BC Masters - Cedar
Moderator: mfarnham
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Barry McKee
- Posts: 110
- Joined: Mon May 03, 2010 3:55 pm
BC Masters - Cedar
That was fast..... 37 km average over the rolling 63k course. There was a very good turnout for the race today. 17 in the 50's group, 41 racers overall. For those who want a course that is fast and fair, put this one on your calendar for next year. The overall top 5 in today's event went to members of the 50's group. We caught the groups in front of us and we were not caught by anyone behind us. We pretty much stayed together for a group sprint. Personally I took a page from Phillipe Gilbert's race strategy book and began the final sprint with about 1 km to go. The group let me hang out there until about 100 metres to go then passed me. If only it was a hill-top finish.... I'm really going to have to re-think the plan for next time.... Ryan C was the other Triple Shot racer and I will leave it to Ryan to tell of his fun today in Cedar.
Re: BC Masters - Cedar
Thanks to the organizer, Mike Sevcov and to all volunteers for helping make this logistically challenging course safe to ride. Special thanks to Glenda Harling for watching Java, my dog, for the day.
If you're 30 years of age or older, then I recommend coming out to these masters races. While they may not be as inexpensive as VCL races, they are always fun. The atmosphere is always friendly and supportive and the Australian pursuit format means everyone essentially chases someone else in a hard effort either to catch the preceding groups or not to get caught by those chasing. Organizers divide us up by age and assign time handicaps to the progressively younger rider groups. The youngest group is the 30s. My group, the 40s, was second to last to start the race.
While the 63k race distance is deceptively short, the pace was that of a decent TTT. While our group didn’t catch the front runners, the 50's and 60s (and therefore didn’t win the overall race), we considered ourselves successful because we stayed away from the five young guns from ProCity in the 30s group. Our relative group size was tiny compared to these groups. We essentially had 3 engines by the last lap as opposed to 16 and 5, respectively. We rode hard and steady. I was gassed after the long, slightly uphill drag race into the wind with Simon Sterling, who says he is not a sprinter (all evidence to the contrary) and after chasing down Rob Russel, who had a surpising amount of power left after sharing the majority of the day's work. It was a fun race and, as I have learned from dog training, a tired dog is a happy dog. That's me.
Here are some pics courtesy of Duane's site:
http://duanebc.smugmug.com/Sports/BC-Ma ... 81_ptmpMpT
http://duanebc.smugmug.com/Sports/BC-Ma ... 36_nWxsFMJ
R
If you're 30 years of age or older, then I recommend coming out to these masters races. While they may not be as inexpensive as VCL races, they are always fun. The atmosphere is always friendly and supportive and the Australian pursuit format means everyone essentially chases someone else in a hard effort either to catch the preceding groups or not to get caught by those chasing. Organizers divide us up by age and assign time handicaps to the progressively younger rider groups. The youngest group is the 30s. My group, the 40s, was second to last to start the race.
While the 63k race distance is deceptively short, the pace was that of a decent TTT. While our group didn’t catch the front runners, the 50's and 60s (and therefore didn’t win the overall race), we considered ourselves successful because we stayed away from the five young guns from ProCity in the 30s group. Our relative group size was tiny compared to these groups. We essentially had 3 engines by the last lap as opposed to 16 and 5, respectively. We rode hard and steady. I was gassed after the long, slightly uphill drag race into the wind with Simon Sterling, who says he is not a sprinter (all evidence to the contrary) and after chasing down Rob Russel, who had a surpising amount of power left after sharing the majority of the day's work. It was a fun race and, as I have learned from dog training, a tired dog is a happy dog. That's me.
Here are some pics courtesy of Duane's site:
http://duanebc.smugmug.com/Sports/BC-Ma ... 81_ptmpMpT
http://duanebc.smugmug.com/Sports/BC-Ma ... 36_nWxsFMJ
R