Waking up in our Polish castle to the sound of rain was not pleasant. Sleeping in to the sound of rain is delightful, but knowing you need to race in such conditions is different. For the amateur masses like myself and team mate Ant White (Cannondale/Mt Zoom), it is a case of ‘management’. There were plenty of reminders about this today.
The start in Kraliky was uneventful enough. Ant and I were lucky enough to be up in the front start box, so it was a case of ‘choose your flatlander’ for the first couple of kilometres which were on the road. With plenty of strong Dutch and Belgians here, that’s not a problem. After them, you have a world of choice of powerful Czech and Polish riders.
As we started to hit some pinch climbs into fields, affairs became a little strung out. We could see the teams we wanted to keep an eye on, and despite being within 100m of us, that’s a lot of grunt on uphill wet fields, in deep grass. With four days of racing ahead, it’s a case of managing your efforts. We had been told there were trees down on course, after the evenings rain and storms. This bottlenecked the bunches and they strung out again from there. Soon enough we hit a long road climb, and were back racing in the rain.
Our descent off the top provided another lesson, or reminder. Manage your line. There are few straight forward forest road descents. Most of them have one or more deep ruts that you just don’t want to get stuck in. Sometimes the centre is elevated, and covered in long grass. This can obscure obstacles, but is usually the better choice. We lost a position to a Polish team who absolutely bombed past us. Respect.
The next climb was on heavily broken up road – bordering on offroad due to the surface. Manage your workload. We had two solo riders with us, and I enthused to Ant that by no means are we more responsible than them to pull turns up the climb. He’s a keen been, but it pays to let others who are profiting from your work put some effort in themselves. If they can’t or won’t, then you need to manage your aggression and get rid of them. But that didn’t come up today.
There was a lot of mud and water on course, and by about this point we were hitting it. If there wasn’t water, you had what it left behind – lots of erosion and sharp rocks, or wet roots. One descent (Off Stradniak I believe) was epic. We rode this in the ‘dry’ in 2009 and it was stunning. Today was a lesson in equipment management, in terms of tyres, wheels and brakes. And topping up with the best bike lube at the tech zone at the bottom – motor oil.
With hard climbs and technical descents, there was more shuffling around today than yesterday. Or perhaps Ant and I were tired? Proficient descenders could make up a lot of ground on the descents, but the climbs would then see the roles reversed if they weren’t so fit. Mostly though, the people at the front are pretty strong. The lines I saw ridden today by some riders was awe-inspiring.
The last climb took us through a ski area, then a long hike a bike up the final ski slope. Maybe the front guys (like race winner Bart Brentjens) were able to ride it. I’m not sure. But it was steep and loose, and no one in our presence stayed on.
The finish town of Stronie Slaskie came around a little sooner than expected. There had been a few course changes, and a 4th feedzone added, so the race would be 72km “or more”th 2740m of climbing. We were happy to see it though, and jammed some ham and salad rolls in and hit the jet wash and showers. With time up our sleeves, I also ducked in for a massage. 10 Euro for just under an hour, being massaged by an attractive Czech girl? Good value.
We were 8th today. We’ll see how that plays out on GC, but I’m not too surprised. We had a lucky day yesterday, and perhaps were a bit flat today. There’s lots more to go though, and with rain falling and legs hurting, there is plenty to manage too.
And of course there was a track to today. With the iPhone speaker blasting at the hotel this morning, it was Europe’s ‘The Final Countdown’ that got us through the day.
Full results can be found here.