Killington Stage Race Cat 4 - Stage 1

[JeremyC]

Scott Sweeney and I are doing this race, along with my brother from the Sonic Boom team out of Boulder CO, acting as a virtual teammate on the road. Today was a 54 mile race comprised of 3 loops of an 18 mile circuit. The loop is mostly downhill, with one long 5 mile gradual climb in the middle. It was a fast race (24.7mph) but fairly easy to sit in. The KoM added some pain at the end of each climb, and the sprint was a ridiculous 45mph accident waiting to happen. The 3 of us mixed it up in the 1st 2 intermediate sprints, with only my brother getting a 4th to grab points. With about 3k to go my bro flatted but still was awarded same time. I was well positioned for the sprint, top 10 with 200m to go. I hit the gas but got squeezed and had to hit the brakes, not a good feeling at 40+. Coasted in at 16th, Scott following comfortably at 35th on the same time. All 3 of us rode well at the front which is a good sign going into tomorrows TT. Stay tuned.

[JeremyC]

Stage 2 was a slightly uphill 11 mile time trial, very straight and pretty unexciting. I threw down a personal best power for the duration, leaving me with a decent (yet disappointing) 28th place at 26:58. Scott came in at 36th about 1 minute back with my brother another 5 spots back.

What was more alarming were the 3 people in our field that threw down 24min times, which would have been top 10 in the 3s. Amazing giving that kind of gut wrenching effort and losing by such a wide margin. Ouch.

[onegeardoug]

I'm so glad I didn't let you talk me into racing this one..

[Len_E]

Jeremy and Scott, great work and results. Stay tough tomorrow. Leave it all out there.
No mechanicals Scott.

[JeremyC]

Ksr stage 3 road race - This was the single hardest day I've ever had on a bike. After 2 days of hard racing we weren't feeling fresh for sure. There were 3 huge climbs, but one was 2 miles in so we expected it to be an easy pace. We were not so lucky. The whole race blew up in the 1st 10 minutes on the 2 mile climb at about 7%, this was the easy one. My brother made the selection, Scott and I hammered with 15 other guys for 10miles and eventually caught on. Great, peloton together until mile 25 when the 2nd huge climb came, 3 miles and 1000 feet later and the race was officially blown up for good. Scott and i rode to the top together and tried to chase down people but never saw the front again. Scott slowly rode away from me, my brother packed it in totally, and I chased for the rest of the race and caught a few people but felt terrible. The last 5 miles was absolute torture, with East Mountain rd being the hardest 2 mile climb I've ever done. I averaged 6.6 mph over this steady 10% climb, and then at the top, after some hard rollers, turn left on the access road for another 3/4 of a mile at 8%. It was just survival, and didn't make it more than 5 feet over the line before unclipping and walking my bike to the side and collapsing. 37th place was better than i thought, Scott riding solid finishing at 28out of 65 starters. The winner we found out later came in 3rd last year in the mount Washington hill climb to Tinker Juarez. Really? Cat 4? sandbagging at its finest.

[jraguin]

Nice job pushing hard both of you. That climb at the end does sound brutal. Sounds like there was more than one sandbagger based on what I saw from the results with a number of guys who would have been near the top in the 3s. Purgatory sounds like it will seem like a criterium compared to that.

@Jeremy: Don't know if you changed your avatar, but I guess that probably looked like you after the race.

[scott_sweeney]

I don't do race reports because....well, because.

I will say this though - I liked stage racing much more so than I thought. The final stage of this one, Jere described spot on. Brutal, brutal, brutal. On the East Mountain Rd climb I may have invented a new geometry for pedaling....not quite squares....rectangles maybe?

I met most of my goals for this, being my first stage race, which was to 1.) finish the circuit race with the main group so as not to lose time on the GC, 2.) stay within myself on the ITT (literally my first ITT ever) and not blow up, and 3.) finish in the top half on GC.

I only wish that Fitchburg was still a stage race because I would definitely have reg'd for it.

Jere is shaping up as a sprinter...if he hadn't gotten chopped on the circuit race, he would have sitting top 10 on GC heading into the ITT. Ah well, all good, even though it still hurts to walk down stairs....

[argus]

Jeremy and Scott, thanks for the race reports and congratulations an having great races.

[scott_sweeney]

....oh and very cool seeing Lodrina in full-on official regalia.....always great to see a friendly reffing for us!

[Bruce]

You'll all be better off for doing that!! Nice description-- feeling your pain all the way.