Sunday 5 February 2017

Vintercuppen #5 - Roots roots everywhere!

Result: 5th place

Bike: BMC Teamelite XX1, Rocket Ron 2.1 Snakeskin 1.5 bar (Stans Valor wheels)

After spending the last couple of weeks preparing for the Andalucia Bike Race by over-training and under-eating my main focus on today's Vintercuppen race was to get a good workout.

And that mision was accomplished!

I started out a bit slower than I usually do becuase I was afraid of my tired legs not lasting the distance. However my recent weight loss meant I was flying up the hills. So I increased the pace.

After a while however my main nemesis in the total standings; Tommy Petersen, came up from behind. We started doing battle with him pulling away in the rooty sections (he was riding a full-suspension S-works while I was on my hardtail with stiff carbon wheels getting bounced around), and me pulling away from him in the climbs and the gravel road stretches.

I tried a long sprint with a few kilometers to go and managed to get a bit of a gap, but got stuck behind a backmarker. Tommy caught up and when he increased pace I had no strength left to keep up with him.

I finished in fifth place but the important thing: Excellent heart rate figures