Summary
I finished Beskidy Trophy 2022 in third place. Less than one minute down on second place
That's the quick summary. This is my third overall third place finish in Beskidy. And, believe it or not, it's the second time that I've been less than one minute from second place.
Am I happy with my performance though? Well, yeah, I am. Piotr Cybart, who beat me and took second place, also came in second last year. However last year he was some 40 minutes ahead of me after 4 stages. This year: 1 minute.
Where did I lose the race? Well, I lost 4 minutes on him in the prologue stage and I'm pretty sure that I lost all that time (or more) in the downhill through the bike park red trail. I'm still not 100% comfortable with going downhill at breakneck speeds. Even though the dropper post and stable geometry of my BMC Fourstroke really have made me a lot quicker. I actually overtake people in downhill sections these days from time to time, but the really quick guys are lightyears ahead of me.
Equipment
The bike that I used for this race was my BMC Fourstroke 01 Two with Maxxis Aspen 2.2" tires. I really like these tires because they're nice and grippy and I have never ever had a puncture.
The Fourstroke's built in dropper post does so much for me in the kinds of downhill runs that this race has that I can't believe I actually used to do these races with a dropper. Also the nice enduro-like geometry of the Fourstroke and the stability that it brings is lovely.
34T chainring up front and 10-50 in the rear. In all honesty I could perhaps benefit from using a 32T up front for a race like Beskidy. But I'm lazy so I use the same chainring here as I do in all the Swedish races.
Brake disks and (no) overheating
If you've read my blog at any time during the last few years you may remember that I've had problems with overheating brakes during these mountainous races. A lot of people have told me that I brake the wrong way and I've tried different tactics but in really long downhills, typically when it's more than 15 minutes of constant braking, my rear brake would always overheat and the lever would go all the way in.
Now all of these years I have been using superlight Ashima brake rotors. Even though after a lot of reading different bike forums and never finding anyone who says that light brake rotors would make brake overheat I decided that for this year's Beskidy I would try different brake rotors. I purchased a set of quite expensive Trickstuff rotors and had NO OVERHEATING PROBLEMS.
Race Prep
The process leading up to my Beskidy Trophy this year was a bit different compared to previous years. Instead of starting my vacation with racing Beskidy I went south to Croatia three weeks ahead of Beskidy to start my vacation and I'm now finishing it here at Beskidy. Why so? Well, there's a race in the Swedish Marathon Cup the weekend after Beskidy that I don't want to miss.
Does it all matter then? Well, just in one way really; My weight. I'm good at keeping it in check at home while I'm working. However abroad, on vacation, I like to indulge in the local cuisine and cakes. This is something that I've been doing really seriously in Croatia. I've tried to balance it all out with lots of 100+km rides and also two races in Croatia. I weighed 71kg just before embarking on my vacation. How much do I weigh now, the day before Beskidy starts? I have no idea. I thought about bringing some scales to weigh myself but decided against it because I didn't want to ruin my vacation. But I think at most I've gained one or two kilos.
I drove up from Croatia to Poland two days before race start at arrived late in the evening. I test rode the prologue stage the day before race start. 75% of it was the same as last year, however they had extended the stage and routed the second part of the downhill through a bike park's red trail. I gotta tell you; It was quite technically difficult with lots of obstacles, jumps and drops. Harder than anything I've seen in any of the years that I've ridden Beskidy.
Prologue Stage - Fourth place
The prologue stage went as expected: I was strong uphill; At the top of the mountain, at the end of the long climb, I had averaged 327W. That's as hard as I can go. The downhill... well... It was tricky. I had to get off the bike in a few places where it was just too dangerous and run/stumble downhill. I still managed to pass some 10-15 riders downhill and I only got passed by four.
The good news is that the brakes held! I have had problems with overheating brakes almost every year here but this year I changed to brake rotors from Ashima's super light ones to more sturdy ones. And they worked perfectly.
The dropper post got used all the way down as well and probably saved me some time.
I finished fourth in my category. Szymon won, by a big margin, as he has every year I've raced in the same category as he has. I'm just three minutes down on second place and two from third. Peanuts now that the real race starts and the stages start to get long and hard. I am worried about the dude in second place, Piotr Cybart. He beat me here last year, in all stages, and finished second while I came in third.
Stage 2 - Second place
Three climbs and three descents on this second stage. 52 kilometers and 2000 meters of climbing. Super weather with sunshine and dry trails!
Went hard up the first climb averaging about 320W. Felt good. First descent went well and I overtook som riders. Had some slight rear brake overheating during the descent but nothing that affected my riding. No overheating during the other two descents of this stage. This first one was really long though.
I skipped the first water station as my bottle was still almost full. The funny thing was that just a few minutes into the second climb a Norwegian guy rolled up next to me and asked if he could have a sip from my bottle and showed that his was empty. I was really surprised as we had just passed a water station but I gave him a drink. We kept company up the whole climb and at the top he got his bottle filled by some spectators. At the finish line I talked to him and asked him why he hadn't filled the bottle at the water depo and he said that he had had two bottles, the other one being full, and had lost that during the first downhill.
Second climb felt harder but still went okay. The following descent was again through some bikepark trails but much easier than yesterday.
My bottle was completely empty when I arrived at the second water station so filled it up here.
Third climb felt very sloooow and legs were tired. But I held my position. Again the descent went well.
Finished stage in second place and I take over second place overall as well. Just 2 minutes ahead of Piotr though.
After talking to some riders after the race it seemed that some had navigation issues and took some wrong turns. Also the sun and the heat was a big issue for a lot of riders. I guess my three weeks in Croatia before the race really were useful in preparing me for the heat here. I didn't even think about it being very hot during the stage.
Stage 3 - Third place
Lengthwise today's stage was similar to yesterday's and so was the altitude gain. We started of with quite a long ride uphill through town on asphalt so about half the first climb was purely asphalt. I suspected that I was going to be tired today and this was also the case. I did manage some 300W up the first climb but didn't get even close to that on the second or third.
There were some rather muddy and wet descents today which made them a big crazy and dangerous. It wasn't that it had been raining, it was just a different part of the mountains compared to the previous days. I felt quite happy with my descending anyway.
My Norwegian friend from yesterday had some mechanical problems. I passed him going up the second climb and he had his rear derailleur off and was doing something with it. He had to abort the stage in the end.
About halfway down the last descent I saw young competitor sitting in the grass with his arm bent and it looked like the typical collar bone breakage. It's good to get a reminder of what can happen if you mess up in this kind of terrain.
I crossed the finish line 4 minutes down on Piotr, who was in third place before today's stage, so we now swap places. However the difference between us in the aggregate is only 2 minutes. So that's my situation for tomorrow: I'm in third place, two minutes down on second. The fourth placed guy is 15 minutes behind me. Tomorrow is going to be... stressful.
Well, as you can see from the final standings I didn't make it :( I did in fact finish the stage before Piotr, who was ahead of me in second place, but I only gained a minute on him on the stage. In the total standings he ended up less than a minute ahead of me. Really disappointing.
So what happened during the stage? Well, as you can see by the route profile we had four mountains to get over. I went hard up the first climb which was partly asphalt and partly gravel road. I knew I was doing well because all the way up the climb I could se Szymon (the leader in my cat) just ahead of me and I could also see my pal Piotr Niewieczerzal, who was in second place in M4, not far in front. The other Piotr, Piotr Cibart, who was in second place ahead of me I didn't see through the climb but I was fairly sure he was behind me.
Just at the beginning of the second climb Cibart caught up with me. We kept the same pace for a while but when it got really steep (just steep enough that I could pedal on my 34T front chainring) I left him behind.
This was actually the last time I saw Cibart during the stage. For the last 2.5 hours of the stage I was mostly going solo... going all-in and more. I was in the "red".
The were some seriously tricky downhills in this stage. Again the kinds with lots of lose large stones. It's really scary going down these at 40+km/h with stones ever so often moving under your wheels and sending you in a new direction. I felt I went as quickly as I could and even took some risks... But every so often a young guy would just thunder past me and then I'd realize how fast one car really do these downhills.
I crossed the finish line... And I had no idea if I had beat Cibart. I picked up my phone and checked the live results after about 5 minutes and I could see that he had crossed the finish line just a minute behind me. So, it wasn't enough. :(
I talked to Cibart at the price ceremony afterwards and he said that he thought I was faaar ahead of him. Not so unfortunately.
