ToAD 2018 – Port Washington
My goal was to win, but I came up a bit short.
This year’s new criterium course is one of the hardest in the USA – Stillwater, Cry Baby Hill, Snake Alley…you could make a case for any of them. But the point is, that over 90 minutes and 4,000 feet of climbing, only 25 riders finished.
We started with 115.
I lined up a half an hour early because I knew that there would be riders getting dropped from the start. But what I didn’t realize was how many riders would be dropped, and how quickly. After 30 minutes, there were only 35 riders left on course. The rest had already been dropped, lapped, and pulled.
Yes, you read that right – we dropped 80 riders in the first 30 minutes.
I did a lot of work in the first half of the race, a lot. This is because I had the feeling that there would be an early break that would go on to lap the field. After all, this is what had happened on the old Port Washington crit course in 2016 and 2017 – different course, same hill. So when the pace stayed high and attacks were flying in the first 15 minutes, I went deep to get into the early moves.
Looking back, I don’t regret making these early moves. Sure, I wasted a little bit of energy, but it’s not like it was easy sitting in the field anyway. The draft can only help you so much on a 10% grade. It was safer to be off the front, too. You can pick your own lines through the corners, and you don’t have to worry about getting brake-checked, or swerving around someone who dropped their chain on the hill.
45 minutes in and the pace finally began to settle. We had dropped everyone that was going to be dropped, and now we were fighting it out for the win. The last 30 minutes was chaos – I don’t remember exactly how the winning move formed and when, but I do remember being on the rivet for the last 15 laps. I did everything I could to stay in the front group, even trying a few lame moves of my own, but I just really didn’t have the legs.
Coming into the last lap, I was in the field of 20 sprinting for 5th. My old teammate from Marian, Hugo Scala, Jr., put in a savage attack on the climb on the final lap, and I couldn’t hold on. I fought with everything I had to stay in the Top 10, but that was just about it. I got passed by two guys on the 40 mph downhill, because I didn’t want to risk my life sprinting for 16th.
I rolled across the line in 18th place, satisfied with my effort in what has become one of the hardest crits in the country. The best part was that after coasting around a cool-down lap, I found my mom at the finish line, who hugged me and handed me the most delicious chocolate milk I have ever tasted.
Ride Stats:
Distance: 36.4 miles
Time: 1:31:26
Elevation gain: 3,917 feet (!!!)
Average Speed: 23.9 mph
Average HR: 168 bpm
Max HR: 184 bpm
Average Power: 266 W
Normalized Power: 346 W
Max Power: 869 W
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/1666896635
Next: ToAD – Shorewood – My hometown crit