Spring Series - Armstrong Hill RR

After missing this race last year (I marshaled) got to do Armstrong again. In three previous attempts I have never managed to stay with the front pack past lap 3, usually getting dropped on the 4th time up the climb.

The climb is about 1.6km in length with an overall average of 4.6%. But it has three separate bits. Starting with 300m at 12%, then flat for about 400m, 400m 6%, 200m 2% and then finish with about 400m at 5%.

The younger guys sprint up each section with a rest in between. I have trouble with that because my anaerobic is not quite as good. Fortunately I can hit the top and without much recovery, throttle down to a fairly high L4 aerobic number and time trial back on.

So that was the rule today. I would take about 4:30 to climb. The front would take about 4:10. I would then scoop up the 2-4 riders between me and the front and we would work together through the descent to get back onto the front. Just in time to do it again... Overall 4 minutes climbing, about 4-5 minutes catching on, then maybe 2-4 minutes recovery. Repeat as necessary.

That worked well for the first six laps. Unfortunately on the bell lap I ended up at the top, 20-25 seconds back with no one to work with. The three guys I had worked with on the previous lap where another 20-40 seconds back... They eventually caught up with me at the bottom of the climb. But by that time we where 40 seconds behind, so just climbed and finished, probably about 2 minutes back of the first group. Which by that time was down to ten riders (from original starting group of about 50 riders.)

Interesting power numbers. I have been assuming my FTP is about 280 watts. But that would make this an NP buster ride (> 1.05 intensity factor for > 1 hour workout.). The best one hour was TSS: 119.6 (1.094). Overall TSS: 157.1 (1.07).

The format of each lap was conducive to getting a high NP. Three one minute anaerobic sprints in the climb. And then some serious hard work including some short high anaerobic bursts to get caught up. My highest 5 and 10 second numbers where some 791 and 584 watts in a downhill section, jumping the speed up as high as I could to catch back on.  And the rest of the time doing lots of L3/L4 work.

Anyway I met my race goals of staying on until the last lap. I would have liked to be with them at the bottom on the last climb. That will be the goal for next year.

Armstrong RR:
Duration:   1:22:16
Work:       1181 kJ
TSS:       157.1 (intensity factor 1.07)
Norm Power: 289
VI:         1.21
Pw:HR:       -6.59%
Pa:HR:       13.91%
Distance:   44.16 km
Elevation Gain:     589 m
Elevation Loss:   584 m
Grade:     0.0 %  (5 m)
Min Max Avg
Power:       0 815 239 watts
Heart Rate:   76 179 159 bpm
Cadence:     33 118 81 rpm
Speed:       9.6 63 32.2 kph
Pace         0:57 6:15 1:52 min/km
Altitude:     76 155 110 m
Crank Torque: 0 99.4 29.2 N-m
Temperature: 10 12 11.1 Celsius


Here is a post from Culyar Conly who rides for Westwood and did the A-series this weekend. He needed a ride this weekend, he is staying with Scott and Sara Laliberte who are on a training vacation in Southern California. Good summary of what it's like to ride in the A group.

Spring Series - 232 / Zero Ave - Murhison Road RR

Saturday was the ever popular 232 / Zero Ave course.

Things looked ominous as I loaded the truck at 8:00AM to head out. Raining, cold, ugly looking clouds. And the forecast for Langley was for rain. But the rain stopped around 200St as we drove along the freeway and by the time we arrived there was actually blue sky and sunshine.

I had a reasonably good race. The pace was a little slow this year, 36.3kph compared to last years 37.3 I think due to a nasty head wind along 240th. The C group stayed together till the end except for the usual attrition. I did a fair bit of work at the front. But nothing to heroic and didn't have any real opportunity to try and get away.

Was with the field into the last turn, but had no chance sprinting up the final 300m finish (3% uphill).

BC Senior Games Wrapup - 2 Gold, 1 Bronze

BC Senior Games finished... results the same as the Comox weekend earlier this summer. I finished 1st for TT and HC, 3rd for the RR. Bill Yearwood was 2nd for the TT and HC and 1st for the RR.

The RR was going reasonably well until the finish. The plan was to follow Dave Kosick and Bill Yearwood through the final corner and then sprint to the finish (about 300m).

Unfortunately we caught up with a lapped rider right at the corner... Bill and Dave managed to get by him but then he turned across me so I had to go really wide loosing all my speed and letting Bill and Dave get (at least) a 30-40m gap...

Then with the bumps and whatnot getting around the obstacles my chained dropped to the little ring and I was sitting there spinning... took a few seconds to find a cog suitable allowing Pat Ferris (I think) to almost get by me... Got a gear with about 100m to go and managed to get back to 3rd just at the line.

Today was the HC... As planned I did it on the TT bike. I knew that Bill and Dave would do well over that distance. Both are strong but don't have as much endurance. I can beat them on longer TT's and HC's (like Seymour, Cypress or Mt Washington...) but 4-5 minutes would be a lot tougher.

The end result was 4:24. Bill at 4:33 and Dave at 4:36.

Neither of them used their TT bikes (although Bill did use an aero helmet.)

So assuming I was correct in thinking 15-20 seconds advantage for the TT bike... it looks like that got me the Gold... :-)

The TT bike was setup with my climbing wheelset (Bontragger XXX Carbon Wheels with Vittoria EVO CS Tubulars) which are about 500 grams lighter than my normal race or TT wheels.. and a 12x27 cassette.

I started in the big ring and shifted to the little ring about .6km in where the grade gets over 3.5%. Then shifted back to the big ring at 1.45km where the grade drops back down below 4%. This worked reasonably well to allow me to keep my cadence up. Overall cadence averaged 89. Which was quite comfortable for the TT bike.

BC RR Champs - Atomic Course

As expected a tough race.. 80km... While they where awarding prizes based on Masters A/B/C we all raced together. About 20 Masters A, 30 Master B and 16 Master C riders.

This lead to the expected, with most of the Master C riders getting dropped. I don't have the final results yet, but it appears that 3 or 4 survived to the finish. Then a couple of straglers (including me). Over half either gave up or where pulled when they where lapped.

The pace today was a killer. The first three lap times where 15:57, 15:06 and 15:36. The C group in Spring Series was averaging about 18 minutes (that was a colder day too though, 15C, today was close 28C.) Last year in the Atomic RR we did a couple of laps at 16+...

With this setup (racing all Masters together) there is a significant advantage to the lighter hill climbers. They can get up the climbs and then get dragged around the course by the younger guys. If we started just the Masters C's together, they might be able to get up the climbs faster, but its unlikely they could stay away as they endurance riders would track them down on the flat parts.

Effectively they end up as a breakaway (WRT to the rest of the Master C's) that are taking advantage of another category. Normally of course that would not be allowed. But here it is allowed.

IMHO this goes against the purpose of the race which is to find the best BC RR rider in each age category. They even banned radios to (presumably) eliminate team tactics. But then then effectively allow some riders to draft off another category to stay away from their peer group.

BCMCA Comox RR, TT, HC

Great weekend... Hot... but lots of fun.

Saturday was the Dove Creek RR. This was the Comox Cycling Club's race weekend, so BC Masters riiders fit in with their catagories. Up to age 54 raced in the A catagory, 55-69 in the B catagory and 70 and up in C.

Dove Creek is a 16km loop with a single short climb and some rolles (about 100m total climbing per loop.) We did four loops. I spent a large amount of time at the front... Which was a lot of fun, but I ran out of fluids (two bottles...) and ended up with leg twitches in the last lap, which made the final sprint a bit difficult. Pretty much everybody sprinted over me... But I had a good time regardless.

This morning was the 16km D0ve Creen ITT. Same course... I was hoping to beat my time from two years ago, 23:15. Managed 23:03. Average speed 42.4 which is not bad given the 108m of climbing. That was good enough to win the B catagory, the 55-59 Masters and 3rd overall masters.

This afternoon was the Mt Washington HC (abridged version.) This was 10km, 607m of climbing. But unlike Cypress or Seymour Hill Climbs which have a very steady and consistant grade, this has everything from short downhills up to 10-11%... I did it in 35:30, which I think was a couple of minutes faster than next over 55 BC Masters... 1st in B catagory, 1st 55-59 group.

While not an exact comparison, I looked up my climb from two years ago and last year... And then looked at the equivalent last 10.13km to compare times... Remember though that those had 6.3km and 427m of climbing BEFORE doing the last 10km that we did today...

• 2007 - 36:54/59:37 - fresh legs,
• 2008 - 41:08/1:07:37 - tired legs, RR day before
• 2009 - 35:30 - tired legs, RR day before, 16km ITT same day

So I would say I probably was on about the same form overall this year compared to two years ago, and definitely better than last year.

Also interesting is to compre to the Cypress HC a few weeks ago...

• Mt Washington 2007 - 58:37, 298PAvg, 306NP
• Cypress HC - 36:54, 288 PAvg, 299NP
• Mt Washington HC - 35:30, 266PAvg, 274NP

From this it looks like the tired legs cost me probably about 25watts overall. So estimated time to do this ride with fresh legs would be about 2:00 minutes faster.

The HC was fun, it started fast with Dave Mercer jumping to the front (except for some of the young A guys...) I stayed on his wheel for not quite a km... Mike Sevcov then went to the front and picked the picked the pace up a bit... He lasted almost 2km... seven minutes.. but I could see he was getting tired. Just as we where coming up to a slightly flatter bit (5-6% grade instead o 9-10% we where on..) I jumped past and got a good gap, pushing up to some juniors. I then worked with them to pull away from everyone else in my catagory (B and 55+ masters.)

I don't have the rest of the finishing times, I'll update when they are available.

Pictures from BCMCA Langley RR

Some pictures from the BCMCA Langley race Aug 23... thanks to John Sullivan.

The better looking rider is Anselmo Rossielo... I think this was the last turn before the finish sprint for our group.

BCMCA Cobble Hill RR - 2nd

More tire troubles... I had thought (hoped) that the casing was ok, but apparantly not... fortunately I was able to baby it back to the parking lot (where it finally popped...) and swap the tube in lap 3... Lost about 5-7 minutes from the lead group of 50-59's... but still managed a (distant) 2nd... And that was enough points to keep me in first place for the years overall in the 50-54 group.

The 50-59's had started out quite slow. Don Gilmore and Hugh Trenchard on the other hand set a very fast pace and caught us in lap 2 (or 7)... We followed them down to the start/finish and then I was the only one who managed to stay with them on the slow climb back up... Ended up a good minute or two ahead of my group before getting dropped on the small steep hill at the far corner (400m at >9%) 

Then TT'd and stayed off them for about two laps until the tire trouble and my group caught and passed by me. After fixing the tire I had the 30's group just ahead of me and tried in vain to get back onto them. Even getting a boost from Don and Hugh as they lapped the field... but again getting dropped by them on the hill just 50m short of jumping onto the 30's...  That was with 1 lap to go.. From there it was just TT around picking of stragglers from various groups...

So it was a difficult day... lot's of L3 riding and match burning (keeping up with Don and Hugh and 7 times up the hill...)

Cobble Hill RR:

Duration:   1:54:16 (2:00:39)

Work:       1832 kJ

TSS:       172.9 (intensity factor 0.953)

Norm Power: 300

VI:         1.12

Pw:HR:       3.18%

Pa:HR:       1.42%

Distance:   63.649 km

Elevation Gain:     902 m

Elevation Loss:   903 m

Grade:     -0.0 %  (-1 m)

Min Max Avg

Power:       0 964 267 watts

Heart Rate:   0 182 164 bpm

Cadence:     25 134 86 rpm

Speed:       1.8 71.8 33.4 kph

Pace         0:50 33:20 1:48 min/km

Altitude:     142 220 186 m

Crank Torque: 0 99.9 30.4 N-m

Temperature: 24 31 26.8 Celsius

BCMCA Nanaimo RR

After waiting in the rain here in Port Moody for a week, Sunday was a beautiful day. We took the ferry over and rode to the race with plenty of time to spare...

Unfortunately though about 4km into the race I could feel the familiar thump-thump of a slowly leaking tire... so had to turn around and limp back to the start line... put a new tube in and started again... only to have it happen again.. It appears from that post mortem that I probably got a kink in the tube while installing it. As they say, Haste makes waste...

We managed to get the original tube to hold air so we could head back to ferry... only to get yet another flat less than half way there.. So there I was on the side of the road, 10km from the ferry terminal, flat tire, no spare, can't patch because it was a blowout. And my ferry will be leaving in about 45 minutes..

With nothing much to loose I stuck out my thumb. As Blanche DuBois says, "I have always relied on the kindness of strangers." and hoped that one of the seemingly endless line of pickups would pick up...

Well Vancouver Island is a pretty laid back place and a nice guy pulling a small open boat on a trailer almost immediately pulled up and asked where I was going etc.. Said to toss the bike into the boat and 15 minutes later I was at the ferry terminal. Arriving about 3 minutes ahead of the rest of my group.

Getting back to the bike at the end of the trip we found that the rear tire was once again flat... so the score for the day was four flats!

And precious little riding... other than the 15km warmup and 4km of racing :-(

From what I could see from the sidelines it looked like a fairly intense pace was set. Mike Sevcov, Derek Tripp and Don Shaw caught most of the 60's in the first (of three) laps with Dave Mercer (and perhaps one other rider) being off the front (individually) by less than a couple of minutes at that point. They where caught shortly after that and I think those three plus Dave managed to just stay off the 30-40's to take the win.

BCMCA Abbotsford RR

Another fun BCMCA race on my favorite local course... only one "hill" and it is short enough to not really count :-) Total elevation gain something like 40m per lap for nine laps.

Unlike most of the BCMCA races this was not done as Australian pursuit... Two groups everyone up to 54... and everyone 55 and older. So I got to play with the young guys... who kept up a fairly brisk pace of just over 40km/h. About lap four someone got off the front a few hundred yards and a small group jumped away at the top of the small climb to go and catch him (led by Chris Squire and Michel Pelletier..) I was at the back of the group at the time so wasn't there to go with them.

I assumed, wrongly, that the larger group would reel them back in... but we didn't get organized and they kept away for the last two laps... There was no on in my age group (50-54) with them so it wasn't the end of the world for me..

Had a fun sprint at the finish. Another over 50 type and myself moved to the front and led the way through the small rollers to the last turn, I then managed to stay towards the front beating him and finishing about sixth. I remember Anselmo Rossiello and some young guys passing me about half way up. (I think there was about 20-25 riders left in our group at the finish..) The finish sprint is about 300m uphill, about a 3% grade.

This matches pretty much what I did last spring (C group, spring series this year.)

Next week is BCMCA Cedar RR... park and ride from the ferry...

BCMCA Comox RR and HC

BCMCA Comox RR on Saturday. Beautiful day, managed a fourth overall, just getting pipped at the line by Derek Tripp. The 50-59 group went a lot faster this year, averaging 40.4 until getting caught by the 40-49 group just after the climb and at the highway on the fourth (last) lap. Last year we we averaging about 38.5 and got caught on the climb just before the highway on the third lap.


Overall I was feeling stronger on the hill than last year. And had no trouble moving through the field to follow the lead riders into the sprint finish. Don Gilmore rocketed by us at about 250m to take first with a big gap (former track champ, legs like tree trunks, BIG watts at high cadence...) I followed the lead rider in for second, but sat up just past what I thought was the finish, only to get pipped by Derek who knew it was actually just past the intersection...

Derek had a very good ride. Along with Mike Sevcov he dragged Duane Martindale and myself up the small climb at a furious pace. (With disgusted glances back at us when we refused to come up and take a turn on the climb.) Duane and I where just barely keeping up and then needed a minute or two after the top to get our breath back before we could start going to the front again.

Today was the Mt. Washington (Vancouver Island version) HC... Just over 1000m over 16km. Lots of sections > 10%, plus some short downhill sections. I was tired from yesterday and found it very hard to get any watts on the steep sections. Anytime cadence dropped below abou 50-60 watts went down to about 280-290. Anytime cadence (i.e. lower grade) rose back above 70-75 watts followed and 320-330 was easy... My time was 1:07:42, almost 8 minutes slower than last year (last year was not done after a RR though, so was rested.)

Atomic RR

A fairly small field for Cat 4/5 today at the Atomic RR, about 35. Pace was a little slower than last week's Westside Classic. Managed to hang in for three laps of six. Then dropped off with Dave Kosick. We eventually caught with another three riders and finished without being lapped.

I did manage to set a new best (for this season) one minute power of 518 watts on one of the climbs. Which gets me all the way up to the middle of the Cat 5 range in the Power Profile chart. Hey, at least 5sec and 1min ARE both trending up :-)

Michel Pelletier and I did some laps of the Bradner RR course after as a cool down ride and compensate for some of the missed days (rain) early in the week.

Ceder RR pictures...

Thanks to Duane Martindale who dropped out and took a whole lot of great pictures... See the whole gallery here.


This was the final turn before the start/finish (although this wasn't the final sprint.)



This is the 50's pack that stayed out front to finish first overall. Gerry Van Gaans leading the way followed by Stuart Lynne, Chris Cameron, Derek Tripp and Mike Sevcov.


















This is Michel Pelletier and myself at the line last week at Deep Cove RR.

BCMCA Cedar RR - 3rd/4th

This is the alternate Cedar RR course. About 7.5km. We where supposed to do 9 laps but (fortunately) there was a mis-count and we only did eight. This is a mostly flatish/rolling course with a couple of sharp short sprint climbs. Michel Pelletier and I did it as a park-n-ride from Horseshoe Bay. Ferry over to the island and then about a 15km commute down to the venue. Arriving (well warmed up) with about 20 minutes to spare.

Right from about the 1km point two of the riders in my group (50-59) took off and we then did the short sprint climbs and by the time we where two thirds of the way around 5 of the 11 starters had dropped off. The 6 of us remaining setup a pace line and kept the pace to over 40km/h for the first three laps. One rider dropped out so he could get some pictures... The rest of us kept the pace fairly constant, dropping the average just slightly over each lap until the end of the race.

We caught pretty much everyone ahead of us and kept away from everyone else. So our group of five took the top five spots overall. Only Gerry Van Ganz was in my catagory and he sprinted away from the field to take first overall and first in our catagory. My legs where just on the verge of stopping from cramps (hot day, probably didn't drink enough, although I did go through two bottles of sports drink in 1:30...!!) so I was happy with a fourth overall and second in my age catagory.

Tomorrow if I can drag my carcass out of bed at about 4:00AM we will be back to the island on the 6:30AM ferry to do a 33km TT..

BCMCA Deep Cove RR - distant 3rd

Distant 3rd today... as in I got dropped lap 8 of 10. The pace of this race was a bit faster this year. And given a set of heavy legs from yesterdays hill climb, I was struggling.

This is a fairly short course, about 6.6 km. With a 500m climb at 6.5%. I was climbing this at over 400 watts in about 1:20. And typically getting a little more gapped each time. After this climb there is a nice descent followed by another 500m climb at about 4.5%. Each time I was able to get back to the pack on the descent and then even get past them on the second climb.

The 40 year old pack caught us at the top of the climb on lap 7. And the next time around they went up just that little bit faster while I was going just a little bit slower... and the gap was too big to bridge back on the descent. Jerry van Ganz and Don Shaw managed to hang on I think to the end for the 50-54 group. And I think Derek Tripp, Mike Sevcov and Duane Martindale for the 55-59 group.

Still a fun ride. We parked at Tsawwassen Ferry terminals and went to Shwartz Bay as foot pasengers and then rode 10 minutes to get to the race. The weather was very nice, a balmy 20 degrees Celsius. So very pleasant all around.

Race the Ridge RR - too fast for me

I went out at a reasonable pace for the first lap... I.e. something that I could have replicated five times if I had to. And that amounted to 40TSS points... and got me well and truly dropped...

I did the big climb in just about exactly five minutes, NPavg 381. At a guess the lead Cat 4/5 riders did it in about four minutes. I could have kept up (I think) for at least the first lap. But I was fairly certain that above these numbers it would be a stretch to another four laps the same. And even at this slow speed the total race would have been about 200 TSS points.. Which would have left my legs toasted for tomorrow.

So I very quickly turned the pace down. The Cat 3's (five minute head start) caught us in lap 3. Their lead group was down to about 15 (from 30 starters.) Very quickly after that the lead group of about 5-6 Cat 4/5 riders caught us as well. They where definitely less than five minutes behind the Cat 3's at that point (i.e. they where catching up...) The rest of the Cat 3's and Cat 4/5's where spread across the course in mostly small bunches. Except for one largish group of Cat 4/5's (about 10-15).

Now if I don't do well in the TT tomorrow I will be peeved.

BCMCA Aldergrove RR - 3rd (distant)

Tough race...

The Aldergrove course is short, about 9 laps of 6.6km. It is basically a box with a short but steep (250m at 9%). There are a couple of other shorter climbs, and 2km along an open area that usually has bad head winds, but today had a nice 20kph+ tail wind.. The finish is just before the climb, and the start at the top of it, so it was only done 8 times. Run with Australian Pursuit rules.

Larry Zimich and Chris Spires pushed the pace up in the 40-49 group. They caught us (50-59) in lap 5 (of 9), just after we caught up with the 60-69 group in lap 4.

Duane Martindale, Gerry Van Gantz, Bill Riley and I where able to grab on with that group as they went by just before the "climb". Unfortunately I got a little winded in the climb and lagged a bit in the next 2km and then in the next (small) climb got gapped. Very annoying as just after that, about 300m in front of me they proceeded to pull up a bit... I followed for about one lap at 300m... close enough to see them, but not close enough to catch them.

I caught up with Gerry Goodleff (60-64) on the climb and together we proceeded on... Eventually the 40-49 chase group caught up with us with (I think) 3 laps to go. We managed to stay with them to the end.

Duane got first in the 55-59, Gerry Van Gantz got first in the 50-54 (2nd overall), both staying with the 40-49 break-away group. Bill Riley got dropped and time-trialled to the end finishing just ahead of my group for 2nd in 50-54. Larry Zimich was first overall.

Which left me with a (distant) 3rd. The other 50-54 and 55-59 riders finished shortly after that.

EV Spring Series - preliminary Stage Race results - 3rd

It looks like I got a third overall in the stage race..

447 Richardson 42
515 Holatko 29
405 Lynne 26
531 Lachance 16
401 Cassidy 15
534 Hanniman 9
406 Fabishce 8
448 Ball 5

Still preliminary results though, as the 6-10 finishers in the RR where not recorded. I added my 8th place 5 points in to the above, and it appears to be impossible for anyone to catch me (6th place only gets you 7 points.)

Preliminary TT results also posted. I was 21 out of 99 riders.

The top C group finishers:

405 Lynne 16:22
447 Richardson 17:40
515 Holatko 18:04
534 Hanniman 18:24
406 Fabishce 18:43
401 Cassidy 20:00
531 Lacmance 20:38

If I had been racing in the B-Group I would have taken 3rd:

282 Rothengater 15:17
244 Manning 15:59
382 Stead 16:24
275 Van Gaans 16:56
279 Routley 16:59
248 Sidic 17:01
306 Broemelin 17:02

A very impressive ride by Mike Rothegater. The gap to Van Gaans is about right. If I recall I beat him by about the same in last years Warp Speed TT.

The A-group of course had some fast riders. 16:22 was about mid-way down the list of 22. Top numbers:

33 Briton 14:58
10 Tolkamp 15:10
1 Abercrombie 15:25
32 Noiles 15:26
22 Campbell 15:29

etc.

John Tolkamp at 15:10 was 70 seconds ahead of me. Which is about the same difference for the Ryder 8K from last year.

Johnathon Gormick (A-Group) managed to get the same time (16:22). I was typically about 10-15 seconds faster than him last summer in the Ryder 8K TT's.

Jeff Ains (A-Group) was 16:29. Again I was about the same time as him at the Ryder 8K last year (although I only see one result for him.)

Chris Reid (A-Group) was 15:56. Except for one (anomalous?) finish, he was typically 15-20 seconds faster at the Ryder 8k TT (two results).

Assuming that they also did the other races and where about the same for freshness it would indicate that I'm reasonably close to where I need to be. No surprises, either good or bad.

The first "official" (i.e. sanctioned) TT of the year is LocalRide's Race the Ridge 24K TT in three weeks. It is also part of a stage race (2nd race, Sunday morning.) So will also be done "fatigued". I had terrible numbers in that last year. The problem was Tufo tires on Zipp 404 wheelset. They cost me over two minutes. So I'm looking forward to see what I can do this year.

EV Spring Series - River Road TT 1st C Group

Late afternoon start (4:00PM). Weather started to co-operate a bit. Sunny almost, but with a brisk 20km wind from the west. So the outbound leg was fast and the return was slow.

Managed about 45kph out, but only 38 back.


This apparently got me a first in the C group. But I'll know more when the results get posted.

The best times for the day (A group and B group) where (again subject to seeing what gets posted) from 15:00 to 15:30.


The weekend was setup as a stage race. So my final results of 8th, 7th and 1st(?) may have got me a 2nd or 3rd overall. I'll post full results when available.

Overall this capped a good week training wise. CTL is over 80 (two months earlier than last year) and overall I feel fairly strong on the road racing side. The TT time was a bit slow, but that is probably because it was the last of the three stage races. With the Saturday race being a bit of a killer for me with the Snake climb.

Next weekend is the first BCMCA race at Lake Cowichan on Vancouver Island. I'll be attending unless the weather forecast indicates foul weather ($200 for ferry and 3 hours each way with driving is not worth it for 90 minutes of racing in rain....)

EV Spring Series - Crit 7th C Group

Early morning (ugh!) start. About 40 people at the starting line. That dropped down to about 20 over the first 20 minutes or so. Managed to stay towards the front for the last few laps and get a 7th.

EV Spring Series - Snake Hill - 8th C group

Escape Velocity Spring Series - Snake Hill course (new this year.) managed an 8th.

This course is similar to the Armstrong Road RR course. In fact it climbs the same hill (about 90m of elevation) from a different side and uses the same descent. But it plays out differently. Armstrong does the clime in 3 short climbs with some flattish bits in between. Snake does it as one steep climb.

Armstrong has gives you about 2km to get your breath back after the descent before starting the climb. Snake gives you over 7km to do the same.

The climb itself was being done in under 2:00 by the stronger riders. I wanted to keep it over 2:00. So always tried to be at the front at the bottom and then set a pace that would get me to the top just back of the leaders. Close enough, with enough other riders, to be able to bridge back. Even if it took 3-4km after we got through the descent.

This left enough in the legs so that on the last climb I could attempt to stay towards the front. This worked reasonably well, managed to stay within site of the first two groups (4 and 3 riders respectively). And had two other people to work with, around to the finish. We couldn't bridge up to either group, but neither where we caught by anyone else.

So a better result than Armstrong, where I was minutes behind the lead group (2nd or 3rd chase group back....) The difference was the harder hill. Longer hills are better for me (although at 2 minutes, still not long enough...) and with a longer course to work back. The bridging back was hard, but at (typically) 250-300 avg. watts not enough to be to worried about. Especially as long as I had 2-3 other riders to work with.