Tour de Rock – Week 1 – choose happiness

18.6 miles, 49:53 finish time, “A” Group. Winning Team Tonight. Kirk, Jeff, Gregg, Joe.

The Tour de Rock began its epic journey this week. Yesterday the “B” group rode and tonight with the “A” Group rode. Since I can only ride on Thursday, I had to join the “A” group. I mentally prepared myself today, by telling myself to hang on as long as possible; don’t show signs of cracking; and don’t disappoint my team.

There are two Teams with 8 riders each: Cannibals and the Merchants of Speed. Both Teams have an “A” Team that rides on Thursdays and a “B” Team that rides on Wednesdays. The course each week changes. Both nights ride on the same course profile. This week was Champoeg Duathlon, which is 18.6 miles with 250 ft of elevation. So, it was not too long and not too hilly.

I hung on as long as I could, with Gregg saving me once and keeping in the draft with the group, until the sprint section at mile 11. After that, I dropped off the back, and kept pushing hard so Bob didn’t catch me.

As an aside, this computrainer sessions really work you hard. I know it has improved my riding every year. The hard effort is quantified in the power output here:

Bill’s recap for B Group and A Group

The Cannibals Got Eaten

Yup – that’s tonight’s headline. The Cannibals got eaten, chewed up, and spit out tonight. At race start, Sue and Mike almost immediately got dropped, and formed a small group which stayed together to the end. Sue was learning how to draft and swap pulls, and Mike was working with her.

The others all went on down the road and stayed together until about Mile 8. At that time, the Merchants put in a hard dig, and managed to drop Allen and Deanna, leaving them to also form a small group to work together to the end. That left the Merchants free to fly as a team.

When it came time for the intermediate sprint at Mile 11.3, Phil took off about 500 meters from the sprint point and just disappeared, leaving the others in his dust. Rudy came closest, crossing second, and Steve trailed him in third.

The Merchants re-formed as a group after the intermediate sprint and spent some time learning how to work together as a group, holding an average speed higher than either of the two small groups of Cannibals. They stayed together until the final sprint for the line. Phil once again went early, and was almost pipped by Rudy and Amy at the line, but he managed to hold on for the win, with Rudy 2nd and Amy 3rd. Steve finished in the same time as his teammates, but was only credited with 4th place.

The two small groups of Cannibals followed a while later, with Allen and Deanna crossing in 55:34, Mike at 58:52 and Sue at 58:54.

In terms of team total time, the Merchants lead the Cannibals by 9:10. Phil mopped up the sprint points with 14, followed by Rudy with 8, and Amy and Steve with 2 each. In the individual race, Phil leads by 20 seconds by dint of the 20 bonus seconds he got for the win, with Rudy 10 seconds back and Amy a further 5 seconds back.

Tomorrow night – the “A” race!

Bill

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Tonight, the Cannibals were able to come to the table and eat a chunk off the Merchant’s lead. As might be expected, the race started with a burst of speed. Unfortunately, Trevor didn’t arrive and get set up in time, and had to pause shortly after the start to calibrate. He did this quickly, but not quite quickly enough, and fell back about 200 feet. Bob had also got popped off the lead group, and was about 100 feet back. Trevor put in a major effort, flying by Bob, who grabbed his wheel, and they got up to within about 38 feet of the lead group. Then, the lead group surged, dropping Bob and Trevor, who were unable to respond after their hard chase.

Once these groups sorted out, the lead group stayed together until the intermediate sprint. However, it wasn’t for lack of trying. Tyler put in a couple of hard surges and had the pack in danger once, and Peter also put in a dig or two. But, one or another of the others in the pack were able to respond to the attacks and bring everything back together.

At the intermediate sprint, Tyler surged off the front with hundreds of feet to go, and nobody could even get close. Jeff followed after a bit and was able to close to within about 60 feet, but no closer. Kirk came out of the pack to take a closely contested third on that sprint. However, after taking the sprint Tyler continued to push and opened a lead of almost 90 feet. The others (except Peter) took turns pulling and were able to close that down to about 55 feet a couple of times, and Joe was dropped off the back in this process. However, after a couple minutes of hard chasing, the chasers had to admit that they were not going to catch Tyler this night, and let him go. Tyler continued to sail along at 280-300 watts, gradually opening a lead of about 800 feet by the end, while Joe gradually faded off the chase group by about 0.25 miles.

At the end, Tyler crossed the line solo in 47:37. The chase group of Jeff, Peter, Kirk and Gregg fought out the sprint behind him, with Jeff getting away at about 400 feet to go and finishing at 47:55, followed by Peter who just nipped Kirk at the line by inches. They both finished in 47:56, with Gregg a couple of seconds further back. Joe followed about 2 minutes later, with Bob a further 1.5 minutes back and Trevor another 3.5 minutes behind him.

In the team competition, there was a math error in the standings last night, and the gap between the Merchants and the Cannibals was not 9 minutes as reported, but 24. The Cannibals picked up about 7 minutes tonight, cutting the overall gap to 17:11. In the sprint competition, Tyler inhaled all the sprint points to lead with 20, followed by Jeff at 12 and Kirk and Peter with 3 each. The individual leaderboard is as follows:

1	Tyler	0:47:17	0:00:00
2	Jeff	0:47:45	0:00:28
3	Peter	0:47:51	0:00:34
4	Kirk	0:47:56	0:00:39
5	Gregg	0:47:58	0:00:41
6	Joe	0:49:53	0:02:36
7	Phil	0:50:54	0:03:37
8	Rudy	0:51:04	0:03:47
9	Amy	0:51:09	0:03:52
10	Bob	0:51:09	0:03:52
11	Steve	0:51:14	0:03:57
12	Trevor	0:54:37	0:07:20
13	Allen	0:55:34	0:08:17
14	Deanna	0:55:34	0:08:17
15	Mike	0:58:52	0:11:35
16	Sue	0:58:54	0:11:37