15 riders lined for this edition of the Tuesday Night World’s training race. After the neutral lap, the pack was calm until the first hill. There, the pack did the usual acceleration on the hill with peak powers on the Col d’Zwift in the 7+w/kg range. The pack regrouped at the top of the hill and the process was repeated on the second climb.
On the third lap, S. Lane turned the pain dial to “ouch” on the Col, establishing a small gap that was quickly bridged by F. Garcia, B. Pucsek, R. Ray, and D. Pugh. They were able to take a 10s lead on the second half of the pack into the next lap, but they did not try to hold it and the pack regrouped again.
With some foreshadowing, Ray decided that the pace was too slow and put in a blistering effort on the downhill that established a gap on lap 4. B. Pucsek and S. Lane decided to bridge up a lap later. As the pack came back to within 6s of the lead group through the town on lap 6, Ray put in another attack as Lane and Pucsek returned to the pack. Pucsek then decided to bridge back up to the leader on the climb.
One lap later, Pucsek struck out solo and Ray decided to come back to the chase group. This group now consisted of R. Ray, F. Garcia, J. Schoenick, J. Lemon, D. Pugh, S. Cowart and S. Lane. They chased for a lap before Lane decided to make an attack on the climb and quickly established a substantial gap.
Over the next two laps, Lane managed to get within 20 seconds of Pucsek, but could not close that last gap. The time in no-mans-land started taking a toll and he decided that the chase might be a more comfortable place to ride and slowly drifted back to the group over the next couple of laps. Thus a six rider chase group started the final lap: Ray, Garcia, Schoenick, Cowart, Pugh and Lane.
Pucseck did a fine Fabian Cancellara impression by continuing on to take the win solo by almost a minute. In the fight for second place, Ray started pushing the pace up the climb. Schoenick, Lane and Pugh managed to follow him. Ray again attacked on the downhill by the windmill and this time only Schoenick managed to follow. Schoenick was seemingly in a prime spot to take second place as Ray led out the sprint, but with an impressive show of strength, Ray managed to hold off Schoenick to the line.
Results:
- B. Pucsek 1:29:03
- R. Ray 0:00:42
- J. Schoenick s.t.
- S. Lane 0:00:57
- D. Pugh 0:01:02
- F. Garcia 0:01:40
- S. Cowart 0:02:09
- J. Lemon 0:02:51
- C. Wiedmann 0:06:21
DNF J. Shuttleworth
DNF M. Elsdon
DNF M. Dunn
DNF G. Sollenberger
DNF C. Smith
DNF D. Corredor
Note: Time gaps for entertainment purposes only. Corrections to placings and race narrative are welcome. Sorry the narrative isn’t that tight this week - a lot happened this week and I didn’t have enough time for better editing.
Event Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/826961444019581/
Strava fly-by: http://labs.strava.com/flyby/viewer/#290120750,l4BKEfSiShGUpkoRDbhKEX/HShHJx0oRG9RKEbzUShF/4UoRiOhKEWfrShFaYUsR