The B.C. Provincial Road Race championships were held yesterday in Vancouver. Categories were divided into Masters; Mens 4,5 together; Junior mens; Senior mens pro1,2,3 together; and Senior women’s pro 1,2,3. The course was a rolling 12km loop in roads in and around Point Grey near UBC, including a 1.5km climb up Camosun road — a hill that gradually increased in grade as it neared the top — not especially long or steep, but hard enough to split the field. The start/finish line on 10th ave lay between shops and businesses and made for a spectator friendly course. We were to do the 12km loop 10 times, and then shift onto a short 2km loop for a further 10 laps.
There were over 100 starters in my race, Sr Mens. Highlighting the event was the participation of the Symmetrics pro team, the top team in the Americas Contintental Pro Tour last year, including Svein Tuft, the overall winner of the 2007 Americas Continental Pro Tour last year; Cam Evans, current national road champion and others from their team racing full time as paid professionals. Other strong teams included the Red Truck team, Total Restoration, Masi-Adobe also riding at that level. With $3500 on the line for the winner, and $15000 distributed among the various categories, the stakes were significant. The event has also been combined with a community fund raising event for cancer, with retired Belgian pro cyclist Axel Merckx and hockey player Trevor Linden were on hand to lead that event.
While the course was wide open and safe, 100+ riders is potentially dangerous. My thought was to get to the front and to stay near it as much as possible throughout the race. That way I could mark breakaways as well and, hopefully, if I could choose the break wisely, hop into the winning one.
After three laps the pack had already split in half. While I was successful in remaining near the front, when the break that included five Symmetrics riders escaped up the road on lap 4, I was not among them. Not only was I boxed in and unable to respond, they were attacking from the pack at a rate rather faster than I could have realistically maintained, so that idea was ruled out. On lap six, Alistair Howard (who won the Windsor Park criterium just ahead of me recently, and was second in the Provincial RR last year) and a couple of others escaped up the climb. I thought they would likely be brought back as they seemed to dangle out just ahead of the rest of the front group that had been whittled down yet further to about 30 riders.
With about three strong teams with riders up the road, the group was winding down in consistent intensity as team-mates from those teams were no longer seriously chasing. With no one up the road, Total Restoration continued to hold tempo at the front, but they were not assisted much by others. I took a few turns at the front, but I was of a similar mind as everyone else: don’t kill yourself into the headwind before the climb, or you’ll be spat off the back. The pace in my group, while yo-yo-ing somewhat, was still high, however, and continued whittling down on every lap. Meanwhile, up the road the Symmetrics breakaway gained four minutes on the pack and Alistair’s group was a couple of minutes ahead.
By the time we’d finished the long loops there were 20 riders in my front group with 8 riders up the road. The rest of the field had either dropped out or were much farther back from my group. With the short loops and the front eight riders splitting a bit, the commissaires and organizers made the decision to allow my group to do only one lap of the short course ending it for us, and allowing the front eight to dual it out. The decision was made on very short notice, and was poorly communicated to the group – there was much confusion among my group of 20 as proceeding into the finishing straight for the finish. A sprint occurred but it was highly anti-climactic. We were all given finishing times and places, and I finished at back of my group, but I personally, while fatiguing, was quite excited for the last short loops.
While I was happy that I had made the front group (not including the breakaway of eight) ahead of the majority of the field, it was disappointing not to be able to contest the last 9 laps. In my opinion it was a poor decision because the race was simply not over – our group was not very far behind Alistair’s group and we could well have caught them over the last 20km of the course, especially since the last 20k was flat and, as a group, we would have been attacking constantly, making the last 20km very fast.
So, all in all, a lot of fun, and I was happy with my strength, but again the finish was anti-climactic and disappointing.
My travelling co-horts faired well – Kenyon Campbell was third in the Cat 4,5 race. Andrew McCartney, who won the last Mt Newton mid-week race here, was sixth in the Cat 4,5 race. Kenyon’s girlfriend, Gillian Carleton, 18yr old up and coming triathlete-turned-cyclist was 6th in the Sr Women’s race – a great result among a strong field of women.
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June 2nd, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Hi Hugh,
The race at the front did go down a little differently than described. Somewhere between lap four and six, I made the break with five Symmetrics and three others (two Treks, one EV). This ended up being “the” break of the day and we stayed together until we hit the finishing circuit. Eight of us were together in the lead going into the last laps, and from what I heard, we had a 4 minute gap. The finishing times given are wrong as there’s no way we rode the 140km in just over 3hrs… The finishing circuit was freakin’ tough and I cracked pretty quickly under repeated attacks from the Symmetrics guys. Hats off to them, they earned their prize money!