Jiminy Peak Road Race - cat3

The New England spring classic road races are quickly coming to an end for me, with only Sterling still to go after racing Jiminy this past weekend. No Sunapee this year due to family plans. My training in late March and April focused around these hilly road races so that I could improve upon my lousy climbing ability. Battenkill and Turtle Pond hadn’t been complete disasters, but certainly didn’t play out as well as I had hoped. At Jiminy my goal was to survive the first two times up the major climb so that I could be a factor in setting up the finish.

The cat3 race was 90 kilometers over three laps. Each lap included a long gradual grind up route 7 that averaged 2% gradient with a few ~5% kickers. After passing what used to be Brodie (Snowy Owl) there is a brief but fast descent before turning off of route 7 around a narrow 60° corner that leads into the finishing climb. The finishing climb is a 1500 meter rise at 5-6% average gradient. It levels off ever so slightly about half way up before going to just around 8-10% through the feed zone and to the finish. The back side of the course is all fun with a 50+ mph descent and mostly rolling downhill. It was partly cloudy with temps in the 50’s for most of the race with a moderate amount of wind.

NEBC had three in the cat3 field of 93 starters including Dave, Brian and myself. We did not expect a successful break to form and our plan was to be conservative through the early parts of the race. I figured we had one of the best climbers in the race with Brian and I wanted to do what I could to set him up for the finish.

Staging was on a pretty narrow part of the parking lot. I tried squeezing in about half way up on the side, but got yelled at by an official. Instead I took a comfortable spot on the back. I was afraid the course would be tight and I would be unable to move around but it ended up not being a problem.

Attacks went off pretty much from the gun as the early break established. I thought the first several miles would be all downhill, but there was a longish false flat that actually hurt pretty good. I hadn’t warmed up at all, and the quick early pace did make me very uncomfortable, maybe more so than the climbs even. It didn’t last too long and before long we were cruising along fast but easy.

The early break of 5 or so hovered off the front by about 20 seconds for most of the first lap. I was able to move up in the field without any trouble by taking some risks along the right side of the road in the breakdown lane. One rider got pushed off road, but then proceeded to ride in a grass field a solid 30 feet from the road. He did this for at least 200 meters. Not sure what the thinking was there, just keeping it upright I guess.

After turning onto route 7 for the first time I continued moving up along the inside. The breakdown lane randomly disappears at parts which forced the field to sandwich to one side, my side. I was forced to ride about 2 inches from the guard rail at times but it was just enough space. By the time we made it to the finishing climb for the first time I was comfortably about 1/3 of the way back.

Making the turn onto the finishing climb was aggressive. Everyone bunched up through the narrow turnoff, and the guys on the front absolutely hammered it coming out of the turn. I didn’t have my power meter but it easily felt like a 500+ watt effort. Luckily this only continued for 30 seconds or so before the pace eased off. The rest of the climb was smooth and more reasonable. We picked up the first breakaway somewhere along here. I made it over the first lap climb mid-pack and without too much difficulty.

Over the top of the first lap I think another break went up the road, this one including Chris Bailey (Pedro’s) and maybe three others. There were a lot of attacks going off on the back part of the course with riders going up and coming back. I don’t know exactly who went off when, but the break of the day did go up the road somewhere along here.

Once again I jockeyed for position over the back part of the course and was able to get within 5 wheels of the front by the time we were climbing on route 7. Not having to worry about position on the climb took a lot of the pressure off and I climbed with much more ease than in previous races. By the time we were coming up the finishing climb I had floated back to the last 25% of the field. I picked up a water bottle in the feed zone (thx pro feed) and crested the top pretty close to the back. I hadn’t intentionally sag climbed but in hindsight it did kind of end up that way. Either way I was happy to be relatively comfortable and in contact with the field. Coming over the finish line Bailey was at the side of the road with a flat. I thought this meant that the break had come back.

On the back side of the last lap my legs were showing signs of cramping and tightness. I took in 2.5 bottles of fluids over the race but I may not have eaten enough, around 600 calories. I forced some food down but my stomach wasn’t too happy either. Normally I would have tried to bring back the break, but my legs needed serious help and it didn’t seem like we were totally crawling along either. I rested up until we got to route 7.

After turning onto route 7 for the final time I found Brian in the field and let him know I was still there and willing to help. We started moving up the outside and found Dave. I figured this was my time to help out a bit so I led the three of us up until I was within the first 5 wheels. I rode out in the wind for a little bit but when the pace picked up a hair I went for shelter. This may have been a mistake on my part. Lot of swarming ensued as we approached Brodie and we lost all sorts of position. The field was spread out to the yellow line over the breakdown lane and both climbing lanes. We really weren’t going all that fast and it was elbow to elbow trying to get a good position before the turn onto the finishing hill. I was able to work my way up to the third row but I had completely lost contact with Brian and Dave and they were nowhere to be seen in front of me.

As expected, the pace went crazy fast right after the turn for a short period before getting easier again. I was in about 20th position when the pace eased off, but my legs were pretty fried. When we started going hard again I knew I couldn’t hold it and I went far right to get out of the way. We were half way up and I was losing all sorts of positions when Brian finally came by me. He must’ve had a terrible position at the start of the climb but he was moving fast and managed to finish 12th somehow. I rolled through feeling pretty beat up in 67th.

Overall I was happy to finish with the field as I don’t think this course suits me very well at all. It’s more than 3 minutes to the finish after turning onto the finishing climb, and I think I would struggle to do any better than top 25 or so even if feeling my absolute best. On Thursday I had done a 2,500 kj tempo ride, and I think may have been just a little too much. It didn’t matter so much for Jiminy, but for long races with a flatter or shorter finish I will need to be more careful.

Next up is Sterling and then I am off until the Connecticut Stage Race.