Tour de White Rock criterium and RR

After returning from the Cascade Classic, the week consisted of three days of no riding (a short jaunt to the gym on Wednesday for some very light weights and a 15min jog on the treadmill at heart rate 90-95), followed by a 2hr ride on Thursday of mostly spinning and a couple of accelerations up the Munns Road climb, and no riding on Friday. After my ride Thursday, however, I was worried I was still too fatigued from the Cascade classic to be on form for the White Rock criterium and RR this weekend.

The criterium

The criterium, in the heart of downtown White Rock, was 60km (60 laps of a 1km) course for the mens Pro 1,2 field, featuring a fast downhill past the start/finish, two fast corners and then uphill for a stretch (about 4% grade), and two more corners to the descent again. It is technically not a difficult criterium, but the hill on the backstretch makes it a gruelling affair when repeated 60times.

With Chris Horner from Astana making the trip up to B.C. for Superweek after the Cascade Classic, Health Net (some of them also having done the Cascade Classic), Bissell Pro, Jittery Joe’s, Symmetrics, Rubicon/Orbea, among a number of strong B.C. teams and riders, for about 100 on the start line, the race was sure to entail requisite heapings of pain and suffering.

For the first few laps the pace was fast but not unbearable, and I found myself working my way through the field to the front at one point, and went with a short lived breakaway with a Health Net guy, and another. This was quickly brought back, and as I rode at the head of the pack down by the start/finish I felt a whole lot of wind in front of me, and the sinking feeling that I had just been on a suicide mission.

While I never really quite recovered from that effort, as short lived as it was, I managed to hang in for the duration of the race, albeit I never again ventured very near the front. When the sprint went for the finish, I was clinging on the back of the 55 riders who remained, the rest having packed it in - let a gap go with a few others, and came home in 48th position, about 20 seconds back of Andrew Pinfold, who took his third Superweek victory, just ahead of Horner. 60kms were covered in 1hr 9 minutes and change.

I was happy to have survived the race, as last year I didn’t. It was tough, very tough, especially toward the end, and I don’t think I managed to take a single sip of gatorade during the whole race, being either on the rivet, trying to recover, or taking a technical corner elbow-to-elbow.

On my warm-down, I was really questioning how well recovered I would be for the 8am start for the 134km RR in the morning. The criterium finished at about 7:30, leaving barely over 12hrs of recovery time between races. Proper refuelling of course was crucial as soon as possible after the criterium.

Road Race

This is probably the hardest course I’ve ever raced on. There are 11 laps of a long 10+km loop that consists of one climb of about 700m up Columbia Ave at about 8% grade, a rapid descent, a short flat before a gradual rise leading to a gut wrenching 500m climb up Magdallen Rd at 16%, and a few other shorter climbs, and some fast flat and descent. Then there are 5 laps of a short 3.8km loop that includes only the Columbia climb. If you make it onto the short circuit before the barriers go up, then you are allowed to finish and receive a finishing time - if not, you are not allowed to finish.

Fairly soon after the start a breakaway of about 10 riders pulled away, which included (I believe) Chris Horner. A few guys bridged across, but it was early enough in the race for teams in the pack to keep the break in sight, and then to close the gap on the third lap. When the group was reintegrated, there was a slowing of pace on the Columbia climb and three guys (H & R Block and two others) bolted away. Because the pace was slow, I accelerated away as well, and was just back of them onto the flat and up the rise before Magdallen. Heading up Magdallen, I could see a Rubicon/Orbea guy coming across, and he joined me on the climb, and together we bridged to join the others just at the top of Magdallen.

At the time, I thought there were still riders ahead, and I didn’t realize that we had just formed the breakaway group. Immediately one of the fellows dropped off the pace, and so we had a breakaway of four. The Rubicon guy, from Australia, was the strongest among us on the flat, but was losing steam on the climbs. The H & R Block guy was starting to lose some steam too, and after two laps it was down to three of us, the Rubicon fellow (Shawn Morris), myself and a Team Rio Grande fellow, Allen Krughoff (some of them were also at Cascade). At one point the announcer described us, as we passed under the start/finish banner, as “the Australian, the American and the Canadian”.

We managed to maintain an even pace for 6 laps and, while the time gap hovered at about 2 mins for a long time, at one point, after about four laps, we had built a lead of 3:44. With that much time in hand, I sensed a feeling among our three that we didn’t need to keep working so hard, although we were also beginning to flag in energy supplies. This was coupled with a burgeoning sense of urgency within the pack and, soon after, the time gaps started dropping rapidly. When we were at about 1 minute ahead, the Rubicon fellow dropped off the pace up Columbia, and Krughoff and I knew our fate was sealed. However, we kept on for one more lap to get over Magdellen, and went for what we thought for King of the Mountain points at the top of Columbia - Krughoff nipping me at the KOM line each time, except perhaps two.

When the gap was at about 40 seconds, we sat up, fueled ourselves and waited for the catch as the train came up with three Symmetrics on the front driving the pace. Just before we were caught by the pack, one fellow had made a short attempt to get away and zipped past us, but he was caught shortly afterward.

The pack was still sizeable, about 60 in number, meaning that the peloton pace had not been high for the duration of our breakaway. In other years, the pack has been considerably reduced after about lap seven. This meant that some really brutal attacks were still to come. The next lap was bearable, but on lap 11, the last time up Magdallen, the Jittery Joes guys ripped the peloton into three groups. By then I was hovering near the back, and for the last 5 short laps, was in a group of about 10, including Eric Wolhberg and a couple of other Symmetrics and others. Horner was up the road with a pack of twenty or thirty strong.

As it was, Horner ended up lapping my group on the short loop up Columbia, to take the victory. He was the only one to do so, and went by us up Columbia so fast in the big ring, it looked like he was riding on the flat. The commissaires had everyone finish on the same short lap as the winner, and our group is shown in the results as about 7 minutes back of Horner.

In any event, I am elated to have been in a breakaway for six laps - there is some glory in that, even if you don’t end up placing particularly well. I think the peloton was kind to us, though - there were many tired legs in there after Superweek, with Delta last weekend, Gastown and Burnaby criteriums during the week. With the Cascade Classic, I had a hard week the previous week, but was perhaps just rested enough to benefit from it and to be strong enough for a good race today. At this level and my modest objectives, a six lap breakaway in White Rock, a prestigious continental race, is enough to keep me happy for the rest of the year!

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