Nice job again @
TMonk! Killing it!
Raced VoS over the weekend - wasn't sure how I'd feel as I haven't done a ton of volume but have hit all of my planned intervals for the past month. Came in with two teammates, one sprinter and one TT/endurance guy
TT day proved to be fast conditions. It was a slight tailwind on the way out, which has a slight elevation gain, so I was targeting an even split of around 280-290w. Averaged right around 285w, which was 15w harder than last year but a 1:10 faster time of 30:30 at an average speed of 28.3 mph. This was good for 7th place in the 2s, which I was pretty happy with. Most of the other guys around my time looked to be pushing power nearer the 350s. My teammate came in 15s behind me for 9th, so we were within striking distance of GC lead (29:58).
The road race was very very slow and easy until it wasn't. The course is a triangle shape course of ~16 miles and we had 5.8 laps to complete, total of 96 miles I believe. There was a hard headwind this year up the climb and down the descent, which meant the rollers and highway sections both had a tail/cross wind. GC Leader had 3 teammates, but there were no other big teams in the top 10, and it seems like everyone was waiting until the last couple of laps to try anything. My teammate and I tried to draw them out a few times and successfully made them chase and burn a few matches on the tailwind sections. With 2 laps to go, my teammate makes it into a decent sized break (looked like 8-10 riders) coming through the rollers, but they got caught just after the top of the climb. The GC's team did a lot of work to chase, but the catch being made on a descent into a headwind made it a bad time to counter. I bided my time, and luckily the speed picked up again through the rollers and strung the field out. My teammate was near the front and doing his best to set me up perfectly. I managed to catch some draft and gained some momentum to sling past the front just as my teammate was sitting up. One younger rider came with me, and we started rotating. He pulled through a bit too hard so I told him to chill and smooth it out. We hit the corner at the bottom, and in my excitement I carried a little bit too much speed and nearly overcooked it, then had to wait for my break-mate to latch back on. On the straight, flat highway section, two others bridged up to us and it seemed like we had a good shot at making it. Unfortunately, once we hit the headwind climb section my legs started to give out. I tried my best to stay with my break mates, but they lost me in the first quarter of the climb, despite me skipping pulls and trying to stay in their draft. The group followed shortly after, but luckily I was able to find shelter there and made it to the top without losing any time. The break ended up getting caught, though one of the larger riders surprisingly got 2nd place on the stage.
The crit was hard from the gun and a break of 2 formed after 15 minutes of full throttle. They proved to be two really strong riders and stayed away with a 30 second gap, holding 28 mph for the remainder of the race. I just tried to stay safe for the most part, it ended up being a lot harder to sit in and move around the field than I anticipated. Our sprinter got to the front a lap too early, so no result on the day.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with the result considering it's my first try in the cat 2 field. Got some dinner money and some extra experience. Nice to know I was able to go on the offensive in the road race, but it looks like I need to work on the power again if I want to do well moving forward.