Devon 80 / Super Chix

I competed in the Devon 80 at Deloraine today and Sharon raced the last round of the womens only super Chix races on the same course. The women did 2 laps (48km) and the men did 3 laps (72km). The river was pumping after all the rain but luckily the weather was clear except for a cooling southerly that made the clothing selection tricky. You always start out cool but quickly warm up in these races and if you over dress you will overheat.

Sharon was on a 6 minute handicap by herself unfortunately but she pushed out a good first lap and had the two young girls from the next bunch hot on her tail after the first lap. Sharon didn’t make a lot of ground on Roz in front and struggled a bit into the wind with nobody to work with on the first lap. The young girls worked with Sharon on the second lap and they only got caught by the fast bunches about 4km from home. Sharon asked Jody what to do now and she replied “just hang on to them!!!!!!!”. Sharon hung on towards the back of the bunch and had a ball getting drafted along in such a high speed bunch eventually crossing the line in 10th place but Nobody caught Roz today.

A good size group of 10 started in my ‘E’ grade race today with a few regulars and a few I have not seen before including a friendly guy from the NW coast who unfortunately had a flat and had to pull out at some stage. A couple of others dropped out early or dropped off our pace as well. It was good to see Wes back out for a ride after his recent new baby settling in period and gave us 2 FHaT riders in the group. I warmed up for 1PM but it was a 1:30PM start and I had to top up a bit before we hit the start line.

The first couple of laps were uneventful but a bit slow at times particularly going down hills. We were down to 6 riders on lap 2 so the rotation was quick and there was no opportunities for any slacking at the back. It was obvious on the second lap when Neil and I upped the pace a bit up the main hill we would drop a couple more on the last lap.

The ‘D’ grade group caught us about 1/3 into lap 3 and we got on the back of them. Their pace was not much higher than ours and I got into the rotations for a while while some wiser ‘E’ riders hung off the back. Once we hit the hills there were a few starting to struggle and on the largest hill the pace went up and the group split quickly with only myself and Neil holding the ‘D’ graders with daylight behind us. I made the mistake of getting back into the ‘D’ rotation up one hill towards the end and suffered a bit for it. About 6km from home the ‘A’, ‘B’ & ‘C’ joined the group quickly around the outside and things went up a gear.

Neil and I were just hanging on the back although I could see Neil was doing it a bit easier than I was. I dropped off the back on the start of the flat section but got back on again after putting in a hard effort. I held on for another 1KM but with only 1.4KM to go I ‘bonked’. The interesting section of data where I ‘bonked’ is in the gallery. Neil had the win and he stuck with the fast guys till at least they went out of sight of me. I trundled in with my heart rate back under 170BPM at about 36KMH with a few checks behind to make sure nobody was sneaking up behind me to take 2ND place away from me.

There was no reason to look back as the rest were a long way behind me. Wes got in the money as well sprinting in for 5th place, just piped on the line for 4th. Neil (‘E’ grade winner today) was hunched over his bike at the finish and was way into the hurt box. So a pleasing 2ND place for me today but I have to work on my sustained top end speed at the end of the races. I need to investigate if my high cadence with my compact crank set at the higher speeds is the problem by topping out my cardiovascular system before my legs?