gap from forming in the first place, and that I was not able to hold an effort above threshold for long enough.
I was debating whether or not to try to finish the race (the officials told us at the start that lapped riders would be pulled), but I was nearly blown over right before the hairpin turn, and when I got to the line the sign said 5 laps to go. I didn’t really see any point to continuing, so I rolled up to Kim and said f-that, let’s go home. Dawn declared her lucky that she got to leave early. I stayed to watch a few more laps as Kim began her hike to the car and saw Mark sitting on the front of his 45+ race (and not looking too happy about it), and Gabe sitting strong second or third wheel in the 35+ race.
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Rubber bands?
So you DNF’d? That sucks man- sorry to hear that. We race today so Ill let you know how it goes.
— Chester at Apr 20, 10:08 AM