Ken Woods Road Race

One week after Durand, typically all riders go to Ken Woods, for the second race of the season; including me.
I kind of felt a little tired this week the whole week and was not sure if i lost some of my top shape or not.
Vince is not riding this week; so I am going to the race all by myself; and while going I realize I lack some cash for the registration; and need to make some stressy errands to get some cash. But all goes well further and at Noon I arrive at the track in Ken Woods. This track has 1 hil in a 21 mile loop; we have to do 42 miles today or almost 70KM. The hill in the loop is for riders with alot of power.

As my race strategy today, I will try and wait until after we did the first loop; so half race, and then place an attack. When the race starts; a bigger peleton today with almost 50 riders strong. We start with a tail wind and the peleton immediatly breaks into 4 pieces. I decide to not want to be trapped and jump to the first group. The legs feel pretty solid; maybe after a week of worrying about my shape, I will be in for a strong performance after all. After my first win last week, I start to make a name in the peleton. The moment I ride to the head of the race; riders start to yell: TIE!!! TIE!!! He won durand, don't let him go :)

The first lap goes at a real moderate pace. 10 years ago in races in Belgium, I was not able to ride through the peloton, to save energy from the wind, today it worked just fine. I was able to not waste any energy at all for the first 21 miles.

Then we take a right uphill, and I decide to attack on the hill, to see who are the better riders in the pack, since the pack is still 20+ riders strong at that point. My legs feel really strong and I am able to power up the hill with a 50x14 as a gear. From the peleton; only 1 rider can keep up with me. So it is the 2 of us from there on. The group however is not far behind and I again have to make my best educated guess about what I should do. I decided that I don't want to be this sprinter that only calculates on his sprint and I start riding at 100% from there on. With the tailwind though I feel I can develop way more power than my fellow rider and I drop him right there, I am alone with 20 miles to go. Again a moment of internal debate...It is far alone. But I decide to keep going. Suddenly out of nowhere 1 rider is able to make the jump out of the 12 man strong chasing group, it looks like he will be able to ride with me. However after a few turns, it looks like the jump from the group to me; was the only real bullet in his gun; and in the backstretch which is a strong headwind; I need to drop him to, since he starts to hold me up, and the chasing group is getting organized.

From there on; I start my time trail; I don't look back and try to keep the pace up to 22 mph on a strong headwind; I figure the chasing group will not be able to keep up the good organization and I keep going.
There is a motor rider; who keeps me updated with the number of seconds I have on the chasing group. First time he comes, I have 25 seconds. Second time 30 seconds. Still 12 miles to go and the headwind is really a heavy duty. However my legs still feel very strong and the group is not coming closer 1 milimeter.

The motor rider comes again, I have 1 minute on the chasing group with 6 miles to go. From here it will be a tailwind to the finish and a 2 mile uphill. I start to drop my pace a little bit since I figure 1 minute is a nice gap.

Towards the end I don't slow down anymore and I win my second race with a solo of 20+ miles. This is what I needed for myself to be able to have enough confidence to move up a category. Next week in Marty I will have to ride with cat 4 and cat 5. So that will be a new challenge. I will keep you posted. And oh yeah.. the price this week: An airbomb for on training rides and Pearl Izumi socks :)

See you next week for the race blog of Marty. :)