茨城シクロクロス 取手ステージ (Ibaraki CX Toride Stage) ME4-B 2024/02/18 (commentary)
so we had a beautiful day in iaki for
this one uh it’s around 10° celsi
beautiful Skies
Sunny starting the front row again today
uh but this time we were sharing with
the under 17 group um they were scored
separately from us but I think there
were about four Riders um who who got
the the middle of the starting
line the under 17 guys just jumped off
the line there they’re in single digits
1 2 3 4 um and then the me4 Riders were
starting with number 21 so the next two
guys are
me4
there a couple of technical sections
early on that I thought might cause a
bottleneck so I didn’t want to fall too
far behind off the
start just after this Ridge here there’s
one it’s a little tight little kind of
steeve turn here um wasn’t difficult
just uh a little slow then up to the
right here uh you see you see the the
under 17 guy fell um but this one was
okay to ride in the pre-ride when no one
was around around um but in the middle
of a race it it got tricky um usually
the best choice was just to get off and
and
run with such a tight turn there there’s
always a likely
bottleneck
so overall this was a really fast course
uh much faster than most courses I’ve
ridden this
year there were a lot of sections like
this here with a actor warning track um
that got very fast then a lot of the
turns weren’t really that technical or
tight so you could really maintain a lot
of speed through
them with the faster speeds that made it
harder to find good places to pass other
than the uh The Wider straightaways so
in place like this you see number 37 on
the right take a little more aggressive
line there and cut off the guy in front
of me um I think people learned and and
didn’t do that as much in later laps um
but it was just sort of a feature of
this fast
course had a little bit of a friendly
rivalry this season with number 21 in
front of
me I think we’ve been in almost all of
the same races this season um in the
last few weeks we’ve been trading the
the top spot in the
rankings so we’ve both done fairly well
but not well enough to uh to take a top
three spot and move up to the next
category uh so I think we were both
looking maybe to do that
[Music]
today
so it’s still just a couple minutes in
um but aside from those under 17 guys
who just jumped off the front there
wasn’t really anyone in the the M4
category that was uh it was you know any
farther
ahead so I thought there’s a chance that
this group of um know six riders or so
and maybe there were a couple of people
behind me um but that we might stick
together for a while um so I figured I’d
just sort of hang in here and see how
the race
develops
this turn here opened up into a f
straightway right away you can tell the
people were sort of jumping for
position things started to break up here
a little bit um a couple of people
trying to to jump out ahead a couple of
other people sort of bouncing around
deciding what to
do I guess in the end not much changed
for
me still
six couple of guys off the front a
little bit but not too
far so this guy is wearing number
62 that means he must have started right
in the back and then made up 30 spots or
so in the first four minutes uh he’s
flying this guy number two in the front
was under 17 I think a couple of other
under 17s must have um gotten a big lead
out in
front I think we lost sight of them
pretty
[Applause]
early can’t believe I haveo did that
one some of these turns were still
actually a little bit
slippery I actually still had the uh wet
terrain tire on in the
front because during the 7:00 a.m.
pre-ride there was still a lot of dew on
the ground so the grass and in the dirt
were all
wet it was mostly dried up by the 9:00
start but um I guess some of the turns
were still a little
slippery
little bit of a risk here missing before
this
turn and I paid for it I guess those wet
terrain tires didn’t help me
there my rear camera actually snapped
off on that crash so I had to toss it
off to the side and then I never found
it again after the end of the race so I
don’t even have the footage of the up
until the
crash so anyway that’s a pretty good way
to lose a few spots I’m down to 10th
place now and my heart rate up to
17776 I didn’t hurt myself with anything
on the crash but I somehow just
uh found it hard to to get back up and
um stick with the group ahead of
me
like this guy in front of me was going
to try to ride up this uh this incline
so I thought I’d do the
same but just couldn’t make it up um
again slowed myself down by taking a
risk I think sometimes it’s easy to let
your ego get in the way and think well I
know I can ride it so I should um but
actually it’s easier to just hop off the
bike and and run for 10 seconds and then
hop back gone um easier and faster
certainly less
risky
looks like my heart rate was a little
more under control here around
170 not great but at least
sustainable
y
um
so I managed to catch up to 29
here I wanted to try to find a place to
pass but this section here was just too
um too windy to really have any
chance decided probably just have to
wait until we got to that leave straight
away
so coming up here was looking back a bit
didn’t look like he was that
enthusiastic about um going too fast
here little elbow flick so I was moving
ah head anyway and then he looks like he
made an effort to to stick behind
me and this under 17 guy shot out of
nowhere like he was a little too fast
for both of
us
I didn’t remember being in front of him
so at the time I thought maybe he lapped
us at this point uh but it seemed really
early for that and and looking back at
the at the lap data um I’m not sure that
was the case number two here another
under 17 has
been um relatively close to me the whole
race uh so I figured that they they were
together and I just lost track
[Music]
for
[Music]
coming up here is where I fell in the
first lap so I was being a bit more
cautious um and took a different
approach here
but I actually don’t think it was any
less risky um there was still a little
slippery area there and it was just
slower so I don’t think there was that
that much benefit to
it
it’s a little disheartening to catch up
to a couple of riders here and realize
that they were both in a different
category in the the under 17
group I figured I was probably somewhere
around 10th place at this point and a
couple more spots there would have um
put me that much closer to the top five
um I notice number four they unclick and
get ready to Dismount and run around the
corner there so I decided to just do the
[Music]
same even if the guy in yellow wasn’t
also there probably was the safer choice
to just hop off and run
my heart rate was definitely a bit
higher this time around but these two
under 17 guys were going in pretty good
pace so I thought if I stuck with them I
might be able to catch up to the next
group there’s a turn coming up here
where I almost slipped out a couple of
times it was fast and then you had to
turn to the right just as it’s sloping
down downward so it was actually hard to
maintain
traction turn like this one coming up
here looks more difficult cuz it’s
steeper and a tighter turn but because
you’re going so slowly it’s not really
that hard to
navigate section was a little bit of a
challenge to pass um it was straight and
fast and and pretty narrow so I tried to
just take one opportunity when I could
couldn’t get around this uh this other
guy this was frustrating here lost a
couple more seconds just on that loose
dirt right right
right
sounds like you really wanted to pass me
there that was definitely a a difficult
stretch to pass in
though the turns weren’t very tight but
there was really one ideal line that
everyone wanted to take it was fastest
through the the sort of winding
turns and I wasn’t about to give that up
just so he could easily slip by me into
10th Place figured I’d make him work for
it a
bit
I was definitely feeling the pressure a
bit here uh I knew I was somewhere
around 10th place you could see
obviously the one guy right in front of
me in my category and then there were
the two under 17 guys a little ahead of
him and I could just see a couple more
in the the M4 category ahead of them and
then one more well he’s under
17 so he didn’t affect my place but my
heart rate was up at
175 um pushing any harder was really
going to set him back the other hand I
figured if I let up at all my chances of
getting staying in the top 10 or getting
up to the top five or so would just slip
away so still up over 300 350 Watts here
uh which is pretty hard effort close to
500 there to stay on this guy’s
wheel even though it’s short it’s nice
to get a little bit of a
draft
Bing
[Music]
Binger
and then coming up here is where I fell
on that first lap I didn’t really have
trouble with it though in the pre-ride
or um other times during the race so
just decided to go back to this wider
approach I thought it was probably a
little faster than that tighter approach
that I took the last
[Music]
lap
I liked how after the barriers there
there was this long straightway we went
to the Finish
Line narrowed a bit here and then
there’s this little
chicane the curve back to the main
straight away which widens up a bit
before the Finish
Line as I’ve said before I I definitely
like having the option to Sprint at the
end depending on how the race
unfolds
heart rate’s almost up to 180 here as I
was definitely feeling
it last lap though so not much chance
for
arrest again I didn’t know exactly what
position I was in but I knew that I had
a bit of work to do to um get into the
probably the top
10 these Bank turns coming up here were
fun they were fast um a little scary
though and this one wasn’t bad it was
kind of a gentle curve curve coming out
of it but this next
one uh coming up here quick turn to the
right and then right away quick tight
turn to the left so if he came in with
too much speed uh it was definitely
possible to slip out on that left hand
turn I bet the higher category Riders
are a bit more confident taking those
coiners with
speed but it was definitely a bit
nerve-wracking for me as a beginner
see I know I almost slipped out on this
one one of these
Labs it may have been
there um again just not so much traction
with the tight or gradual turn off to
the right while it’s still
[Music]
sloping
looks like I still had decent power and
speed through here despite the high
heart rate just not enough to actually
catch up to
anyone can see in the lap tracker off to
the right my first lap was the fastest
and then uh progressively slower but I
think the fourth lap actually ended up
being my fastest by um by a decent
margin so I think just the whole
field of riders was uh was picking up
speed towards the
end
there’s still a couple of people here
within range but um at this
point with only two minutes left this is
sort of the last straightway before that
um that final Sprint my heart rate where
it was it just wasn’t looking that
promising again my speed was pretty good
through here over 31 km hour I had
plenty of for a bit of power uh I guess
my only hope was that the people ahead
of me were fading at this point and that
maybe I could up at least a couple
spots
is
so we’re coming back up to that turn
where I fell where the
barriers um but again no issue here uh
felt smooth
[Music]
enough handle the barrier fine but
everyone else had a pretty smooth
remount so I didn’t Pi up any ground
there then it looked like everyone had a
bit more left in the tank than I was
really hoping for uh especially this guy
who just came out of nowhere to pass me
and then I just didn’t have enough left
um I couldn’t quite crack 1,000 Watts
there in the final Sprint
and heart rate over
180 uh so I was just
spent so 13th Place overall uh not so
much different from last time I think it
was maybe 10th or 11th I thought I had a
better chance today it was a a flat fast
course without uh much of any
climbs but yeah I just haven’t been able
to really put everything together this
season some combination of Fitness bike
handling um
whatever uh but I I guess I’ve learned a
lot um I’ve done reasonably well uh just
have been able to crack the top five or
so not sure if I’ll make it to another
one this season or not um but anyway
it’s been a fun season and uh thanks
everyone for the fun
ride