Thought Patterns
by Emanuel
October 9, 2011 at 13:48
filed under cycling, Vancouver
Tagged cycling, Gran Fondo, Vancouver, Whistler
The cool air felt great as I pedaled off towards downtown just before 6AM, one month ago almost to the day. Empty streets but for several fellow cyclists, all off to ride the same route (Whistler Gran Fondo) but each with their own objectives: for some it would be to at last beat ‘Steve’ from the Tuesday group rides, for others to finish and enjoy the scenery, for others to beat last year’s time. For me, I had shared my goal as wanting to ride to Whistler sub-4hrs, which between the time I had set this goal and the actual day of the Fondo, or roughly 4,000kms of riding, I now felt very confident I could comfortably do solo without the help of a peloton or group. Therefore, my real objective, which I had kept to myself, crept to the front of my mind: I wanted to ride as fast as Trevor Linden.
This requires some explanation. Trevor Linden, the Canucks great, has been cycling for several years at a good level and he is easily recognizable (duh!). He rides for/with a well organized team (TNA), he had clocked below 3h40 last year and beat me by roughly 12 minutes at Axel’s Gran Fondo in Penticton in July, when I had missed out on some of the front groups due to a bad starting position and not managing to bridge up. I felt that he was a good target that I would be able to pick out in the peloton. Of course, as his team would have a good starting position, it would mean that I was going to have to ride a smart and aggressive race if I wanted to bridge up. As it turns out, this would be easier said than done.
As the pictures show, the start line was thick with hopeful and excited cyclists. The top shot is looking backwards to the rest of the field while the one below is looking towards the official start line. That would be all the people I was going to have to try to pass if I wanted to get to the group I was hoping to get to.
7am, Oh Canada and then off to cross Lion’s Gate Bridge, rolling under a neutralized start for the first 7kms. This is a shot of the bridge from another ride. I wasn’t going to be taking pictures today…and of course the bridge was closed to traffic.
The neutralized portion ended as we turned onto Taylor Way, straight up to the upper levels of the highway. I jumped right out of the saddle as I felt that I was going to be able to pass a lot of riders on this short punchy climb, and I did, but this was as far as me & my riding partner were going to ride together. Next time we’d meet would be in Whistler. It was chaos right off the start. I was as far off to the side as I could on the climb to avoid the crowd and that worked well but there was nowhere to hide on the highway, with everyone fighting for position and trying to avoid the cones. Pandemonium. It’s one of these weird things as everyone feels like a champion 15kms in the race and wants to push it but the race really wouldn’t start until we got to Squamish.
Looking back on my race, this would have been the time to make up more positions than I did. It was quite a large bunch and the nervousness surrounding me kept me cautious. Nonetheless, I was jumping up some wheels as soon as there were gaps, which were far and few in between. Having almost no experience about racing situations on a bike, the one thing that really surprised me was how much time I was spending on the brakes. Comparatively, in the Penticton Fondo, since the selection had been more definite earlier on, the group I ended up riding with was of better quality compared to the masses that stayed bunched together in the Whistler Fondo. The first climb after Brittania Beach operated a more definite selection and I managed to pass a lot of riders, joining a group at the top. Unfortunately, a poorly timed energy bar ingestion on a false flat left me having to chase back to this group for quite some time; 53X12 100% for a solid 10 minutes to get back on some wheels as I had been caught in no man’s land alone.
Back in the group, we cruised through Squamish preparing for the real race to start, 70kms in. I was still feeling fresh and I knew there was a lot of work to be done for me to get up to a faster group. On the climb up to Brohm Lake I was able to drop everyone in my group and bridge up to another group ahead. Bridging up on climbs was working well for me as I was not really putting the hammer down, simply going at but laboring hard to keep my pace. I stuck around this group for a little bit and at around the 85km mark, there was another climb on which I once again managed to drop everyone in my group. I could see another group ahead of me. I had to bridge up before they crested as otherwise I would have been stuck in no man’s land again, which would have surely meant either expending too much energy to try to close the gap, or simply falling back to the group I had just dropped. As I closed in on the group, with only about 100m-200m to go to the top, I came up next to one of the riders at the back and looked over: Trevor! I was very happy to have made it up to what I now felt like would be a good group for me.
The group was lacking in organization but I had started to feel like my left thigh was on the verge of cramping so I focused on eating, drinking and conserving energy. The disorganization left the pace to feel slower than it should have been but with 1,500m of climbing in everyone’s legs, maybe it was just normal. In any case, I recuperated and on the last climb before Function Junction, at about kilometer 105, I found myself opening up a gap on the rest of the group although my almost-cramping thigh didn’t allow me to get out of the saddle. I got to the top alone and I figured I’d give it a go and try to open up the gap a bit more. I was joined by another rider but he failed to take his pulls, leaving me on the front doing all the work in what felt like a pretty strong headwind. About 3-4 kilometers later we were caught by the group and although my ‘attack’ didn’t stick, I was happy that I had tried. The pace lifted for the ride through Whistler and I was staying up front taking more than my share of pulls; I like finishing strong and I felt good doing so. I was having a real blast and I knew that this great day on the bike was coming to an end. I didn’t contest the sprint within our group as I preferred to take in the final few hundred meters, and I was trying to pick out M&M in the crowd! I ended up crossing the line about 1 minute ahead of Trevor, and since he had started about 3 minutes ahead of me, I had managed to beat my real objective by 4 minutes.
I was happy with my time of 3:38:30 which meant that 33 riders from the Giro and 77 from the Gran Fondo had been faster than me, resulting in a respectable 111th position overall (out of approximately 5,350 that actually took the start). It had not been my best day ever on the bike in terms of performance but it was a good day and it allowed me a glimpse of what I can look forward to in upcoming years on the bike. A few beers and a dip in one of Whistler’s great cold lakes later, I was ready for a big meal and a good night to get ready for the return. The ride back on the bike the next day was much less chaotic, with a lot more descending and I got to take in the great views (as per the photo below, shot on an earlier ride back from Squamish) from a different perspective than what I was used to as this was my first time riding from Whistler to Vancouver.
Now I only need to find the same perseverance to get through this PhD year…
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