A challenging race today, partly because I did not realise that we would be taking on the Richmond climbs twice. The clue was in the name, had I paid attention. Yes, today’s race was two laps of the Cobbled Climbs route on the Richmond map.
For those unfamiliar with the route, this one avoids the flat parts of the Richmond forwards circuit, turning early to tackle the three climbs:
- Libby Hill
- 23rd Street
- Governor St. Climb
The third one isn’t a ‘named’ segment as such.
Libby Hill is the curly wurly cobbly bobbly effort.
23rd Street is straight up – a bit like the Travellator used to be on Gladiators (only with more bikes).
And Governor St. Climb is the one that finishes you off. That’s the slightly less steep, longer duration third effort to finish off the lap. The punisher.
It was only as we hit the bottom of Libby Hill today that I realised that… yes, there would be two laps of this to enjoy.
At that point I knew I needed to temper my efforts, giving up any chance of staying with the front runners beyond even the first ascent, were I to have any hope of reaching the finish line.
I was also fairly sure a good number of people would put down the juice, kill themselves, and then I’d slowly but surely claw back a few spots with my tortoise vs hare battle plan.
As I crested Libby Hill for the first time today, I was sitting around 40th. That became the number to hit when we would cross the line, a fair effort later.
The power ups today were Feather and Anvil.
The amount of people who were misusing their anvils was crazy. If you want to make life hard for yourself, drop an anvil power up on 23rd Street KOM, and go up weighing weigh more… see what I did there? Ho ho.
I only got two Anvils. One at the end of Lap 1, which I used in the descent back towards the first climb, giving myself enough wiggle room to slow down a tad and take a decent breather.
And the second one I got, I figured I’d use a little more tactically. I think I got this passing the top of Libby Hill KOM the second time. I didn’t use it immediately, but instead waited to cross the 23rd Street KOM, then used it on the descent into final climb of the day. That did help get back in contention, but once it wore off I was very quickly passed once more.
At least, I think that’s how it happened. It’s a bit hard to remember now, 7 hours later. I wish I could do the write ups sooner, but work gets in the way.
The one good part of this – despite the mid table finish – was that my performance on the final climb of Governor Street was strong enough to not only pass and hold off the rider ahead, but also put a second or two into them. I was pleased with that.
As ever, I’m never going to win, but this was a fun one and a truly solid effort.
A much easier ride in store tomorrow – maybe even a lunch time outdoors ride – before maybe doing another race (Crit City) on Thursday.
