Riot On Racing: O'Cup #5 Albion - The Report and other Shite

So the 5th O'Cup was held last weekend at Albion. Yes, Albion....again....just two weeks after soloing the 24 Hour held at Albion. A couple of pics from the 24 hour taken by ApexTed...

Anyways, this post is about the O'Cup....not the 24 hour...but as you know, I tend to get off topic easily...

So....Giant and I headed to Albion a few days before the O'Cup to pre-ride the course...and to see how much we had recovered from the 24 Hour.

One of the first things we noticed about the pre-ride was that the organizers (SuperflyRacing), had thrown in every possible hill, and there was a ton of climbing... (I guess there is a reason the site is called Albion Hills). This was likely to make up for the relative lack of technical obstacles at Albion (although Superfly did throw in a couple of temporary tech bits...).

What made it worse, is that on our pre-ride we took a wrong turn at Albuquerque (OK...not exactly at Albuquerque), and missed one of the more significant climbs (the Wall of Pain) followed quickly by a series of smaller but long climbs (the Sugar Rush, Sugar Shack trails...). This would come into play during the race...(yeah, that's foreshadowing...)...

So, on race day Giant and I head to Albion, do the regular warm-up, and get into the paddock for race start...

Surprisingly....I get first call-up...guess something to be said for consistency...

JP pulled up on my right....we have had close battles in previous O'Cups...

And we are off....again a blazing fast start. The starts are always so fast!! Probably a good thing I got called up, because I get passed by so many guys off the start. Then, up the first climb almost immediately...not super steep or technical, but just enough to get the heart rate jacked immediately. It's dusty dry, and I manage to catch and pass several who took me off the start, before we dove into the single track.

The first bit of single track was Albion Witch...possibly my most favorite trail at Albion. It's twisty and fast, with a couple of places to catch air on some rooty drops. As we came out of the Witch I passed MikeC who races for the Lapdogs.

We shot across Duffy's Lane, then into more twisty single track. Most of this race was steep fast double track downs followed by twisty single track gradual climbs, or long steep double track climbs. The fast descents didn't give time to recover from all the climbing. So it was a real lung busting, leg killer. I don't believe that my average heart rate has ever been as high as it was for this race!

Then we came upon the first of the real double track climbs....the grassy double hills. There was JP just ahead! I passed him on the climbs, and thought I had dropped him...but he passed me back on the descent. I said something like "What the heck!?" But I think JP hales from up around Sudbury, and I think French is his first language, so what I really meant was something more like "Mon Dieu! Qu'est ce que tu fait a moi, mon ami!??" (Lots of cultural learnings in this post, eh?)

And that is generally how the rest of the race went, I would generally pass JP on the climbs, and he would pass me on the descents. I passed him up High Roller, he passed me on descent; I passed him up the twisty rooty Hot August Nights climb...he passed me on the descent.

Here I am on his tail through the feedzone...(Thanks to Giant for the pic!)...

From the feedzone, the next big climb was the Green Monster....a looooong steep grassy double track climb. JP and I rode up it practically side by side...and made a couple of passes of other riders along the way. More twisty single track....more double track climbs (the grinding grass climb of the Summer Solstice Start loop)...then we turned and hit the section that Giant and I had missed on our pre-ride; and it started with....

The Wall of Pain. I looked up...WTF is this!!?? How and why did we miss this in the pre-ride?? A loooong, loooong, steep, dry, rooty climb. JP took the lead up the climb...as I fought to stay on his wheel, I looked up. What the heck? There was serious!! Usually he was too far ahead of me to see! JP passed serious...but the top of this stupid hill got even steeper...so I caught on to serious' wheel to crest the climb. My heart rate was about 8 million bps (maybe a slight exaggeration...maybe not...), my lungs were exploding trying to deliver the oxygen my muscles were demanding...

Through the pain I thought 'we might end up with a sprint finish' (although we still had a couple of kms to go). But serious recovered from the climb like a rocket!! He shot past JP...JP chased him. I chased JP...as we headed into gradual single track climbs (Sugar Shack and Sugar Rush)...but I was out of gas. They gradually pulled away. I fought to chase...up the grassy up and arounds....into the singletrack/double track into the start/finish area...but I couldn't do it. Dammit!! I either was not yet fully recovered from soloing the 24 hour...or I've gotten fat and lazy. Or it just wasn't my day.

I crossed the finish line at 1hour14minutes24seconds, 40 seconds behind serious, and about 20 seconds behind JP. Good enough for 9th place today. Not near as good as I was hoping to do; but at least it was top ten. Which leaves me 2nd overall in my category of O'Cup standings.

Race over...That was my day of O'Cup #5.

Others...

Giant and mtbmeister discuss strategy...or something...

JeffS' back...which is all I ever see when I ride with him...

CoachRob takes the hole shot off the start...and went on to win his category...again...

Jeremiah and Fig"Don't Kill Me On The Road!!"...(inside joke??) Along with one of those Apex racers smiling too much for the start of a race...

MarkR and Dave of the R&R race team...

JennR took second place in her cat! Congrats!! When she stays on her bike she kicks arse!!!

Where is John's pic?? He's too fast for the camera!

Ian was also too fast for the camera. He was fast enough that he jumped to expert category, from sport, for this race and did well!!

So what's next for me?? Well first maybe I have to drop some more weight to keep up to these guys (JP, serious, BobM)?? And keep up the training. Actually I will have to change it up some. I have 10 more races on my schedule for this season, and 8 of them are endurance races...all 5 hours or longer. So CoachRob will set up future workouts for me with this in mind.

The next race is on July 25th....the Summer Epic 8 Hour...will be at Hardwood Ski and Bike. I will be entering as a solo...just haven't decided if I will race the geared Stumpie, or the single speed Raijin. The Stumpie is faster for the shorter races, but the Raijin is far more comfortable for the longer ones. And I'm not sure why, but Giant suggested that I enter as Team Riot. The only problem with that is that the Metis Team Riot kit looks like this....and it's not that comfy on the bike...

I would like to say (and Lois would like it too!), that that is me modelling that kit, but sadly it's not. Lois says I am still her Superman anyways...or at the very least Captain Canada??