BCMCA Deep Cove RR

An absolutely beautiful day...

Up at 7:00, throw the bike in the 4-runner, off to the ferry... As always, get there with a half hour to spare... and discover while I had my Gatorade, no bottles...

Breakfast on the ferry, managed to borrow a water bottle.. Got to the race venue before 11:00. So lots of time to get around the course twice for a good warmup.

This course is short and fast. About 6.5km with 70m of climbing. With most of the climbing being in two climbs. The first (also the used as the finish sprint) about 500m long at 7%. The second about half that.

The over sixties group was quite large and started 4 minutes ahead of us. Our over fifty group was not very big. Mike Sevcov showing up with about 1 minute to spare...

We started out hard and worked hard to stay away from the forties and try and catch the sixties. The group was down to six after two times up the climb. With myself, Mike and Bill Yearwood from the 55+, Ray Wagner and another guy from the 50+ and a young women from the +30's to round out our group.

With about 3 laps to go, Ray Wagner (another diesel engine type guy) managed to get off the front after the two climbs and we couldn't quite get back to him. He managed to catch up to Dave Mercer and they took 1st and 2nd overall.

Just after that we caught up to the main group of +60's. As we went buy Gerry Goodleff managed to grab a wheel and hang on.

With two laps to go two young guys from the +40's caught us. Mike Sevcov, Bill Yearwood and I managed to grab their wheels (and I think Gerry did too). But by the end of the climb it was down to just Mike and I and the two young guys, with one lap to go.

They dragged us along for another half lap, then Mike and I dropped back so we could concentrate on sprinting against each other. We where pretty sure we wouldn't be able to match them on the hill. I ended up leading Mike into the sprint, pushed a little too hard for the first 300m hoping to break the string.. But he managed to stay right on my wheel, and with 200m to go he was able to stand up and get over me... Nothing I could do at that point.

The two hardest climbs of the day, 410 watts for one minute following the two young guys up. And 520 wats for 30 seconds leading out Mike.

In the end I was fairly satisfied with my results. We caught all but Dave Mercer in the 60+. Kept away from all but two of the 40+ group. I was only 2nd in my age group, but was 6th overall.. And 2nd against Mike is pretty good.