Stage 6 (final) - Quick start, slow finish and confusion..
Result: 16th place in M40 (out of 200 racers)
Avg. Heart rate: 150
Avg. Speed: 18.6km/h
Avg. Power: 196W
Weighted avg. power: 240W
The last stage wasn't too rough: 57km and 1400 meters of ascent. The weather was beautiful and the sun was showing it's best side.
I started out hard today, as opposed to yesterday. Full speed through the streets of Cordoba and up the first hill. I saw the lead riders ahead of me and this felt good.
Towards the top of the first climb Anders Laustsen caught up. He's an elite Danish rider and normally much much quicker than I. However he had a bad crash the day before ABR started while testing out the first stage course. He's been riding every stage with bruised and aching ribs. We rode together the first half of the stage and he gave me tips and pointers on my technique. Great! Thanks Anders!
A weird thing happend already during the first climb: My left knee started aching. I've never had any aches on my knees before. This continued throughout the stage and towards the end it got really annoying and affected my motivation.
I slowed down quite a bit for the last few kilometers. It's really hard riding the tough and dangerous downhills in this race if your mind is not quite there. I passed several riders who had crashed and some of them were bloody: I especially remember this one guy with a smashed face.
After I finished it became apparent that there had been some confusion with the course markings. Some of the riders had taken a shortcut. Right now it seems that the official time for the last stage is the second checkpoint. That means I came in 16th place on this stage: My best stage in the race
Overall I finished 24th. Analysis is coming up in the next few days...
Stage 5 - Slow start, quick finish
Result: 26th place in M40 (out of 200 racers)
Avg. Heart rate: 154
Avg. Speed: 20.1km/h
Avg. Power: 207W
Weighted avg. power: 244W
This stage is the longest of the race: Almost 90km with some 1700m of ascent. The start is in central Cordoba. Weather was sunny and warm.
Things went well from the start and I was moving up through the field while we went through Cordoba. I passed Sandra withim a kilometer or so. But then I made a bad choice as we left town and got into the fields: The bunch was going on a dirt road which turned into a single lane path and we all bunched up and stood still. A smaller path was to the left of us seeming to go parrallel with where we were going but at first no one took it so I guessed it must be the wrong way. So I waited for traffic to clear up. But then people were taking the other narrow path... first just a trickle of riders but then everyone was going that way. And here I was stuck in a line standing still. It all cleared after a while but at least 100 cyclists had passed us. So when the two paths rejoined I was way down on the field. I started sprinting from group to group, again catching up and passing Sandra (who had made a smarter choice).
This all led to me spending the first half of the stage slowly moving up through the field. No one to help pull me along or to cooperate with. At about 40km I was on my own and no longer catching riders. I did the next 30km by myself. A weird feeling in such a big field of riders but somehow pleasant as I could pick my own pace.
Unfortunately that pace was too slow. When I caught up with some riders with just 15km to go I found that I had plenty of energy reservs I sprinted the last part of the stage and thought I had done well... But no: 26th on the stage.
24th overall in M40.
Tomorrow is the last stage.
Stage 4 - Knocked out by a deer
Result: 18th place in M40 (out of 200 racers)
Avg. Heart rate: 159
Avg. Speed: 21.0km/h
Avg. Power: 220W
Weighted avg. power: 254W
Sandra and I moved fron Linares to Cordoba after yesterday's stage. The start of today's stage is some 30km outside of Cordoba however in a place called Villafranca de Cordoba.
I started the day off by disabling the damper lock-out in front and put it permanently in open (soft). As I wrote yesterday the service people messed it up and I had to drive all of yesterday's stage with my fork locked. I put it in open now as I don't mind it being soft (certainly it's better than permanently locked) - I'm not the type of cyclists who stands up a lot in the uphills. As long as the lock-out is working in the rear I'm good.
I get out and go for a test ride in the morning and the bike is working perfectly.
We get our bikes in the car and drive to the location of the stage. We are ready to warm up 30 minutes before the start of the stage (start boxes open 15 minutes before the start). I get on the bike and as soon as I try to shift gears it's not working. I try to shift some more and nothing. I move the cable housing out of the way at the shifter and notice that the cable is all frazzled and perhaps half of it is still whole. Oh darned! I bike as quickly as I can to Shimano's neutral service (provided by the race organizers) and ask them if they can fix it. They get on it directly and 10 minutes before the start of the race they have a new cable in there. Why did it take 20 minutes? Well, pieces of the old cable had gotten stuck in the shifting mechanism. So 5 minutes before the race I'm in the start box with 100 meters of warmup in my legs.
Typically, as we start, this is the stage that the guys up front decide to gun it from the start. We had some asphalt first and the pace is 100% maxed out. I'm back in the string of riders holding on for dear life just trying not to get dropped by the lead bunch.
As we get to the climbs I feel good and start pushing a bit harder. I decide to put the ordeals of the last couple of days behind me and just ride normally. There's a nice stretch of twisty and turny gravel road going downhill and I start overtaking riders by pushing harder in the corners and slowly feel my confidence return. The confidence that was all gone yesterday because of the knock out and concussion on stage 2.
The gravel road follows the side of the mountain and so on our right is the uphill slope while the downhill is on our right. All of a sudden I see this big thing (som sort of animal?) moving in the corner of my right eye. Then it flies towards me and hits me in the head. My head in knocked left and I feel my neck twist painfully. I'm knocked off my bike and land on the gravel road. My glasses go flying from the crash and I feel dazed. What the heck just happened? Then I realize that the big thing was a deer and that it had jumped across the road from the uphill on the right to the downhill on the left and while doing so its left rear hoof had struck my head. While I wait for my confused mind to clear I look for my glasses, put them back on, and get on my bike and start pedalling.
I'm thinking to myself: What the heck is happening? What are the odds??
It takes a while to get back into the right frame of mind. For a while I'm actually considering just taking it easy for the rest of the stage: Waiting for Sandra and biking the rest of the way with her.
However and the kilometers pass I start to get my race mood back and as the last half of the stage approaches I feel strong and go all-in! I pass a bunch of riders the last 10-20 kilometers and end up finishing in 18th place.
I'm the overall I'm 24th with two stages remaining.
Stage 3 - Careful careful...
Result: 36th place in M40 (out of 200 racers)
Avg. Heart rate: 154
Avg. Speed: 18.7km/h
Avg. Power: 191W
Weighted avg. power: 237W
Today was all about survival. I wasn't sure whether I was going to start the stage after yesterday's concussion. I decided to first of all have a feel when I woke up. I felt okay. Then I decided to start the race to see if my body (and mostly my brain) functioned normally and to abort if anything felt out of order.
Things went okay. Power was there. I however had no confidence in the technical stuff and downhills. Somehow I didn't trust my brain to navigate around the obstacles. I went slowly and carefully.
A further nuisance was that my fork was stuck in locked mode. That didn't make the downhills any easier. I had the cable changed by the neutral service people last night after finishing the stage and they messed something up. For tomorrow's stage I'll just leave it open.
I'm happy to have finished the stage.
The long climb of the stage actually went 10W and 2 minutes quicker than last year so the power is most certainly there.
Stage 2 - Crash, concussion and memory loss
Result: 30th place in M40 (out of 200 racers)
Avg. Heart rate: 160
Avg. Speed: 21.5km/h
Avg. Power: 212W
Weighted avg. power: 249W
The second stage was 75km long and had 1250 meters of altitude gain. Not too much climbing in other words.
Things started of a bit chaotic: Almost immediately we came to a gravel road section with HUGE puddles (lakes!) of water. People were braking left and right, trying to go by the side, some just crashed through the water splashing it on everyone else. I took it easy and managed to get through it without incidents.
As we got to the climbs I started to advance up the field. Things felt good...
But then: At about 20km into the race I'm in a group of about 20-30 riders and all of a sudden the lead riders stop and look confused. There are no course markings! We realize that we've made a bad turn and head back. And of course it's in a hilly section so up and down and up and down we go until we get back to the course. I notice that there was a sharp right turn after a downhill which was not marked until AFTER the turn. Very easy to miss. I talked to some other people after the race and they had missed the turn off as well. I checked Strava afterwards and the detour was 1.5km all in all. Getting back on the course we found ourselves with slower riders and had to get around them.
We get to a section that goes around a lake on some steep banking. It's off-camber and difficult to ride. There's a guy ahead and he's slowing everyone down and there's just no way to pass. I get some "rest time" waiting to go around.
At about halfway through the race we come to some climbs and then some road sections. I feel strong and pile on the watts. I start catching up with group after group and things are going well.
With the last 5 kilometers approaching I'm riding with a strong guy when... Well, I don't know what happened actually. I crash and hit my head. Or I hit my head (perhaps on a branch? and crash? I DON'T KNOW. I have no memory of this. Or of getting back on my bike. I actually have no memory until I cross the finish line and visit the medics. Total mempory loss of about 20-30 minutes of riding (and crashing). The funny thing is what I do remember from the crash is hearing a loud GONG! sound in my head. I'm guessing that's from hitting my head.
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| After analyzing Strava data this seems to be where I crashed |
What I have is a very painful left thigh. So I guess that's where I landed. I got a left pinkie finger that's hurting badly. Also scraped knees. It's so weird not knowing where they came from. The helmet funnily enough is without damage. From what I can see the bike just has a seriously bent Garmin holder. Other than that it seems fine.
I finish in 30th place. Not good obviously. But I'm really happy to just not be seriously hurt.
I was still very confused and feeling weird during the evening. The medics asked me to write my name on a piece of paper and when I was able to do that they seemed happy. I'm going to start tomorrow and see how it goes.
Stage 1 - Time Trial
Result: 17th place in M40 (out of 200 racers)
Avg. Heart rate: 167
Avg. Speed: 22.9km/h
Avg. Power: 246W
Weighted avg. power: 275W
The first stage was a time trial stage. That means we all started at 30 second intervals. My start was at 12:20. Temperature was around 14 degrees Celsius and it rained on and off all day. I decided to ride in short sleeves. The stage was similar to last year's but about 5km longer: 38km and with 500 m elevation gain.
The first part was asphalt, turning into gravel road so I went into time trial mode and just watched the watts on my Garmin: 300+ all the way. With these kinds of TT starts you overtake people all the time and for me that's a real motivation booster. I was passing people within minutes.
The course was perhaps 70-80% singletrack. A lot of uphills and fun and tricky downhills made trickier by the wet and muddy conditions. I was enjoying myself fully riding the lovely singletrack. My Trek Top Fuel just gives me all the confidence that I need to handle the twisty singletrack and slippery downhills. This also comes from having raced the same bike for over a year now.
I remembered from last year the first stage being very rocky and full of sharp pointed stones. Same thing this year and I saw a couple of guys fixing punctures already after the first downhill. You should not ride this race on anything but a tubeless setup. I ran 1.58 bar of pressure in the rear and 1.51 up front in today's stage. The perhaps weirdest mechanical I saw towards the end of the stage with a guy standing by the side of the road trying to fasten his left pedal to the crank using a zip tie.
The last part before the finish was again a few kilometers of gravel road followed by a short section of asphalt: Back into tt mode watts climbing up to 320-330 on the flat. Things felt good.
I crossed the finish line in what was first reported 19th place but later changed to 17th. 5 minutes down on first place. I'm pleased with this result.
Sandra came in 6th place even after some failed navigation and a crash. She rode amazingly!
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| Stage one M40 results |
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| Max Ashton and I. That wind jacket came on AFTER I finished the stage. |
Arriving in Spain before the race
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| Leaving Sweden with Sandra Backman |
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| About to assmemble the bikes at the airport hotel in Malaga |
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| Bikes assemled at Holiday Expres in Malaga |
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| Bikes in our rental Fiat Doblo outside of Decathlon Malaga |
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| Nice and warm in Malaga |
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| Registration and picking up starting pack in Linares |
