June 04, 2007
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Race previews
Comments (3)
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This weekend's races: June 9-10
I'm sorry to be missing this Saturday's Spring Prairie Road Race, Wisconsin's state road race championship.
It's a fun, challenging course. The flier promises "hellacious climbs," but it's really only one. Most of the 6.5 rectangle course consists of big-ring rollers, but a short, steep climb leading into the start/finish area will break more than a few legs.
4/5 men will do six laps, and each time up this hill will be an opportunity for separation. The final trip will be as close to a mountain-top finish as we get around here. The climb is short enough so that climbers won't have an exclusive advantage, but it's steep enough that the sprinters will have to adjust their timing. The prudent racer will pre-ride the approach to the hill so it doesn't catch him by surprise during the race, and will use the first few laps to fine-tune his gear selection and timing for the endgame.
Registration is available online.
Sunday's course is new: a flat rectangle in downtown Wheaton.
Saturday
Spring Prairie Road Race
USCF road race
Spring Prairie, Wis.
Distance from Chicago: 2 hours
Sunday
Wheaton Criterium
USCF criterium
Wheaton, Ill.
Distance from Chicago: .5 hours
Comments
"Heimer...assisted by a crash." Nice bit of fiction. They would NEVER have caught him. The only reason he's still a Cat 4 is because he doesn't have a lot of race experience. He could easily be bridging across to breaks in 1-2 races. His motor is that strong. Look out Boulder, he's on his way.
Posted by: Don Lowe at June 6, 2007 04:13 PM
(Wrong post for this discussion, but oh well.)
They would NEVER have caught him.
Maybe, maybe not. I'm just saying that fending off a chase group of 20 is different than a chase group of 40. Either way, the chase would have had to have been better organized than it was.
I don't mean my observation as a slight to Jordan at all, or to suggest the crash is the only reason he was successful. He's obviously the cream of the 4's crop. But I saw him try the same thing at Monsters, albeit a much less technical course and thus less kind to the solo break, and it worked out a little differently.
I'm sorry we're going to be missing him. Will he be returning? He seemed like a nice kid when I talked to him afterward, and I would have looked forward to racing against him in the 3's. We need more riders with the panache to try such moves.
Posted by: Luke at June 6, 2007 04:26 PM
You're right about Monsters. But a flat course is not going to define who's the strongest rider. I told Jordan the week before that the Winfield Twilight course was tailor made for him. I didn't even need a call afterward to know what happened. To me it was a foregone conclusion. Unless the field could chase him at 26+ mph (sorry, a Cat 4 field isn't going move at that pace on that course) it didn't matter how many were chasing him.
Posted by: Don Lowe at June 8, 2007 12:43 PM
