2024 Early Birds #1, Men’s 1-2-3

“Race”: Early Bird Crit 1, Men’s 1-2-3

Date: 1/7/2024

AVRT racers: Andrea Cloarec

Top Result: Andrea, 1st

Course: The course is a 1km square loop and is closed to traffic. Good pavement. Botts’ Dots down the middle. Four right turns.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10515399603

Nutrition: Bottles with electrolytes and Maple syrup in (around 60-80g per bottle)

Event recap: Warning - Early birds are a TRAINING Race. Winning or beating someone doesn’t mean anything. Everyone comes here with different objective…
My objective was to win =)

Mostly solo riders and one team with 7 guys, Work Health Solution (WHS). After the first lap I quickly felt it could be a messy race, breakaway could go at any moment, separation in the peloton could happen very fast. So I directly tried to stay close to the front, ready to go if a break looks interesting.

15 min: Eugene (Pen Velo) goes, follow by two WHS guys, and a Voler factory guy, Colin. Looking like a good composition, two other guys of WHS are at the head of the peloton, which is a very good position for me to bridge, as the WHS guys in the peloton should not chase me, so I can create a gap quickly with the main pack to bridge alone.
I quickly bridge, then do a big pull directly in the breakaway group. So they know I want to go, and am ready to work. Organization is pretty good, and I keep pushing hard when it’s my turn. From there, breakaway was gone, we would be 5 to go for the win.
To be noted: after 10minutes one guy managed to bridge us. I wondered how he did… He got dropped 2 laps after, as he certainly had to do a -very- big effort to bridge.

For 20minutes in the break my objectives was to save energy when I could, work on my crit technique. Taking effective pull, cornering, going back into the draft… And trying to fatigue the other guys, doing some attacks, just to make the others work harder from time to time.

minute 40: We lapped the field. From there it’s even more a mess, other WHS guys start working for their teammates (which is allowed). I decide to just be patient.

5 lap to go: One WHS goes for it alone. Perfect for me. I decide to let him 5-10 seconds ahead of us. Telling Eugene to work with me to keep him in distance. Knowing the Voler guy Colin is hiding behind, letting us do the work, but he’ll come at some point… For now, this WHS guy is just burning his match.

1 lap to go: Colin finally appears when we got into close reach to the WHS guy at the front. He launched a big attack. As I was ready for him to come, I directly jump in his wheel. We quickly create a gap with the field, catch the WHS guy, directly pass him.
From there Colin is blocked. I’m behind him, but he cannot slow down or the field will come back. I wait until the last turn. He’s ahead, I start my sprint with 150m to go, Colin is tired from the last lap, so I can take the win.

Overall it was a very nice training, I think I managed my effort very well in the break, still pushing enough to make this break successful.
For the numbers of this 58min crit. 354W average, 376NP. We did put some power in the break.

A few more Early birds to practice before the start of the season!

AC