Saturday, April 18, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
Saris PowerTap Disc Brake wheel
This year, Saris were able to help out with a few pieces of equipment through Paligap – the most interesting piece being the new PowerTap SL 2.4 Disc built by Cycleways onto a Stans NoTubes Olympic Rim with Sapim Race spokes which just so happens to talk wirelessly with my Garmin Edge 705. I have used power on the road bike for over a year now and have found it a great training tool – sometimes, I do admit to riding t o a number (which is good sometimes) but the advantages for training specificity, pacing and training/performance recording has been immeasurable. With all that in mind, I was always intrigued to see what the difference would be off-road versus on the road. With a few weeks of training and an offroad time trial on the wheel I can start making some initial observations.
Full built wheel including brake rotor and rim tape is 1,250 grams
Firstly, mountain bikings power profile is dramatically different from the road. Looking at a road power file, you see power rise and fall a lot, this is nothing in comparison to what you find on a mountain bike. The amount of time that you spend at Anaerobic power levels is astonishing with the time spent around Threshold power levels being dramatically lower (unless of course there are long steady climbs in the ride/race). My observation is that you are basically coasting (steep or technical descending), riding at endurance pace (fireroad descending) or are at VO2max/Anaerobic Power Zones (all climbs).
A muddy one
Throughout the winter I spent a great amount of time training for increased power at Threshold/Tempo and increasing the time I can spend at it – it works well for the road but the power requirements for off-road are quiet different and something that I will be altering my training for.
For instance, if you take two rides, one on the road and one off-road that you would consider equally hard on your body, the MTB ride would have a much lower average power, but with a lot higher peaks. Also, generating the same power off road is much more difficult than on a nice smooth road.
Secondly, the cadences at which the power is output is dramatically different. Road riding, unless very steep (and not enough gears available) you can basically decide the cadence you wish to ride at, again, it is so steady. In mountain biking, the cadences vary dramatically, with a large chunk of the high powered efforts at low cadences (50-70). I guess this is a lot of the out of the saddle steep climbs, but again, a thing that my road riding had not prepared myself for properly. On the road, I do train at the slower cadences, but not at that power level – my Anaerobic, VO2Max efforts tend to be at the 80-90 range.
So what am I changing, without going into too much detail, more high powered steep climbs (not necessarily technical, I seem to handle those well), more 3-5 minute climbs and, if you read anything about my Cyprus racing, more training in relation to fast starts – clearing lactate etc…
Full built wheel including brake rotor and rim tape is 1,250 gramsFirstly, mountain bikings power profile is dramatically different from the road. Looking at a road power file, you see power rise and fall a lot, this is nothing in comparison to what you find on a mountain bike. The amount of time that you spend at Anaerobic power levels is astonishing with the time spent around Threshold power levels being dramatically lower (unless of course there are long steady climbs in the ride/race). My observation is that you are basically coasting (steep or technical descending), riding at endurance pace (fireroad descending) or are at VO2max/Anaerobic Power Zones (all climbs).
A muddy oneFor instance, if you take two rides, one on the road and one off-road that you would consider equally hard on your body, the MTB ride would have a much lower average power, but with a lot higher peaks. Also, generating the same power off road is much more difficult than on a nice smooth road.
Secondly, the cadences at which the power is output is dramatically different. Road riding, unless very steep (and not enough gears available) you can basically decide the cadence you wish to ride at, again, it is so steady. In mountain biking, the cadences vary dramatically, with a large chunk of the high powered efforts at low cadences (50-70). I guess this is a lot of the out of the saddle steep climbs, but again, a thing that my road riding had not prepared myself for properly. On the road, I do train at the slower cadences, but not at that power level – my Anaerobic, VO2Max efforts tend to be at the 80-90 range.
So what am I changing, without going into too much detail, more high powered steep climbs (not necessarily technical, I seem to handle those well), more 3-5 minute climbs and, if you read anything about my Cyprus racing, more training in relation to fast starts – clearing lactate etc…
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
2009 UCI World Cup - Round 1 - Pietermaritzburg - South Africa
Mel and I wrote a little piece about our trip for spoke.ie here and here, it covers more of the details surrounding the trip, in this post I'll really only be talking about the World Cup race itself.
Finally, the morning of the race arrived – my first Cross Country World Cup. Looking out the window I saw blue skies – damn, it was going to be another scorcher. As Mel was racing at 10:30am (lucky devil), I would have to hang around the race course a few hours before my race – not the best preparation, but it was cool to see her race start and watch the first few laps. My warmup went well, my heart rate responded to my efforts and I felt okay – I spent a bit more time than usual on the warmup, 45 minutes, but knew that the race would be explosive from the second the gun went so wanted to be prepared. 20 minutes before our race started, we started to line up in our starting pens. I was gridded 94th of the 140+ riders – a lot in front, but also a lot behind me. We all fought (well, not really) for any bit of shade as the temperatures soared and we all started to cook in the holding pens.
The course profile
A birds eye view
At exactly 1pm the gun went off and chaos began. I held my position well (actually, I think I made positions) but 15 seconds into the race, about 20 meters in front of me I heard a huge pop and the sound of carbon breaking. There was a pileup with a few broken bikes and one broken carbon wheel (the cause of the impressively loud explosion). 15 seconds into the race and already a few riders races was over. This was one thing I was very careful about – I didn't want to travel all this way and have it end before it really started. Fortunately, I was able to dismount and get around the carnage safely and chase on up the following climb. Passing riders was tricky, and much of the climbing I had to run on the first lap (one person makes a mistake and everyone has to dismount – the climbs were very very steep and getting on and riding again would be impossible). The single track descent was completed at a crawling pace as well as most of the climbing on the first lap. By the start of the second lap, the field has spread out a lot and you were able to ride your own race a little more.
3rd placed Burry Stander
The second lap seemed to go by in a flash and I was on to my third. The heat and humidity, was really hitting me at this point, every effort seemed to take 3 or 4 times more out of me than usual, and each time I saw the steep climbs, I didn't know how I would climb it. I was drinking 500ml per lap but it didn't seem enough. Indeed, by the top of the main climb on my third lap, my fingers were tingling and I started to feel cold (a very bad thing when you have been going as hard as you can in 30C+ with humidity at 98%!) By the bottom of the descent (only a couple of minutes – it was very fast, flowy and fun) I felt okay and grabbed another bottle from Alan (my housemate from Ireland who also made the trip over) to start another loop. Going around the fourth lap, again my body felt weird – I actually hopped to get pulled as I had no idea how I would ride another lap.
One of the 'flat' climbs lined with spectators
Midway through the fifth lap, the lead motor bike came around me and I knew my race was numbered. A few minutes later, Jose Hermida, Julien Absalon and then Burry Stander rode by. The speed they went past was not particularly unbelievable, but the smoothness and fluidity that they did it was so impressive. I could hear they were on the edge from their breathing but you wouldn't know it from looking at them. As they passed, I cheered them on and then tried to hang on as best I could – I didn't last very long but on the descent, they didn't gap me (much) which I was pretty happy about. I reached the end of the lap and pulled off the course. My first reaction, after almost falling to the ground with exhaustion, was having a big smile on my face. I really really enjoyed the race. With 6,000 spectators lining the course, the atmosphere was amazing – people screamed your name as you suffered up the climbs and horns blew as you wizzed by on the descents. The course was probably the toughest I have ridden, no where near the most technical but the climbs were so hard that it would take an expert level rider to even try and complete a lap! Many of the Olympic riders compared the course to Beijing except with longer climbs but less technical descents. Then there was the heat, humidity and altitude – all things that I was not used to which were trying to hold me back (and succeeding!). My finishing position of 97 (140+ started) was so-so, but yet I was very happy after the race – my heart rate was pegged from the start, and on the day, I couldn't give it anything more (feeling cold at the top of climbs told me that one). I felt spent.
Julien Absalon
Almost finished for the day
Pietermaritzburg is holding World Cups at the same venue for another 2 years and assuming I'm fit, I'm already planning for my trip next year – it was amazing. This time though, I'll be heading out earlier – anyone want to join me for a go at the Cape Epic?
So – this is a little bit of a postmortem. Both Mel and I rode the course on the Monday after the race (race was on Saturday). It was back to training before our long flight home, and as part of it I did three laps of the course focusing on certain things – at the end of the session I decided to do one more hardish effort on the course, basically, I would go 100% on the steep climbs, tempo on the not so steep climbs and cruise the flatish sections (downhills are always flatout!). After completing the lap, I looked down to see I just completed the lap 50 seconds faster than the fastest lap in my race, my average heart rate was even 20 beats lower than the race average. Sorta tells me something was up in the race. After meeting Mel afterwards, she had the same opinion, she was consistently riding laps much faster than in her race (course conditions were almost identical). What I'm taking from it is that next year I'll be travelling out much earlier for it giving more time to get over the long haul flights and more importantly getting used to the heat and humidity.
I have to give a thank you to our sponsors and especially both Specialized and Cycleways for looking after us in South Africa. A few hiccups appeared along the trip and they were amazing at sorting everything out so that I could focus on the race. Thanks for the support and for getting us on the best race bikes available. Both Mel and I would also like to thank Alan Donnelly for making the trip out and helping out with the feed and technical zones, photo taking and lots of other things.
Finally, the morning of the race arrived – my first Cross Country World Cup. Looking out the window I saw blue skies – damn, it was going to be another scorcher. As Mel was racing at 10:30am (lucky devil), I would have to hang around the race course a few hours before my race – not the best preparation, but it was cool to see her race start and watch the first few laps. My warmup went well, my heart rate responded to my efforts and I felt okay – I spent a bit more time than usual on the warmup, 45 minutes, but knew that the race would be explosive from the second the gun went so wanted to be prepared. 20 minutes before our race started, we started to line up in our starting pens. I was gridded 94th of the 140+ riders – a lot in front, but also a lot behind me. We all fought (well, not really) for any bit of shade as the temperatures soared and we all started to cook in the holding pens.
The course profile
A birds eye viewAt exactly 1pm the gun went off and chaos began. I held my position well (actually, I think I made positions) but 15 seconds into the race, about 20 meters in front of me I heard a huge pop and the sound of carbon breaking. There was a pileup with a few broken bikes and one broken carbon wheel (the cause of the impressively loud explosion). 15 seconds into the race and already a few riders races was over. This was one thing I was very careful about – I didn't want to travel all this way and have it end before it really started. Fortunately, I was able to dismount and get around the carnage safely and chase on up the following climb. Passing riders was tricky, and much of the climbing I had to run on the first lap (one person makes a mistake and everyone has to dismount – the climbs were very very steep and getting on and riding again would be impossible). The single track descent was completed at a crawling pace as well as most of the climbing on the first lap. By the start of the second lap, the field has spread out a lot and you were able to ride your own race a little more.
3rd placed Burry StanderThe second lap seemed to go by in a flash and I was on to my third. The heat and humidity, was really hitting me at this point, every effort seemed to take 3 or 4 times more out of me than usual, and each time I saw the steep climbs, I didn't know how I would climb it. I was drinking 500ml per lap but it didn't seem enough. Indeed, by the top of the main climb on my third lap, my fingers were tingling and I started to feel cold (a very bad thing when you have been going as hard as you can in 30C+ with humidity at 98%!) By the bottom of the descent (only a couple of minutes – it was very fast, flowy and fun) I felt okay and grabbed another bottle from Alan (my housemate from Ireland who also made the trip over) to start another loop. Going around the fourth lap, again my body felt weird – I actually hopped to get pulled as I had no idea how I would ride another lap.
One of the 'flat' climbs lined with spectators
Julien Absalon
Almost finished for the dayPietermaritzburg is holding World Cups at the same venue for another 2 years and assuming I'm fit, I'm already planning for my trip next year – it was amazing. This time though, I'll be heading out earlier – anyone want to join me for a go at the Cape Epic?
So – this is a little bit of a postmortem. Both Mel and I rode the course on the Monday after the race (race was on Saturday). It was back to training before our long flight home, and as part of it I did three laps of the course focusing on certain things – at the end of the session I decided to do one more hardish effort on the course, basically, I would go 100% on the steep climbs, tempo on the not so steep climbs and cruise the flatish sections (downhills are always flatout!). After completing the lap, I looked down to see I just completed the lap 50 seconds faster than the fastest lap in my race, my average heart rate was even 20 beats lower than the race average. Sorta tells me something was up in the race. After meeting Mel afterwards, she had the same opinion, she was consistently riding laps much faster than in her race (course conditions were almost identical). What I'm taking from it is that next year I'll be travelling out much earlier for it giving more time to get over the long haul flights and more importantly getting used to the heat and humidity.
I have to give a thank you to our sponsors and especially both Specialized and Cycleways for looking after us in South Africa. A few hiccups appeared along the trip and they were amazing at sorting everything out so that I could focus on the race. Thanks for the support and for getting us on the best race bikes available. Both Mel and I would also like to thank Alan Donnelly for making the trip out and helping out with the feed and technical zones, photo taking and lots of other things.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
2009 British NPS Round 1 - Sherwood Pines
Despite having a great grid position, amazing bike and equipment and what felt like pretty good legs leading up to it – my first race in the UK this year was a big woopie cushion. Sherwood Pines was the venue for the first British NPS of the year and the course where I took part in my first British NPS in 2007. The course this year was shorter, about 7.5km and we were going to be riding 7 laps. Due to the nature of the course, it was going to be tough. The course was almost completely flat with a huge amount of twisty single-track among the trees. An untechnical course but reasonably fun.
The race started and I felt to be going backwards from the start – I rode the singletrack well but the draggy fireroad sections I fell apart on. 30 minutes in, I felt crap and was ready to stop. I bit of a mechanical issue added to my headache. After another 30 minutes later, I was half way through and soldiered on. On this course, where group riding is imperative (speeds are high and drafting is paramount), I rode almost always by myself. It was one of those days, where, if I was training, I would call it quits early. I finished up after 56km in 2:23:45, over 9 minutes off the winner. Looking back, I have never had a good race on a flat course – guess I'll need to fix that some time soon. These things happen, my training has been going well and I'm looking forward to the next NPS round in Dalby Forest in 4 weeks.
Results are available here and Joolze has some pictures up here.
The race started and I felt to be going backwards from the start – I rode the singletrack well but the draggy fireroad sections I fell apart on. 30 minutes in, I felt crap and was ready to stop. I bit of a mechanical issue added to my headache. After another 30 minutes later, I was half way through and soldiered on. On this course, where group riding is imperative (speeds are high and drafting is paramount), I rode almost always by myself. It was one of those days, where, if I was training, I would call it quits early. I finished up after 56km in 2:23:45, over 9 minutes off the winner. Looking back, I have never had a good race on a flat course – guess I'll need to fix that some time soon. These things happen, my training has been going well and I'm looking forward to the next NPS round in Dalby Forest in 4 weeks.
Results are available here and Joolze has some pictures up here.
2009 Des Hanlon Memorial
Every year I do a few road races. I like doing them as it is something a little different form mountain biking racing and I take them very relaxed. I don't taper or do anything special for them, but when I'm in the race, I do try to do everything I can to get a good result. My first road race was the Des Hanlon Memorial in 2007 – one of the Irish classics. This year was the third year that I was taking part in the race and I was taking Mel along with me too.
This year, the course was a little shorter with a section of the final climb taken out in favour of a very fast and twisty descent followed by a 5km drag on a main road to the finish line. For an Irish road race, I liked the course (I guess hilliness equates to likeness for me).
My Specialized Tarmac with Zipp 404s
In my previous two races on this course, the break went early so I stayed very attentive at the front of the peleton (there was about 100 riders) – surprisingly, we were almost two hours into the race until the break got away. It was on a climb (which I could have followed) but I got boxed in and missed it. The peleton rumbled along for a bit and then went to a practical standstill – I few jumped off the front and it looked like they too would stay away so I got ready and jumped too to catch the chase group. After a few minutes of pain, the chase group formed, there was about 10 of us (with about 10-12 in the lead break) and we started to work pretty well together. I much prefered being in the chase group – as we were working together to catch the break, the speed was reasonably constant – the boredom of the first hour was a distant memory.
With about 30 minutes of racing to go, we caught the break away – by this stage, with the two groups together we were about 16 riders. I was taking on some food and we turned onto one of the final climbs – I dropped to the smaller ring and the chain dropped. Try as I might, I couldn't get it back on while on the bike and had to dismount – by the time I got riding again, the chase were making another selection up the hill (i.e. they were hammering). I put the head down and chased as hard as I could passing others who popped off the back but couldn't make the lead group again. The rookie mistake cost me – my legs were feeling good, and despite if only being my 5 or 6 road race, I felt I could have tussled for the win. I rode down the sketchy descent and the 5 km drag to the finish. In the end, I actually came in 10th and was left thinking about what could have been. Between the warmup and cool down, it was 100 miles covered in the day and a good session in. The race was well run and I'll be back again next year.
There are some race pics here and results here.
This year, the course was a little shorter with a section of the final climb taken out in favour of a very fast and twisty descent followed by a 5km drag on a main road to the finish line. For an Irish road race, I liked the course (I guess hilliness equates to likeness for me).
My Specialized Tarmac with Zipp 404sWith about 30 minutes of racing to go, we caught the break away – by this stage, with the two groups together we were about 16 riders. I was taking on some food and we turned onto one of the final climbs – I dropped to the smaller ring and the chain dropped. Try as I might, I couldn't get it back on while on the bike and had to dismount – by the time I got riding again, the chase were making another selection up the hill (i.e. they were hammering). I put the head down and chased as hard as I could passing others who popped off the back but couldn't make the lead group again. The rookie mistake cost me – my legs were feeling good, and despite if only being my 5 or 6 road race, I felt I could have tussled for the win. I rode down the sketchy descent and the 5 km drag to the finish. In the end, I actually came in 10th and was left thinking about what could have been. Between the warmup and cool down, it was 100 miles covered in the day and a good session in. The race was well run and I'll be back again next year.
There are some race pics here and results here.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Irish XC NPS Round 2
Mel and I missed the first round of the 2009 Irish XC NPS series but will be heading along to the second round held in Ballinastoe Forest on Sunday April 19th.
I don't know what the course will be like this year but last year it was very enjoyable with about 7 or 8 minutes of fireroad climbing per lap and the rest being natural and trail center type singletrack. Apart from a little kicker hill at the start there is nothing too technical or stressful so a great course to go out and try your first race!
My report from last year is available here.
More details available on the Irish XC website.
I don't know what the course will be like this year but last year it was very enjoyable with about 7 or 8 minutes of fireroad climbing per lap and the rest being natural and trail center type singletrack. Apart from a little kicker hill at the start there is nothing too technical or stressful so a great course to go out and try your first race!
My report from last year is available here.
More details available on the Irish XC website.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
My prerace and preride nutrition
It seems that every few weeks I see a post from someone getting into racing/riding wanting to know what other people eat and drink before, during and after rides and races. I try to give some advice, always with the “this is what works for me, everyone is different” disclaimer – I think at this point I should write down something on the blog that I can refer to. Again with the disclaimer, I’m an Elite rider that has been doing this for a few years so what works for me will not work for everyone, also, I think I’m naturally able to eat a lot on the bike and make it available to my body – in longer races/events, this is very important.
Anyway, I’ll give a few examples of what I do.
3 hour ride with about 1.5 hour of it at a pretty high intensity (tempo/threshold), the rest at a steady endurance pace. About 2,500 cal ride.
Breakfast:
2 hour XC race – say, a 5 lap race
9:00 Breakfast:
After the finish back to ZipVit recovery. Some people can’t handle eating right after a race, just make sure you eat something – Mel likes Haribo after a hard race. Your body has various time windows for efficiency of food uptake. Getting the food in earlier will mean you feel better later in the day and the following days. If you are starving all the following day, you did something wrong. I try to ride a little after the race, take some extra drinks and food on the bike (fruit etc… whatever you can eat) and when I get back to the car again, try to eat some more carbohydrates, about 800 Cals worth, so a reasonable amount. From then on, I’m pretty snacky for the rest of the day – I try to keep it very healthy for the first few hours but later maybe treat myself :)
Anyway, I’ll give a few examples of what I do.
3 hour ride with about 1.5 hour of it at a pretty high intensity (tempo/threshold), the rest at a steady endurance pace. About 2,500 cal ride.
Breakfast:
- Coffee + large bowl of porridge with 2 pieces of fruit and Soya milk
- a large slices of wholemeal bread with jam
- 2 large bottles of ZipVit Energy Drink
- 1 ZipVit energy bar and one other cereal bar. ZipVit bar about 1:20 into the ride, other bar around 2:10 in.
- ZipVit Recovery(or chocolate milk, raisons, shake etc…) as soon as I get in.
- A proper lunch, pretty low in fat, lots of clean carbohydrates, a bit of protein, lots of veg/fruit (and coffee). For example, a large breadroll with beans, homemade savory pancakes, stirfry with extra noodles... If I'm training hard or long, maybe a side of rice too.
2 hour XC race – say, a 5 lap race
9:00 Breakfast:
- Same as normal – probably skip the bread though
- Some bread/bagel/rice, maybe some protein with it – whatever I feel I can eat – maybe some fruit and/or an energy bar.
- possibly a gel 15-30 minutes before hand.
- Each lap (20-25 minutes), I would drink about 350ml of Energy Drink (depending on temperature etc…) and one gel. Not everyone can/should do that, maybe a gel every second lap – again, depending on how strong you made the drink.
After the finish back to ZipVit recovery. Some people can’t handle eating right after a race, just make sure you eat something – Mel likes Haribo after a hard race. Your body has various time windows for efficiency of food uptake. Getting the food in earlier will mean you feel better later in the day and the following days. If you are starving all the following day, you did something wrong. I try to ride a little after the race, take some extra drinks and food on the bike (fruit etc… whatever you can eat) and when I get back to the car again, try to eat some more carbohydrates, about 800 Cals worth, so a reasonable amount. From then on, I’m pretty snacky for the rest of the day – I try to keep it very healthy for the first few hours but later maybe treat myself :)
Monday, March 16, 2009
2009 Sunshine Cup Round 4 - UCI C1
It seemed like no time ago that Mel and I arrived in Cyprus for the Sunshine Cup, but Sunday was the final race in the 2009 series. On Thursday Mel and I traveled up to Oroklini to train on the course for the race. A very warm and sunny day greeted us on the course and pretty quickly we noticed the lack of shade – no problem, time to work on the tan :)
The course was probably the best of the series, a 7.5km mixture of fireroad, single track climbing, technical rocky climbing and, as usual for the Sunshine Cup, steep technical descending. This time though, the major descent was around two and a half minutes of white knuckle, stay off the breaks madness. Indeed, the first time around the lap I was wondering how I would ride it! Mostly, the initial apprehension was due to the sheer scale and length of the descents and from the second lap on, once you knew what to expect the descents were a blast.
For both of us, this trip was more about the training than the racing, our competition was a mixture of people peaking for these races and people training straight through them. To that end, last week both of us got a lot of good riding in and were both a little tired going into the race. Race morning arrived and I actually felt reasonably good – as I started my warmup, the rain clouds came in with a cold wind – the course was technical enough without the rain! As the 11am start time approached the 65 or so Elite Men congregated around the start area, the wind eased and the rain left us for the day – yes this IS the Sunshine Cup.
Shortly after 11 the race kicked off, a few missed pedals in front of me almost caused a pile up but the start loop was pretty well designed so we all settled into the race pretty quickly. Although not as bad as my last few races, I still wasn’t happy with my start. The first full lap went by in a blur with lots of jostling for position the whole way around - I mostly battled with guys from the German and Russian national teams. I seemed to be a lot stronger on the technical climbs (the full suspension S-Works Epic surely helped with that), descending roughly equal or better and then losing distance a bit on the flats/fireroads. Due to my lack of offroad riding over the winter, I thought the less technical end of things would be my stronger side, but I guess these guys did even less off road than me!
Halfway through my 3rd lap (Elite Men did 5 laps plus 1.5 start loops) I had the first of my two incidents. I had just passed two riders on a technical climb and was on a transitional fireroad section before the long descent when my front wheel unexpectedly washed out. With all the super technical descending, I fall on the freaking fireroad, it wasn’t even a fast section! Gashes on my elbow and knee pumped with pain and I contemplated calling it a day – I remounted and rode the descent, by the bottom I decided that there was no point calling it a day as the descents were too much fun and the cuts didn’t look too bad.
Climbing some singletrack
My next two laps were going well, I was catching up with the group that was fighting for 27th and felt pretty good. The punchy climbs had sapped a lot of my legs energy but I knew I could put in one more push to the finish. I rounded the top of the course with about 5 km to go, when disaster struck. Pshh, pshh, pshh – the front tire was slashed and Stan wasn’t up to the job. I started into the descent with about 10psi in the front tire but a few yards later it was obvious that things were not so good. I had a CO2 so I waited to a section where the wheel would be spinning well and inflated the tire in the hope that the whole would plug. No luck – damn. I rode/ran what I could on the way back but cursed as rider after rider nipped by. I lost 7 positions as I made my way back to the start/finish, and almost worse, lost out on the chance on riding those descents one last time.
Annoyed, I arrived back at the start finish – had I not had the puncture, I would have finished around 11 minutes down on the winner (about 10% off their speed).
Summing up, the course was great and the racing tough – the cuts meant I had a pretty sleepless night last night (there was one exact position I could lye) and the flat was a bit of a dampener, but I got great training and racing out here and at least I only had one race puncture, and it was on the last lap. I finished up 18th in GC for the Cup (the puncture cost my 3 places) but plan to return next year and make some improvements :)
Results for the race are available here and there is a report available here.
A special thanks to Fredrick from the Kalavasos bike station for helping us in so many ways over the last three weeks. Also, Cycleways, Specialized, KCNC and TorQ – for allowing us to ride on the best equipment available and keep our energy levels topped up. Thanks!
The course was probably the best of the series, a 7.5km mixture of fireroad, single track climbing, technical rocky climbing and, as usual for the Sunshine Cup, steep technical descending. This time though, the major descent was around two and a half minutes of white knuckle, stay off the breaks madness. Indeed, the first time around the lap I was wondering how I would ride it! Mostly, the initial apprehension was due to the sheer scale and length of the descents and from the second lap on, once you knew what to expect the descents were a blast.
For both of us, this trip was more about the training than the racing, our competition was a mixture of people peaking for these races and people training straight through them. To that end, last week both of us got a lot of good riding in and were both a little tired going into the race. Race morning arrived and I actually felt reasonably good – as I started my warmup, the rain clouds came in with a cold wind – the course was technical enough without the rain! As the 11am start time approached the 65 or so Elite Men congregated around the start area, the wind eased and the rain left us for the day – yes this IS the Sunshine Cup.
Shortly after 11 the race kicked off, a few missed pedals in front of me almost caused a pile up but the start loop was pretty well designed so we all settled into the race pretty quickly. Although not as bad as my last few races, I still wasn’t happy with my start. The first full lap went by in a blur with lots of jostling for position the whole way around - I mostly battled with guys from the German and Russian national teams. I seemed to be a lot stronger on the technical climbs (the full suspension S-Works Epic surely helped with that), descending roughly equal or better and then losing distance a bit on the flats/fireroads. Due to my lack of offroad riding over the winter, I thought the less technical end of things would be my stronger side, but I guess these guys did even less off road than me!
Halfway through my 3rd lap (Elite Men did 5 laps plus 1.5 start loops) I had the first of my two incidents. I had just passed two riders on a technical climb and was on a transitional fireroad section before the long descent when my front wheel unexpectedly washed out. With all the super technical descending, I fall on the freaking fireroad, it wasn’t even a fast section! Gashes on my elbow and knee pumped with pain and I contemplated calling it a day – I remounted and rode the descent, by the bottom I decided that there was no point calling it a day as the descents were too much fun and the cuts didn’t look too bad.
Climbing some singletrackMy next two laps were going well, I was catching up with the group that was fighting for 27th and felt pretty good. The punchy climbs had sapped a lot of my legs energy but I knew I could put in one more push to the finish. I rounded the top of the course with about 5 km to go, when disaster struck. Pshh, pshh, pshh – the front tire was slashed and Stan wasn’t up to the job. I started into the descent with about 10psi in the front tire but a few yards later it was obvious that things were not so good. I had a CO2 so I waited to a section where the wheel would be spinning well and inflated the tire in the hope that the whole would plug. No luck – damn. I rode/ran what I could on the way back but cursed as rider after rider nipped by. I lost 7 positions as I made my way back to the start/finish, and almost worse, lost out on the chance on riding those descents one last time.
Annoyed, I arrived back at the start finish – had I not had the puncture, I would have finished around 11 minutes down on the winner (about 10% off their speed).
Summing up, the course was great and the racing tough – the cuts meant I had a pretty sleepless night last night (there was one exact position I could lye) and the flat was a bit of a dampener, but I got great training and racing out here and at least I only had one race puncture, and it was on the last lap. I finished up 18th in GC for the Cup (the puncture cost my 3 places) but plan to return next year and make some improvements :)
Results for the race are available here and there is a report available here.
A special thanks to Fredrick from the Kalavasos bike station for helping us in so many ways over the last three weeks. Also, Cycleways, Specialized, KCNC and TorQ – for allowing us to ride on the best equipment available and keep our energy levels topped up. Thanks!
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
2009 Sunshine Cup Round 3 - UCI C1
Another weekend, another race – I could get used to this. Last weekend it was the third round of the Cyprus Sunshine Cup and we were competing just outside Limassol around the ancient ruins of Amathous. The course was a hilly affair with almost all of it on singletrack. Tough short climbs and technical descents where the name of the game – you always had to be very careful and focused, a few inches either side of the trail and you would easily washout or crash. Although not extreme, it was probably one of the more technical courses that I have ridden in that there were very few sections for you to relax on – falling on more pointy rocks was not on my todo list.
Due to the nature of the course, the orgainizing committee decided to split the men and women elite races with Mel starting at the ungodly hour of 9am. This did mean however that I would be able to take a few snaps of her race and visa versa (600 or so in total taken). I'll leave Mel to talk about her race. About 70 minutes before my race I started preparing for my warmup. We spend the 20 minutes before the race start being gridded (not like in Ireland where you roll up to the line 2 minutes before the start).
Dust rises as we descend the first singletrack section
At 12pm, the race hammered up the start loop – a short tarmac climb that quickly turns into fireroad, followed by horribly rutted fireroad and then single track for most of the rest of the race. As usual in this series, my start was terrible – I was gridded around 30th but slipped back into the 40s by the time I was half way around the first main lap and queuing to get into singletrack. This is something I am working on!
Emil Lindgren followed by Christoph Soukup
I rode the course pretty well having no spills and enjoyed a few battles along the way. I actually enjoyed the race a lot which in some ways tells me that I wasn't pushing hard enough, which I knew – but still, a long while ago when I decided to come here for these races I had planned on 'training' through the races and using them as high intensity workout. That was my plan, but it's still tough not to be going faster when you are in the race. Still – a season from February to October is a long long season.
I finished up the race midpack passing 4 riders on my last lap (last lap was the same time as my first – hmmm, that should not be happening) and felt that I could keep on riding at the same pace. Guess that says my endurance is good but the high end is not there yet.
Anyway, this weekend is the final round in Voroklini – Mel and I rode the course today and I'm excited.
Full results are available here.
Due to the nature of the course, the orgainizing committee decided to split the men and women elite races with Mel starting at the ungodly hour of 9am. This did mean however that I would be able to take a few snaps of her race and visa versa (600 or so in total taken). I'll leave Mel to talk about her race. About 70 minutes before my race I started preparing for my warmup. We spend the 20 minutes before the race start being gridded (not like in Ireland where you roll up to the line 2 minutes before the start).
Dust rises as we descend the first singletrack sectionAt 12pm, the race hammered up the start loop – a short tarmac climb that quickly turns into fireroad, followed by horribly rutted fireroad and then single track for most of the rest of the race. As usual in this series, my start was terrible – I was gridded around 30th but slipped back into the 40s by the time I was half way around the first main lap and queuing to get into singletrack. This is something I am working on!
Emil Lindgren followed by Christoph Soukup
I rode the course pretty well having no spills and enjoyed a few battles along the way. I actually enjoyed the race a lot which in some ways tells me that I wasn't pushing hard enough, which I knew – but still, a long while ago when I decided to come here for these races I had planned on 'training' through the races and using them as high intensity workout. That was my plan, but it's still tough not to be going faster when you are in the race. Still – a season from February to October is a long long season.
I finished up the race midpack passing 4 riders on my last lap (last lap was the same time as my first – hmmm, that should not be happening) and felt that I could keep on riding at the same pace. Guess that says my endurance is good but the high end is not there yet.
Anyway, this weekend is the final round in Voroklini – Mel and I rode the course today and I'm excited.
Full results are available here.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Photos from 2009 Sunshine Cup Round 3
As Mel and I were not racing at the same time, we were able to take some photos of each others race - when I get back to a fast connection I'll put more of them up (we took almost 600), but for now - here are a few I like.
They were taken with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 18-200 lens both of which I'm very very happy with.
My report for the race (and some more photos) will be up tomorrow. Mel's is already up here.
They were taken with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 18-200 lens both of which I'm very very happy with.
My report for the race (and some more photos) will be up tomorrow. Mel's is already up here.
Saturday, March 07, 2009
2009 Sunshine Cup Round 2 - UCI S1
Well, it's almost time for me to take part in the third round of the Sunshine Cup so I had better write about last weekends adventure - round two of the Sunshine Cup which just so happened to be a UCI S1 Mountain Bike Stage Race!
The format was a time trial on a 7.8km off road course on the Friday, a 42km point to point race on the Saturday and then a lapped cross country race on the Sunday on the course used for the time trial. Two main things built up the time trial loop – fireroad climbing and steep technical singletrack descending. To finish it all off though, there was a beast of a climb right at the very end – very steep and loose so you had to be really careful with how you pedalled – the hardest part of the lap.
On the preride the course was tough but enjoyable. The descents were a challenge and there was not much letup – you were either on the edge climbing or holding on for dear life descending.
In the starting hut for the time trial
The morning of the time trial arrived with a LOT of rain – the course was now completely saturated and what was steep technical descending was now steep treacherous descending. I started my time trial after a reasonable warmup (it was cold and wet and it was hard to get motivated!). My legs felt bad and I felt like I was simply rolling around the course – worse still, at the start of the lap I crashed badly hurting my knee and getting my bike stuck in a tree – it took me a while to get free and my motivation was now even lower. I finished up the lap 25 minutes after I started (the day before in the dry I did a practice lap in about 22 minutes) well down in 44th position (84 starters). Off to the ambulance to sort out my knee and after a brief scare (they thought I needed stitches), I got bandaged up, cleaned up and went home.
I think I cut my knee :(
This weekend was the Carnival weekend in Cyprus which due to a double booking meant that Mel and I had to pack up our apartment and move to another place an additional 30 minutes from the race venue (now a 1.5 hour drive each way). With this and my knee which was getting very stiff, it was less than perfect recovery.
Bikes ready before the point to point
Saturday started to brighter skies – my leg was sore but I knew it would be okay when I started riding. With only one incident (a flat tire on the car), we arrived at the venue and warmed up. The Point to Point course was about 40-50 minutes riding up and down fireroads (boring – it is sad – but I need to practice my fireroad descending skills) followed by the best bit, a 50 minute climb, almost all on amazing singletrack followed by a roller coaster of a singletrack descent back to the start. The climb gained us 900 meters of altitude and 600 of those were used up on single track descending. My race started like the course – for the first 50 minutes I was riding backwards – I wanted to quit. I felt terrible and had no power – however, once the long climb started my legs turned on and I started to feel great. Over the climb, I zipped (and I actually do mean zipped, I was that bad at the start and that good at the end) past 20-30 riders and transitioned into the long descent nipping in front of another 3. After a slight mishap at the start, I rode pretty well back to the start making up another few positions finishing up 28th. More bandaging on my leg and waiting for Mel for HOURS in doping control didn't help recovery and we only got home around 8pm (my race started shortly after 1pm and lasted 2 hours!)
By Sunday, Mel and I had gotten into a good racing rhythm. The race course had finally dried out and was riding really well. The course was so much more enjoyable than the one we met in the time trial – even my slowest lap from the race was 2 minutes faster than my time trial. Again, the race started at a frantic pace and it really was a sprint for every piece of singletrack. One of the sucky things about riding with 80 in your race is sometimes you get held up, but the great thing is that you are always fighting tooth and nail throughout the race for every position. You have a tussle for a lap with someone and finally drop them, and there is another person, 3-4 seconds ahead to go for – great fun. But, you take it easy for a few pedal strokes, and some guy just buzzes past you. My legs never felt good in the race but I was enjoying myself so I finished up with a smile on my face getting an overall GC position of 28th. It really is great to be riding against so many great riders – it feels like a similar step to when I went to the UK for my first 'big' race in 2007, A UCI C1 in Sherwood Pines (we are going there in a few weeks).
Anyway, with all that I think I should end the post, put my legs up and relax before tomorrows race.
Results for the race are available here. Mel beat me to it and has her report up here.
The format was a time trial on a 7.8km off road course on the Friday, a 42km point to point race on the Saturday and then a lapped cross country race on the Sunday on the course used for the time trial. Two main things built up the time trial loop – fireroad climbing and steep technical singletrack descending. To finish it all off though, there was a beast of a climb right at the very end – very steep and loose so you had to be really careful with how you pedalled – the hardest part of the lap.
On the preride the course was tough but enjoyable. The descents were a challenge and there was not much letup – you were either on the edge climbing or holding on for dear life descending.
In the starting hut for the time trial
I think I cut my knee :(
Bikes ready before the point to pointBy Sunday, Mel and I had gotten into a good racing rhythm. The race course had finally dried out and was riding really well. The course was so much more enjoyable than the one we met in the time trial – even my slowest lap from the race was 2 minutes faster than my time trial. Again, the race started at a frantic pace and it really was a sprint for every piece of singletrack. One of the sucky things about riding with 80 in your race is sometimes you get held up, but the great thing is that you are always fighting tooth and nail throughout the race for every position. You have a tussle for a lap with someone and finally drop them, and there is another person, 3-4 seconds ahead to go for – great fun. But, you take it easy for a few pedal strokes, and some guy just buzzes past you. My legs never felt good in the race but I was enjoying myself so I finished up with a smile on my face getting an overall GC position of 28th. It really is great to be riding against so many great riders – it feels like a similar step to when I went to the UK for my first 'big' race in 2007, A UCI C1 in Sherwood Pines (we are going there in a few weeks).
Anyway, with all that I think I should end the post, put my legs up and relax before tomorrows race.
Results for the race are available here. Mel beat me to it and has her report up here.
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