It's time again! Beskidy Trophy 2019! The race!
Why do I love this race? The climbs of course! This is where I shine! About 2500 meters altitude gain per stage.
Stage 1: 62km 2530hm
Stage 2: 70km 2476hm
Stage 3: 72km 2588hm
Stage 4: 59km 2424hm
This will be my fifth Beskidy Trophy. I've ridden the race every year since 2015.
My placings (M40 category):
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| 2018 |
How's the form? I did a set of record 9x9min intervals last Sunday @ 332W. Also the Hotcup race I did in Denmark last night felt really good: I was killing it on the climbs and the straights.
What steps have I taken to maximize my form? Last week I had a seriously tough training week with a TSS of almost 600. I did a total of 5 HIT sessions including two 9x9min. This week all I'll do is two shorter races: Hotcup yesterday (1.5 hours) and XCup on Sunday (just over an hour). This should let my body rest up and lead to a peak in form just ahead of Beskidy which starts Thursday next week. I really love the quality of these 1-1.5 hour races which give a very nice training effect while not taking too long to recover from.
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| Strava's idea of my current form |
Weight with one week to go is at just below 71kg. Same as last two years. I've dropped about 3 kilos in the last month.
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| Just dropped below 71kg with one week to go |
I'm racing my 'old' 2017 Trek Top Fuel 9.9. Why? We'll... I'm going to do a separate blog post about this but I don't like the Rockshox SID SE fork that came with my new 2019 Trek Top Fuel 9.9. After much fiddling around and trying to set it up correctly (again, a separate blog post coming up about this) but not being able to make it as 'soft' as I want it I decided to sell it and order a Fox 32 SC Factory. I've just not had the new Fox delivered yet and it's unsure if it will get to me before the race starts.
A change that I'm making from previous years is that I'll be running 2.25" wide tires both front AND rear. First year ever. Schwalbe Racing Ralph 2.25" Speed Snakeskin to be specific. The first year I ran 2.1" both front and rear, last year I had 2.25" front and 2.1" in the rear. This year I want a nice and comfortable ride downhill and so I'm going with 2.25" in the rear as well. I'm giving up a little bit of performance in weight as the rear tire is about 50 grams heavier than a 2.1" would be. But I think it'll make me quicker all around.
The weather prognosis is poor... But that's just normal for Beskidy. You may remember that last year they had to cancel the last stage due to poor weather.
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| Current weather prognosis for Beskidy weather |
The guy who won last year in my cat, Szymon Zacharski, has signed up. So has second place Paweł Gaca. There are 258 racers (and 66 on the waiting list) all in all but I don't really recognize most of the names so I have no idea who's quick and who's not.
I'm getting 'old' for the M40 cat (or M4 as it's called at Beskidy Trophy). Next year I'll be in M50 everywhere else but surprisingly, at Beskidy Trophy, I have another year in M4.
List of nationalities:
Poland: 113 racers
Denmark: 30
Germany: 28
Czech Republic: 19
Latvia: 10
Sweden: 9
Russian Federation: 9
Lithuania: 9
Ukraine: 7
Belarus: 7
Belgium: 6
Slovakia: 3
Croatia: 3
(..and some other countries with just a couple of participants...)