Yea yea.. I know you can say that "everyone is lacking the high intensity stuff at this time of year" ... I can assure you the guys who do well at these races certainly aren't lacking in their top end.
I decided to ride down with a buddy of mine and spectate a few of the starts since we had friends in all of them. We ended up doing a brisk'ish ride with a few attacks and sprints to fool around with our newly acquired powertaps!
I managed to squeeze out 1022 watts on a quick roller, although I think I could squeeze a little more out on a more deliberate effort.
When we arrived at the race, the S4 (beginner) and the m3(master beginner) categories were already out. I also found out there had been some vicious crashes.
I would much rather never do a road race, than start in s4. Those guys cannot hold a line, they bounce around all over the place and are constantly on the cusp of taking down the peloton. I sometimes wonder if there should be a learn to race clinic or something before launching all these fresh faced guys into a peloton moving at 50km/h. The best part is some of these folks are sporting full carbon dura-ace/record/red bikes with deep dish wheels in order to save tenths of a second, yet do not know the first thing about road strategy or drafting. This is just the cynic in me talking...
I think a solution would be to introduce a 'senior 5' category, essentially splitting the massive 's4' group into two.
There were some good results by my friends, the Speed River Bicycle boys worked well together to bring in a podium finish.
I wont lie, I kinda wish I had raced.
After checking out the start of the s1/2 race I headed home to Mississauga via the hilly escarpment route. I attacked every roller, and tried to squeeze in that extra 5s of effort every time. At the end of the day, I had logged in just over 120km with some serious efforts in there. Good ride.
Tomorrow is a rest day, Ill be at the shop being swamped by the swarm of wait til the last minute customers. Ill need an ungodly amount of coffee to keep going tomorrow.
