Race Reports for 25-27 April

La Vuelta de Bisbee
Arizona
Who raced: George

Wente Road Race and Criterium
California
Who raced: Holly

George's report from La Vuelta de Bisbee
Place: 25th overall on GC
Course: 4 Stages in 36 hours at 4,000-6,000 ft altitude (see stage details below)
Prologue: Mule Mountain Pass Time Trial a 2.8-mile ascent through the heart of Old Bisbee with 837 feet of climbing.
Place: Stage 21st @1:20 GC 21st@1:20
About where I expected to be, actually my highest place ever on this stage and time matched my best on this course.
Stage 1: Sulphur Springs Road Race, 79.3 miles and nearly 2400 feet of climbing
Place: Stage 16th@:07 GC 19th@1:42
A strong mexican pro team (Tecos) had several riders in the top 10 and they controlled the whole race. All of the climbing happens in the last 10k so I decided to sit in until late and conserve as much energy as possible. That proved to be a pretty good approach as nothing got more then 20 seconds up the road. About 15k to go, attacks started like crazy but I was patient until I found myself on the wheel of the race leader and he bridged up to two other riders (from another Mexican pro team) so I decided to follow. We had 4 up the road at 10k to go with the yellow jersey, good move, but at the base of climb with 3 guys who realistically were a little out of my league going up hill. So I just sat on (and hung on!) they punched it for about 2km and fortunately it wasn’t too steep, we had a decent gap, but they weren’t really cooperating so they sat up and we got caught. I tried my best to recover and got in good position going up the last 3k. At 1k to go I was about 8th wheel, perfect position, but it took some energy to get there and the earlier move had taken a bit out of me and all I could do was hold, the top 6 punched it and got a gap others surged around me but I was still able to hold in the group and rolled in for 16th. The field split in a few places so was good to be close to the front. Good position, good tactics, just not enough for the final punch so nothing really to show for it.
Stage 2: Warren Time Trial 7.1 miles 400 ft of climbing, strong cross winds, downhill out, uphill back
Place: Stage 19th@:38 GC 18th@2:05, Avg speed 28.0 mph
I was a bit tired from the morning and didn’t really feel like I had a great TT so I was a little disappointed in the placing, but time-wise definitely on the right track. I took 1:20 off my time from last year in similar conditions and average speed was closer to my best place in 2004 when I was 6th. I didn’t have a disc but I was actually glad as I got to compare my power etc. from last year with the exact same equipment, very key for evaluating position changes. Again some easy speed to be gained. I think long term the data gathered will be more important then maybe pulling a top 5 or 10 early season.
Stage 3: Tombstone Road Race — 87.2 miles with 6427 feet of climbing, ridiculous crosswinds, 10-30mph.
Place: Stage 26th@25:00 GC 25th @ 27:00
The race starts with a “neutral” roll out up a nice 3km climb (ouch) and then a 10k 50+mph decent. Right after that we dump into a valley for 40 miles on open plains and enter the cross winds. The two larger teams there just clobbered the field and put on an echelon clinic. I felt I did the best I could with positioning on my own but with two committed teams, and a field who wanted to ride in the gutter instead of form echelons, it was doomed. Long story short, I ended up in the second group, and once we realized we weren’t catching anything (mostly due to some very frustrating lack of cooperation in the chase group) it slowed to training ride pace. But we kept picking up stragglers that were popped off the front group until we had about 12 or 15 at the base of the final climb. Up the climb we realized there was no field, even up the road it was all small groups and there were only about 20 left ahead of us so suddenly it became a bit of a race again. I was climbing reasonably well and ended up 2nd out of the second group. I can’t say I am too disappointed it was a hard day mentally (it would have been so easy to call it a day) and I stuck it out and felt better for it.
Overall: All and all I think it was a great race, no stellar results, but some good solid tests and some good indicators that things are improving over a couple of bad seasons and still building form.
This race has been around for 30 years and has a lot of history, there are several articles on Velonews and Cyclingnews covering each stage of the race and all of its history. Here are a couple of links:
http://www.velonews.com/article/75343
http://www.cyclingnews.com/road.php?id=road/2008/apr08/bisbee08/bisbee080
Here is picture from the prologue that made it to Cyclingnews.com:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos.php?id=/photos/2008/apr08/bisbee08/bisbee080/IMG_lvdbpro-8az
Full Results:
www.lvdb.info

Holly's report from the Wente Road Race and Criterium
Wente Road Race
Place: 16th
Distance: 66 miles
Course: One main climb, steep at the bottom then becoming more gradual and slightly windy. About a 5-7 minute climb. After that, lots of big rollers.
The race: I felt good today and was climbing well. There were a few field splits, and I always made the front group, but unfortunately things came back together every time. Lots of attrition, maybe only 30-35 finished today. I felt great and conserved well most of the time, but due to a near crash had to slam on the brakes, almost stop, then sprint back to the group like my life depended on it. When I got there, the field was strung out and I was at the back, again forcing me to again sprint around girls who were opening up gaps. Sometimes on good days it's easy for me to overdo it in situations like that and use my sprint too early, just because I can. So when the decisive attack up the finishing hill came, there wasn't much left in my legs. I followed what I could, but felt like I was crawling up the hill to the finish line. I finished 16th. The good news is that I'm feeling and performing much better than expected in the midst of my hard training for Hood, so hopefully that means things will start to come together for me in Oregon in mid-May!!
Wente Criterium
Time: 50 min
Course: Flat, very wide, bots dots all over the place, windy
Place: DNF
The race: This race was aggressive early and I made the decision to race hard to get a good workout. Because it's so windy on the course, it's easy to sit in and go easy all day. The finishing stretch was wide with a major headwind. For me, those sprints are so tricky--the field is really dynamic and I have a hard time figuring out where to be in the run-in to the finish. You can be in great position on the last corner and lose it all in a second when the field reshuffles. So my best bet was a break. Tibco, with 5 or 6 riders, was racing really aggressively. I tried to cover or counter off of almost all of their moves. I felt ok, missing a little bit of snap, but strong overall. It was obvious pretty early that a break wasn't going to happen, but nonetheless I decided to keep trying. At 4 laps to go, there was a big crash in the middle of the field. I was close to the front, so didn't even know it happened. As we came around the start/finish, the official neutralized us and everyone started taking inventory of their teams. I quickly realized my teammate Janeen wasn't there--she had gone down in the crash. I went to the crash site and things didn't look good--Janeen was going to have to take an ambulance ride. So I abandoned the race (which they restarted for 3 laps about 15 minutes later) got Janeen's things together, and went with her to the hospital. Turns out she broke a few ribs and collapsed a lung--she went down right on a chainring. She's ok now, finally made it back home to Chico today (3 hours away). Next for me is the Cat's Hill crit. Training for Hood is going well, I'm actually pleasantly surprised with how well I am handling the high volume+hard workouts. Now I just have to stay out of trouble...Sunday's crash reminded of that!