Tour of the Hilltowns, cat 3

Tour of the Hilltowns. Massachusetts’ 56 mile road race that includes the beastly East Hawley Road climb. This race intrigues me for a number of reasons. Unlike most hilly road races, the hardest climb (East Hawley Rd.) is over 30 miles from the finish. The finishing miles aren’t exactly easy being a long and gradual uphill grind, but the last kilometer is actually flat. This combo gives me a slight of hope of success despite being considered a hilly road race. It’s still a climber’s course though. I also love the location being in the general area I grew up. I’ve driven up and down West Hawley Rd (West, not East) so many times on the way to Berkshire East that I know every last corner. Also, the course is just one giant loop which is kind of a rarity in New England.

Last weekend I did the 6 gaps ride which obviously transformed me into a climber overnight. Ok not really, but I do feel more comfortable than ever climbing out of the saddle, and for reasonably long durations too. Not just short little 2-5 minute climbs. Killington is the only other real climbing race I’ve done this year and I wanted to try again, just to see how I’d stack up. No pre-race aspirations of soloing away in the first 20 miles. Just hit the climb in decent position and hold on as long as possible.

East Hawley Road is a brutal climb. It’s not just the 1,250 ft of elevation gain over 3.8 miles (6.2% average) that makes it tough. The gradient kicks up to 12% for sustained sections and drops back down to a more manageable false flat. But the road also twists and turns so you can’t see more than a couple hundred meters ahead of you. If you don’t know every last inch of it this forces you deep into the red without knowing when the next break will come. Average power will be high, but to maintain contact with the leaders like a true climber your power will be up and down which means its happy lactic acid fest suffertime.

taken from brentacol.com

Like so many others, all I did for the first 20 miles of the race was sit in and conserve every last KJ I could for East Hawley. There wasn’t any need to warm up or anything. A few people went off the front right from the gun and everyone seemed content to let them go. I’d heard that West Hawley Rd was in rough shape so I moved up to the front 5 right before making that turn. It made the descent a lot less stressful. I really didn’t want to flat or crack my rims. In hindsight this road wasn’t half as bad as people made it out to be. Much better than the KSR road race.

I have to gripe about racers going over the yellow line because it happened over and over on West Hawley Road which really fired me up. Sure, there may not be a yellow line actually painted in places, but to go to the far side of the road on a 40+ mph descent and blow by an entire field when no one is even pedaling? Come on. Is that really how you want to get an advantage? That’s worse than attacking the only person in the race that can beat you when they have a mechanical. Not to mention it endangers not only yourself but the people around you.

Anyways, enough with the sour grapes because this was an awesome race. There was a single lane bridge near the bottom of West Hawley that we were going to be neutralized over. Right before we got there a huge 18 wheeler was crawling along. We slowed to practically a standstill and got to pass the truck before too long. Didn’t matter much I suppose because we were going to slow down for the bridge anyways. I played this poorly and lost all sorts of position.

In the last mile or 2 before the climb I took some risks moving up on the inside. I didn’t get too far forward, but at least I wasn’t on the back. When we turned onto the climb I was maybe in the 2^nd quarter of the field which was about 4-5 seconds behind the leaders.

On the lower parts of the climb I just watched out for riders that were cracking. I came around a few and was feeling OK. After about 2 km the road kicks up to 11-12% for 400m or so. This is really the do or die point because it levels out at about 4% after this. You need to be able to go into the red and recover on the 4%. I was hanging on for dear life as we got to the top of this kicker, just barely intact with the tail of the group.

And that’s when I did something stupid. I was riding on the far right side of the road and I rode off the side of the pavement onto gravel and grass. A bad combo of being deep in the red and too close to the side of a winding road. The pavement was elevated a few inches and I couldn’t just ride back on. I tried but I banged my nice carbon rim on the side of the pavement and nearly fell over. I quickly unclipped my left foot to get back on but the damage was done.

This was 2.4 km into the 5.8 km climb. I rode at what felt like LT after that, but it was probably on the low end. There may have been a drafting benefit along the 4% section. The pack was motoring away from me. Matt from Threshold pass me somewhere along the long straight part but seemed to blow up shortly after the hairpin turn. I was able to recover kind of quickly towards the top and picked up 3 or 4 riders.

We formed into a chase group with everyone taking turns pulling. Just as I was thinking it seemed like sort of a comfortable pace, a giant dude from Bethel Cycles with a deep carbon rear rim and a box section front rim went FLYING by us. I assume he flatted.

So huge Bethel Cycle guy goes by and we all had to sprint to get on his wheel. He turned around to see who got on his wheel and laser beams came shooting out of his eyes. Anyone that can get up a climb that steep while weighing as much as he did would surely put the hurt on us.

For at least the next 10 miles we chased and chased and chased thinking the lead group was not far in front of us. I think we were “Chase 2” on the road. We dropped one guy and picked up another. The Bethel Cycles gorilla kept the pace super high and I was too afraid not to work. For us mere mortals though, our pulls at the front got shorter and shorter and some began skipping pulls. This is when I got into trouble. I pulled through a few times when I shouldn’t have, then we came to a hill and I cracked.

My crack came right before the feed zone which was a pretty crummy place. Once you hit 112 the roads get way flatter and I could have really used a little help. I got a feed from Mom (thanks!!) and pretty much solo’d it all the way to the base of the climb on 9. The only help I got is when the Master’s field passed me and the long line of cars took some pressure off for a few miles. Otherwise it was just a long miserable grind.

A small pack of 7 overtook me about a mile or two before Rt 9 gets steep. At first I thought it was all Master’s but there were two other cat3’s hanging on the back so I hopped on too. Pretty much just rode with those guys to the finish although I did drop off the back in a little confusion caused by an attack/rain/ and someone dropping his glasses. Whatever. Didn’t make much difference at that point.

I finished 43/64, about 15 minutes off the leaders. I had to have lost 10 minutes of that riding alone but the real race was on East Hawley. Still don’t have the horsepower to hang with the leaders there. If I do this race next year I should aim to at least get across that long 4% section. The chances of chasing back on after that are likely much higher. Too much time is given up otherwise.

My power isn't bad right now and my weight is pretty much as low as ever. I gotta wonder about my training specificity, in terms of cadence, duration, and position. If I had a power meter for racing that would huge. My 40/26 seems OK at pace but is definitely too hard after a blow up. No that it matters so much at that point. That gearing works great for 5 minute out of the saddle climbs where I seem to go fastest with a cadence in the 60’s, but 20 minute climbs may be a whole different story. My legs are just shot after 10 minutes of that. Maybe a wussy compact crank is in my future. Maybe. It's criterium August so who needs one of those!