23.9 miles, 1:26 time, 1400 ft elevation

This is the Tour de Rock Mountain Stage, with 3 KOM spots. The Mooseman Course was a long course, with steep hilly spots all throughout. My legs were not fresh; they were still recovering from Sunday’s Boney Mountain Trail Run (21K ~ 13.1mi). I got to the House of Pain very early; I didn’t want to be late like the previous week which really affected the team’s over all time. I was ready to go, but not sure how the night would turn out. I tried to keep up with the A guys for a bit, but once the first steep climb hit, I was off the back. While watching my power, I could tell I was suffering. My power was down about 20W, at least. Usually, I can hold ~200W for a one hour effort. I knew I had to keep my power consistent and not blow up, because there were steep climb all the way to the end. After the first descent, maybe around mile 5, Trevor had a blowout flat, that sounded like a gun shot. I was sitting right next to him and almost jumped out of my bike, luckily I was clipped in! While Trev fixed his flat, I caught up and passed him. I was pushing hard the rest of the night so that he didn’t catch up. At the half way point, my mind drifted into slight panic mode and said ‘hey, I’m pretty tired and you got a long way to go.’ I said back, ‘shut up and just keep going’ and in the back of my mind, I was thinking, I better finish.

Bill’s reports below the pics.

Bill’s Course Description

This week, we start to climb. The course profile for this week is a slightly truncated version of the Mooseman course.  It’s 23.9 miles, with about 1,400 feet of climbing overall.  While perhaps not a ton of climbing in total, the climbs that are there are tough.  Very little of the climbing is easy or moderate.  A number of these ramps get into double-digits, and they are all there to sap your legs.  

KOM points will be on offer this week.  We have a Cat 1 at the second peak after the start, a Cat 2 at the second sawtooth peak about 1/3 of the way in, and a final Cat 2 at the high point of the course near the end.

Bill’s Report – A Group

The overall complexion of the race changed tonight.  Once again, the Merchants brought their speed to the “A” race, and after weeks and weeks of behind behind, they finally caught the Cannibals.  Riding for the Merchants were Tyler, Peter, Bob & Trevor.  The Cannibals were Scott, Jeff, Kirk & Joe.

Bearing in mind that this course was reputed to be a bit tough, the start of the stage was not a mad scramble, but rather an orderly group procession towards the first climb of the day.  It wasn’t until that climb that the fireworks started, but they did start.  As soon as he hit the climb, Tyler started a 400+ watt surge, followed by Peter.  The others tried to hang on for as long as they could, but things quickly got strung out, and riders started dropping off.  By the end of that first short (but steep) climb, Trevor, Joe, Scott and Bob had all dropped off the front, and a short time later Kirk dropped back, followed by Jeff, leaving Peter & Tyler on their own.

As the riders moved into their first fast descent at about Mile 1.8, a gunshot was heard and a terrorist wrestled to the ground. Actually, something which sounded like a gunshot was heard, and Trevor was forced to pull off as his rear tire had “done blowed up”.  It took him several minutes to get the bike off the trainer, get the old wheel off, get it replaced and get the bike back on the trainer, by which time the crowd was long gone, leaving him to do the rest of the stage on his own.  Trevor had been with Joe as the others had opened a gap, and his sudden disappearance left Joe on his own for the rest of the stage, too.

Further up, Kirk had hooked up with Jeff for a while, but a strong climb by Jeff on the second short (but steep) climb put Kirk into danger, and he dropped away at about Mile 2.3.  Behind him, Bob was finding his pace, and was starting to close the gap, and together with Scott, linked back up with Kirk and then bridged up to Jeff.  At the front, Peter was the first over KOM 1, followed closely by Tyler, while Kirk was able to surge away from his small group and take third for that climb.  His group of four continued for a short while onto the next fast descent, but Kirk was screaming downhill, stringing them all out.  Scott was the first casualty, dropping off the back of this high-speed run, and then at Mile 3.5 a gap opened between Kirk and the Jeff/Bob group, leaving Kirk to sail on unmolested.  Bob was the next to use gravity to his advantage, opening a gap on Jeff.

The sharp climbs and fast descents were working their magic again tonight, as groups formed, broke up, and new groups re-formed out of the debris.  In this case, Scott was able to surge back, catching Jeff and linking up with him at Mile 4.5.  Further up, Bob was putting in a heroic long-term push to catch Kirk.  Kirk responded bravely, but Bob was not to be denied, and after a long chase, finally hooked up with Kirk at Mile 5.4.  Kirk had apparently not spent all his marbles on his response, and counter-attacked shortly thereafter, dropping Bob at Mile 5.6.  However, Bob wasn’t ready to admit defeat, and once again went on the long chase, finally catching Kirk again at Mile 6.1.

Once these two were together again, the effort of the attacks and chases was showing a bit, and they settled into a recovery pace.  This, of course, allowed Jeff and Scott back into the fray, and using their endurance power, they were able to hammer back Bob & Kirk about a half-mile later.  Once together, they hit the bottom of KOM 2 as a group, but the short (but steep) climb of KOM 2 shattered that group, with Scott and Kirk unable to hold the climbing pace of Jeff and Bob.  While Peter was first over KOM 2, again followed closely by Tyler (they apparently had a deal on the KOM points), Jeff was able to hold off Bob in a hard-fought battle for third on that KOM.

Once over the top, the hard pace on the climb forced Jeff and Bob into something of a recovery pace, allowing Scott and Kirk to bring them back on the descent.  Once this group of four got back together, the fun began as the “roadies” started to work on the “triathletes”.  Bob and Kirk took turns putting hard surges into Scott and Jeff starting at about Mile 7, and continuing for a couple of miles.  While the “roadies” had the “triathletes” in trouble a couple of times and forced some hard chases to get back on, the “triathletes” were able to hang on, barely.  However, in the end, these attacks took their toll, and the “triathletes” were able to counter-attack successfully, with Scott going off the front of the group.  Shortly thereafter, Jeff was able to pull away from Kirk and Bob, and did a very hard chase to hook back up with Scott at Mile 10.1.

Once Jeff was away, Bob and Kirk took turns seeing who could do the least amount of work and get the other to pull.  This allowed Scott and Jeff to consolidate their gap, and get on with the business of working together to finish as quickly as possible.  Kirk tried several times to drop Bob and had him off the back twice, but Bob was able to summon reserves and work his way back.  Kirk tried another attack at Mile 11, and on this one, Bob staged a counter-attack and was able to pull a small gap of about 100 feet on Kirk.  Kirk chased, and Bob responded.  The gap opened and closed slightly as Kirk tried valiantly to catch back on, but he was never able to fully close the gap, as it seemed Bob had a response for each surge Kirk was able to produce.  Finally, after 1 1/2 miles of chase, Kirk finally pulled the plug at Mile 12.5.

Once this occurred, the groups and gaps were pretty much set until the end.  Peter was first again over KOM 3, followed by Tyler, and Jeff was able to out-surge Scott on this last climb to take third.  Scott was looking a little dicey on the climbs as the miles wore down, and there were a few times he looked like he might not be able to hold the pace, but in each case, he dug deep and found the will to continue.

Coming to the line, the final results were: Tyler and Peter at 1:06:09; Scott and Jeff at 1:14:09; Bob at 1:16:26; Kirk at 1:17:56; Joe at 1:26:55 and Trevor at 1:32:26.  In the overall, the Merchants were able to pick up about 13 minutes this night, not only closing the overall gap to the Cannibals, but going into the overall lead by about 3 minutes with a total time to date of 59:08:38, compared to the Cannibals’ 59:11:41.

In the KOM points, the standings are as follows:

Peter	85
Tyler	51
Bryan	27
Deanna	21
Jeff Ku	18
Steve	14
Jeff Block	12
Gregg	8
Amy	5
Kirk	5
Phil	4
Scott	3

The individual leaderboard looks like this:

Place	Name	Total Time	Gap
1	Tyler	6:35:24	0:00:00
2	Peter	6:37:58	0:02:34
3	Kirk	7:09:38	0:34:14
4	Jeff	7:12:33	0:37:09
5	Scott	7:18:50	0:43:26
6	Gregg	7:23:27	0:48:03
7	Bob	7:25:40	0:50:16
8	Steve	7:32:15	0:56:51
9	Bryan	7:32:38	0:57:14
10	Amy	7:42:00	1:06:36
11	Deanna	7:43:53	1:08:29
12	Trevor	8:00:34	1:25:10
13	Rudy	8:04:36	1:29:12
14	Joe	8:08:12	1:32:48
15	Tiffany	8:17:59	1:42:35
16	Mike Bowdish	8:22:19	1:46:55
17	Sue	8:22:21	1:46:57
18	Phil	8:23:21	1:47:57
19	Allen	8:23:22	1:47:58
20	Mike Wade	8:39:44	2:04:20
21	Lynda	8:39:44	2:04:20

Next week, we have a mountaintop finish.  It should be interesting to see who can pick up some time there.  Have a great week!!

Bill’s Report – B Group