Stage 4, the finale of Costa Blanca Bike Race 2016, a 7km timetrial. The route looked simple enough on paper but there was a great big dirty 300 meter ascent in the last 2km’s. There was talk of there being sections of 30 or 40 percent gradient, not possible we thought! On arriving to the venue we could see the only way up the hill, okay that looks steep!
In the elite UCI leaders jerseys going into the final stage was Jan Karnitzl and Maous Ulman, plus Yana Belomoina and Margot Moschetti. All the ladies needed to do was complete the stage safely, in the men’s however the general classification time gaps were close, just 12 seconds separating first and second places!
Pairs set off at 30 second intervals. Tom and I weren’t off until 12.13. The morning was spent nervously watching the clock. Read a chapter of book, check the time, only 10 minutes gone since the last clock check…. Eventually it was time to ride to the venue and warm up. Sitting in 16th place overall and the TT being run in reverse order there was a good crowd formed by the time we went off both at the start and also on the steep ascent to the hilltop. We had a comfortable gap over 17th place on the GC but there was just a 4 second gap to catch the team ahead of us in 15th.
Flamantes Vencedores Costa Blanca Bike Race 2016: Tiago Ferreira y David Rosa!Segundo puesto para Jan Skarnitzl y Matous UlmanTercer puesto para Hans Becking y Rudi van HoutsLes damos la enhorabuena con el vídeo de su llegada hoy!#CBBR2016
Posted by Costa Blanca Bike Race on Sunday, 31 January 2016
3,2,1, go (said in Spanish). We were off heading into the first 5km twisty suburban track which I led us around, the flat punchy circuit suiting me much better than the lightweight Tom. As the climb began we had almost caught the 2 teams who’d started in front of us. Tom cruised up and slotted in front for the climb, “steady Tom” I muttered with the little breath I could manage. 15 kilograms weight difference makes a big difference on a 30% gradient 2km climb. I suffered like a dog, then suffered some more. Tom cruised. I was suffering but we still caught and overtook 3 teams. It’s hard to explain how steep this was and the final 500 meters was like a wall. Successfully over the line we first gasped for air, I had a lie down, and then we started to consider our time, had we done enough to make up the 4 seconds? Oh yes, 29 seconds gap to our advantage, high fives! We were 13th on the stage and moved up to 15th overall. Once we’d recovered we could also take in the amazing view of Benidorm.
Tiago Ferreira and David Rosa of the Liberty Seguros team completely smashed the competition taking the stage by almost a minute over second place and with that they won the leaders jersey and the overall title. The previous leaders Jan Karnitzl and Maous Ulman were third today and second overall. Carlos Coloma and David Valero Serrano finished second today. Third overall was the CST Superior Brentjens pair of Rudi Van Houts and Hans Becking.
In the ladies Yana Belomoina and Margot Moschetti took their fourth consecutive win taking the overall title. Second place today and third overall was Kristien Achten and Alice Pirard. Third today and second overall was Nathalie Schneitter and Viviane Favery.
For all the tech people out there my Rotor INpower recorded a normalized power of 420 watts for the 23 minute effort today. All my race files can be found on Strava https://www.strava.com/athletes/3307053. As well as the wider deeper carbon rims MarathonMTB.com has already spotted the Trek Factory Team riders using, we had a good chance to check out the new Fox forks Kohei and Sergio are using whilst we raced with them on stage 3. They have all new black stanctions, aka Rockshox. The lowers and crown looked like they’ve gone on a dramatic diet. The bottom of the fork below the damper tapers to 2/3’s the width of the rest of the lower, presumably to save more weight.
Costa Blanca Bike Race turned out to be a fantastic way to start the season. There were some eyebrows raised after the issues on stage 1 but this was soon forgotten with the many kilometres of fantastic trails and excellent organisation on the following days. Riders will leave stronger, better technically trained, with a suntan, some great memories and looking to sign up for the 2017 edition!