So this weekend I along with Campbell Cycling will be headed to conference championships and thus our last race of the year. After three weeks straight of racing I was feeling a little burned out but now with a little rest were are ready to end the season in the best way possible.
The races will be held close to the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Virginia and hopefully unlike conference championships in West Virginia for mountain bike season we will be able to afford a hotel room rather than sleeping under the stars in sub freezing temps. Saturday we will start will a 25 mile road race which rolls out at the obscenely early start time of 7:35am. The route is a 12.5 mile loop that will gain a little over 1200 feet of elevation per lap superseding the app race by over 200 feet per lap. The gain comes in the form of a gradual climb from the start peaking at around mile 5, then a decent losing half the elevation gained over the next 2.5 miles only to gain in right back in a steep climb over the next half mile. Once making it to the second summit we will navigate several rolling hills on top of the mountain before plunging back to our starting elevation in a steep decent over the next mile. Then we will hammer down another two miles of undulating terrain before reaching the start/finish and doing it all over again. The C & D races will miss out on a mountain top finish which will add a almost 2000 feet of gain in 5 miles (looks fun to ride but not to race).
It looks like a fun finale to the road race season providing a real test of the strongest riders out there. Obviously climbing isn’t my strong suite in road racing, though in mountain biking it seems like my strongest attribute…hadn’t figured that out yet. Hopefully I can at least find a group of similarly skilled climbers to ride with and not have to do the whole race alone. I expect most of the stronger riders to hold on most of the way up the first gradual climb and down the first decent but then coming up the second climb the road pitches up at over 11% in some sections. Id say this will really start to roll people off the back.
Of course I will try and stick on the peloton as long as possible and even if I fall off the back a bit I should be able to make up a bit of time on the descents if im within sight of the group. I don’t expect to much from myself however. I think one of my problems is that I much prefer to spin at 90 or even 100 rmps when climbing but the gearing on my bike doesn’t let me get to those ranges on steeper climbs instead im turning around 60 rpms which blows my legs up fast. I think maybe a compact crank would help since my cassette is already 11-26 but I have also been working on standing while climbing the past couple weeks since the app race. Hopefully when I see my rpms drop down in the 80s I can stand and push for a minute and get them back up on the more gradual climbs and then on the steeper climbs Ill just stay standing. I feel like iv worked on my climbing some since the app race but we will see come Saturday.
Right after the Road Race will be a team time trial which will consist of one lap on the road race course. Since we will only be taking two guys and one girl we wont have enough members to have a team time trial squad but we may team up with another small school to from one team…we’ll see.
Saturday night we will have our conference final meal/awards banquet/ get together. Should be a good time..it was at mountain bike finals. Also ten minutes from the meeting there will be the Roanoke twilight Criterium. It’s a pro level race with big cash prizes even for the cat 4/5 guys. I doubt Ill be able to race in it but I hope we can make it over to see the pro men race since they don’t start till 9pm.
Sunday morning will be the collegiate criterium starting at 9am. It’s a classic four corner type race with laps coming in at .6 miles and the elevation change being only 20 feet or so. Should be fun and fast no real strategy or outlook except stay in the draft and pedal as hard as you can as long as you can.
All in all it shapes up to be a fun weekend of cycling and spectating…look for the report next week.
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