2013 Road Season Part 1

A few months into the road racing season, I thought I'd write about the races I've done so far.

Mansfield Criterium (A Grade)
March 16, 2013
Back in March, my team Melbourne Unibicycles and a few folks from the Melbourne Uni cycling club spent the weekend in a delightful chalet on top of Mt Buller, for the Mt Buller road race.

Inside the Melbourne Uni chalet on Mt Buller.

Preceding the road race though on the Saturday afternoon was the Mansfield Criterium, a tight little circuit around the main street of Mansfield, which looked like this:

Mansfield Criterium course, March 16, 2013

On this kind of course, with lots of tight turns and accelerations closely followed by decelerations,  it's quite difficult to overtake so Tom and I got to the start line early in order to get a good position. It seemed that everyone else had the same thought though because as soon as the course was open, the start line was swamped with riders and we immediately found ourselves right near the back - not ideal!
I spent the first half of the race gradually gaining places and working my way up to the front, at which point I was able to follow a few little attacks off the front. Clive was watching from the side and getting very excited. These breaks didn't last more than a few laps though, and during the last few laps I found myself slipping back a few places after the effort, and sprinted home for about 8th place, while Tom got across the line in an impressive 5th place. The race was won by the talented sprinter and race favourite, Shannon Johnson.

Mansfield Criterium 2013: Ned Powell and Boon Kiak Yeo

Below are my race stats from Strava.

	AVG	MAX
Temperature	19°C	--
Speed	41.5km/h	56.2km/h
Cadence	95	--
Heartrate	184bpm	192bpm
Power	324W	1,277W
Elapsed Time	00:40:51

Result: 8th of 50
Strava

Mount Buller Road Race (A Grade)
March 17, 2013
On the Sunday following the criterium was the Mt Buller Road Race. It was an early drive down Mount Buller where there had even been some snow over-night, and was hovering just above zero degrees! Evidently it was going to be a cool finish.
Down in Mansfield for the start of the race, the temperature was substantially warmer.

At the start of the Mt Buller Road Race: Gervaise Christie, Chris Broeren, Tom Christie, Ned Powell, Clive Silcock and Peter Braunsteins.

There were seventy-five of us starting the race in A grade, and there were a lot of strong climbers in the field. In particular Matt Clark who won the race last year while riding for our team but was now riding for Charter Mason, and I expected he'd be the one to beat.
The race was indeed tough. I sat in the bunch trying to conserve energy for the first 30 km, and moved up towards the front before the start of the 17 km climb. Hitting the climb, the pace was immediately very high, and I soon found myself in the hurt box, going into the red and realising it wasn't a pace I could maintain. After several kilometres and in much pain, I dropped off from the lead group of around 15 riders and was on my own for a little while before being picked up by David Ransom and another bloke, whose wheels I sat on for a few kilomtres. Again the pace was too high for me and I dropped off from that gruppetto too, before being passed by a few African Wildlife Safaris guys - Zac Quinn and Trent Morey. I hopped in behind them and was just able to sit on all the way to the finish, crossing the line in 18th place.

Mount Buller Road Race 2013: Zac Quinn, Trent Morey and Ned Powell

As expected, Matt Clark won, finishing almost five minutes ahead of me, and taking the climb in a particularly impressive time of 39:48, which is allegedly two seconds ahead of Simon Gerran's fastest time up the climb (Gerran's is a local to the area, grew up in the nearby town of Jamieson). 
Result: 18th of 75
Strava

Warburton Road Race (A Grade)
March 24, 2013
This was a race I hadn't done before. The course reputably had beautiful scenery, and it didn't disappoint on that front. Plus it went through Powelltown (although I don't know if there's any connection with my ancestors).

Warburton Road Race 2013 course map.

Anyway, Clive and I were racing in A grade with another 40 odd guys. The hardest part of the race was the Piedmont Climb, which was part of the loop at the eastern end of the course which we went around three times before heading back to Yarra Junction.
The first time we climbed it I was fine; I sat on second wheel as Jono Lovelock led the way at a reasonable pace. Juxtaposing the climb at the other side of the loop is the thrilling Piedmont Descent. Being a confident, thrill-seeking descender I was right up there with the front few guys and hit a speed of 104 km/h according to my Garmin.
Coming up to the climb the second time round, I was still feeling good, and apparently Clive was too because he spent a good while on the front and positioned me in second wheel as we hit the climb. This little head-start was handy because the stronger climbers weren't taking it easy this time, and the peloton was split to pieces. There was a group of around eight riders off the front, and not wanting to go too far into the red, I was just off the pace as I crested the top of the climb with another couple of guys. We worked together and chased back on to the front group.
Approaching the climb for the third time, I found myself on the front of the peloton and decided it would be a good move to attack, simply to get a head-start on the climb. I rode off the front and was quickly joined by James Butler, and then David Kelly and an Azerbaijan rider, and we worked together to gain a small advantage for a few kilometres before the climb. James Butler put it well when he said "come on boys, we're going to need every second we can get!"

Warburton Road Race 2013: James Butler and Ned Powell

He was right, and it worked well because with us being heavier riders than some of the other climbers with higher power-to-weight ratios, we were able to take the climb at a slightly easier pace and we were joined by the front of the peloton just as we reached the top of the climb. By this stage the group was fairly select, with less than a dozen riders.
As we turned north at Neerim Junction into the cross-winds before the descent, I suddenly found myself in struggle town, and my legs felt drained and power-less. I slipped back to the back of the group, and unable to get a good wind-break in the slip-stream of the last rider, a gap formed, and the gap grew, and I was dropped! It appeared that I'd bonked, or hit the wall, or run out of energy, even though I'd eaten a bar and four gels. The abrupt drop in power from my legs was quite astonishing. I had a look at my power data afterwards and it appears there was a step-change, which is what it felt like:

Warburton Road Race power data: I've drawn in the yellow lines to represent where I estimated my average power to be, showing the step-change in power output.

So after being dropped I was on my own. I was passed by another group of four, including Fergus Sully. I hopped in and could barely pull through to the front for my turn, so I was quickly out the back again. I simply felt enervated and helpless, as I crawled along back towards Yarra Junction on my own, wishing I'd put a few extra gels in my pocket, losing about 5 minutes every 10 km on the lead riders, being overtaken by dribs and drabs of other A graders, Women's A and B graders, and Men's C graders (admittedly they'd done less laps of the loop).
With 5 km to go, and with some encouragement, I was finally able to jump in behind a couple of other A graders passing - Adam Trewin and Brett Franklin, who thankfully carried me to the finish, which I reached in 26th place.
The stats for the race are shown below:

	AVG	MAX
Temperature	22°C	--
Speed	34.5km/h	103.6km/h
Cadence	93	--
Heartrate	157bpm	193bpm
Power	239W	1,213W
Elapsed Time	03:16:46

Result: 26th of 41
Strava
Man those last 30 km were such a struggle! I wonder if my body was consuming my muscles for energy. I thought I'd eaten enough but evidently I hadn't, unless my body wasn't able to digest the food quick enough to supply the muscles. I think my body was also conditioned for shorter criterium-length races, and I probably needed to get some longer rides in the legs. This provided a good lesson for the next race, the Baw Baw Classic, and showed me where I was at.

That covers my first three races for the season; in the next post I'll look at rest of the races up to present: the Baw Baw Classic, Tour of the South West, Phillip Island Gran Prix and the Metro Championships.