westlake #2

I missed the opener of the Westlake season last week. Work and the weather cooperated this week, and I was able to make the drive out to the bus garage for the second race in the series.

To "B" or not to "B" was the question for this season. Last year, I started out doing the "A" race and managed to finish with the field early in the year. At about the mid-point of the season, though, I was getting dropped on a regular basis. I'm not entirely sure how my fitness matches up with last year, so I decided to ride the "B" race instead of starting the season off on a negative note. But if I was going to ride the "B" race, I'd attack all the time, and stay at the front as much as possible.

The temperature was in the upper 40's and there was a 10-20 mph cross wind on Ranney Parkway when we got started. I think there were less than 20 riders in the "B" field. On the second lap, a couple guys from Cleveland Tri attacked and got a good gap. I paced the field back up to them pretty quickly.

The three of us stayed at the front for much of the rest of the race. A young guy from Spin had a solo attack and was away for four laps or so. I made several efforts to get away, but I got caught every time.

I decided I'd take a flyer from 1 kilometer out at the finish instead of getting mixed up in the sprint. Another rider did the exact same thing just as I was accelerating out of the field, so I lost the element of surprise. But I doubt it would have mattered, I was a little too fatigued to really kick that hard.

My average power was 225W. Last year, in one of the "A" races I finished, the average was 205W. It's higher because I was on the front quite often, but in the "A" race, I just followed wheels.

However, there's a huge gap between the "A" race difficulty and the "B" race. For example, out of turn 2 onto Ranney Parkway in the "A" race, I would crank out 1000+ W on every lap with an out of the saddle sprint. In the "B" race, I only did that a few times, and not for very long. Also, in the "A" race, the speed gets over 30 mph on pretty much every lap. In the "B" race, my 1 km attack got up to 29.3 mph for a while, but that was my maximum speed for the night.

So here's my conclusion, the "B" race is too easy, but the "A" race can be too hard for me. I think our club rides are harder than the "B" race, so probably provide more training benefit.