11.6.07

Mmmmm...State roads, TT's, and a Winghaven

WI State roads--70 miles of a rolling 10 lap course, with a hard finishing climb of 300m or so. So after sitting around in the sun for 45 min waiting for the start of the race, we roll out and start the racin' action. On the first set of rollers Cole House (W&S) attacks, so I follow along with 6 others, including Bjorn Selander (VMG), Matt Brandt (W&S), Rob White (PCW), and Kyle Jacobsen (IS Corps). We started working together right away--in a paceline even, it was great.

After 3 laps our gap over the field was pretty convincing. By 5 laps to go, Matt and Cole begin some attacks. I covered a few of them, doing more work than I probably should with Kyle and Bjorn in the break. By 3 laps to go, an attack from Cole breaks the field down to just me, Bjorn, Cole, and Matt. I'm starting to get some asthma wheezing on the finishing climb, that hurts. But normally I can recover from it if I get 2-3 minutes. Unfortunately that didn't happen, as Matt and Cole threw in a few more significant attacks that I covered. Going into the finishing climb with 2 laps to go, Cole was able to sit on Bjorn and I for 7 minutes and was fresh for an attack. I made it 3/4 of the way up the hill before the legs blew to pieces--I just needed to be a bit more fresh by that point in the race. Damn. My own fault for doing too much work though.

I fell back to the chase group at that point and sat on Fresh and Kip of IS Corps chasing. Unfortunately Mr. Andy Crater, W&S's all around fast guy, was sitting comfortably on the chase doing no work. If I would have helped Fresh and Kip enough we would have caught the lead 3 group of Bjorn, Matt, and Cole with 1 lap to go. But that would have meant dragging a 100% fresh Andy Crater to the line, not to mention two of his strongest teammates. Perhaps it was a bad choice, but I didn't help the chase, and instead attacked a few times leading to the finish to see if I could get away solo for 4th. It may have been successful, but Crater chased me down every time, obviously wanting that money spot. I figured I'd try to jump the finishing climb early and get a gap before the base of the climb--which worked, but I blew at 3/4 of the way up again. It was fun though, I got to try some new tactics at the end of a road race. Good fun.



The stats say it all--I probably worked 20% too much during this race. But, not going to lie, it was a pretty solid training ride. In comparison Bjorn averaged closer to 240 watts. That is my goal for the next breakaway. But it does feel totally baller to be like a Jon Meyers / Greg Christan monster for one day.



Back roads TT--I won. It feels good to say that again this year. Kyle was 2nd. He is a monster.

Tour of Winghaven--My ABD teammates Josh Carter and Jeff Schroletin were down in St. Louis this weekend kicking ass at this $10,000 circuit race. Jeff got away in several breaks before things came together for a field sprint....and you know what that means, it's time for Carter to put it in the Carter zone! Hayden Godfrey led it out, with Josh coming around him--but he was nipped at the line by sprinting champ Dan Schmatz (BMC). 2nd place and $1400 to the ABD crew today, congrats to Jeff and Josh.

Next up--A week of hammering out some miles to get the weight down for NVGP, U23 Natz and...perhaps some more big races. An announcement will come soon.

5 comments:

Seth said...

Nice job this weekend, Baumann. It's fun to try new things. In the Cat 3 race, I unfortunately didn't get to try many new things—just got bored and annoyed again in the field when everyone marked my wheel. We'll see how Tour of Ohio goes next. If I could somehow find a bit of comfort in a P/1/2/3 field for six days consecutively, I might just move up earlier. Then you guys can whip me into real shape!

Anonymous said...

"But it does feel totally baller to be like a Jo*h*n Meyers / Greg Christan monster for one day."

lol. One of these days I'll be totally baller AND win a race.

NP of 384 for 2:36 makes you categorizable as a freak of nature.

Freak.

Ryan Baumann said...

dear j-o-h-n meyers,

I bet you simply need to have a NP-fest at your next race, you should win hands down.

And if I'm the freak, it kind of goes unsaid that you're the geek, right?

Geek.

Anonymous said...

Shoulda seen that coming. In an attempt to confirm your suspicion (that I'm a nerd):

IF of 1.01 for 2:36 is... impossible unless you are underestimating your FT in CP. If that were right you'd have to have a FT of 410+ or so. Tested your FT recently?

Acronyms abound,
TSK, the best TLA of all.



TLA = Three Letter Acronym

Ryan Baumann said...

IMHO, TSK ISLY of a TLA, FYI.

Just in case you were wondering.

Oh--nice ride at Wheaton, what are you talking about not being able to win? Next time you'll have that one, you just need to counter with a last lap attack ala Greg Christan.

Solo break=best victory celebration anyways, right?