Asheville Omnium Weekend

This past weekend I did a 3 race omnium in Asheville, NC. I spent the weekend at my step-sister and her husband's house, and had an enjoyable time playing bocce ball, watching le Tour, cooking out, and drinking some beer.

Friday 20K TT - I put in the best effort I had in me and it got me across the line in 27:07 which was 11th place in 35+. It was a consistent effort, 318 watts on the way out and 316 watts on the way back. A few watts get lost turning around, so the overall average was 313 watts. I haven't done any training on the TT bike at all and that showed some, since I could probaby hold 20-30 watts more on my road bike.

Saturday 40 mile RR - This was the big day, a point to point road race with 6100 ft of climbing and a mountain top finish. I was really excited about this race. The rider who would end up winning got away very early and unfortunately the field cut him way to much slack. By the time we lit it up on the first big climb it was too late. We were too far behind to bring him back. I rode with the chase group which swelled to about 13 or 14 by the time we hit the final 2 mile climb to the finish. I was able to go with every acceleration until I was in a group of 2 at about 500 meters to go. I tried to attack, but Charlie Brown had no trouble covering. At 200 meters to go, I went again, but Charlie stayed with me. We rode side by side for a few meters, before I cracked and watched him pull away. I cruised in for 3rd.

The power numbers were pretty good for the RR. I averaged 362 watts for almost 12 minutes on the final climb, with the last 5 minutes at 389 watts. The "sprint" for me was 30 sec at 567 watts.

Sunday 55 minute Crit - This crit course was advertised as a 1.1 mile rectangle that was flat. Ha! It had a nice little hill on it that kicked up at turn 2. Then there was some fast descending and a super fast entry into turn 4. I rode the first two laps kind of weakly, then took off and followed an attack. I stayed up near the front while things got hard, and ultimately made it to the winning 5 man break, which included Charlie Brown, Dave LeDuc, Jeff McGrain, and Scott Minor. All I could really do was hold on and wait for the sprint. It was just too fast to think of ever escaping. My NP for the entire race was 334 watts and the speed was about 27 mph. I had some good wattage in the sprint, but didn't do a good job tactically, and ended up 3rd. I think I could've gotten 2nd if I had stayed on the same line as LeDuc through the last turn, instead of just jumping out into the wind. The sprint was 26 seconds at 880 watts with a max of 1102 and a max speed of 38.5.

I ended up 3rd in the omnium, which was great. I'm happy with the weekend. The rest of the PV team rocked. LL got 3rd in the 35+ TT. Gordon was 2nd in the cat 4 TT. Nick got 3rd in the cat 3 RR. Marc won the cat 3 crit on Sunday and will soon be catting up.