Here's the scoop on worlds. It was a fast and nervous race. More so than nationals. It was substantially more work to get up to and stay at the front here than nationals. More depth I guess. Lots of fun though. We are seriously thinking of coming back next year.
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Mick and I went for a short ride into St. Johann in the morning to get our numbers and check out the last km as the 2nd to last corner had an traffic island to avoid.
Since there were 170!! pre-registered for our race we left at noon to ride into St. Johann for our 1pm start. How civilized! :-) Kitty and Cees followed us in the car to make sure we didn't get stuck out there with a flat. Once we got there we waited... With so many riders we felt that it would be important to lineup at the front so we could hit the first climb up front as it was only about 3 or 4 km from the start. BTW, notice how I've gone all Euro by using kilometers. :-)
We ended up standing around for 40 minutes or so getting more and more nervous. But it paid off as we were in the front row at the start.
The climb consisted of about 5 short "punchy" pitches that were around 8-10% for a total of about 300 vertical feet. We hit this hard each time. It required putting out about 1.5 times my threshold power on each pitch. Luckily they were short, less than 1 minute each, but it all adds up. Next was adescending and flat section leading to the second climb. This climb would be a good place to attack over the top except that it is immediately followed by a long descent which makes it nearly impossible to stay away. Next comes some flat stuff followed by another short climb which again would be a good place to attack except that it's followed by a descent. Now you're on the TT course which is mostly flat and takes you back towards the climb.
Anyway, from history and from others who we talked to this year, this course is a hard course to form a break away on. The course isn't hard enough to form aselection and with over 140 strong riders starting there are more than enough guys to chase you down. Did I mention that there were 45 Germans and 31 Italians on the start list? And two American's, me and Mick...
So, to get away required strength, luck, timing and just the right combination of riders. Riders who you don't know anything about I might add. On the first lap I attacked to bridge up to a rider who had been off alone for a bit. When I caught him, he was at the end of his rope so I ended up out there alone hoping for a group to form. No cigar.
On the end of the second lap I attacked again late in the lap. Once again hoping for a group to form. I ended up alone so I just set a steady, but hard tempo and an Italian guy Germano Gaggioli bridged up to me. He yelled at me because I didn't wait for him. Oh well. Right after he caught me we hit the hill and he was VERY strong. I had a fairly hard time following him, but we crested the top with a reasonable gap. Agroup of four came up and things looked good. We got 20 seconds, but then were quickly brought back.
That burned a lot of my matches and I mostly sat on until we got back to the TT course for the final time. I followed a few moves to no avail and then with about 4 miles to go (okay 6.5km...) I went again after an Italian guy who was off the front alone. I caught him, pulled for a while and gave him the elbow wag. He yelled out "You win. You win." Which basically meant that if I pulled us in he would give me the win. I took him at his word (though I would watch him like a hawk) and things were looking pretty peachy. I tried again to get him to pull and he said the same thing, but when I looked back I noticed that we had been joined by four others. Still fairly okay, but guys came up bit by bit and we were more or less all together with 3km to go. It was very hard at that point. My HR AVERAGED 189 for the last 8:30 of the race. Somehow two guys snuck away and managed to hold off the field by 5 seconds. I was pretty gassed but tried to surf the group as best I could and held on for 33rd.
BTW, Mick was also very active and was in a number of breaks so I think we did well, but just couldn't get the right move to work. In retrospect we probably should have kept our "powder dry" and not done much until late in the second lap or even the last lap. But in the 40-44 race yesterday the break went on thefirst lap so you've got to at least be attentive.
Anyway, it was a very fast, very aggressive, very hard and fun race. Honestly, this race is a tough nut to crack. Under the right scenario I could win this race. But that scenario is SO HARD to come by. The odds are pretty low... I guess that's why they callit bike racing!
Kevin Metcalfe
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