Race Report: 2024 Winchester Circuit Race - 35+ 4/5 and 35+ 3/4

Race: Winchester Circuit Race - 4

Date: May 11, 2024

AVRT racers: Shai Traister

Top Result: Shai 3/4 (35+ 4/5), Shai 8/14 (35+ 3/4)

Course: 5 laps of a roughly 4.5-mile circuit with about 350 feet of elevation gain each lap. The main features are a safe but very fast descent and an undulating punchy climb to the finish that includes two sections above 15% grade.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11388943305 (4/5), https://www.strava.com/activities/11388944208 (3/4) 

Nutrition: One bottle with 60g carbs for each race.

4/5 Race Recap: 

This race was only 4 laps, but was combined with the Juniors who only did 2 laps. There were 5 pre-reg’ed racers in our field, 2 of them DNS and Greg Young (who won last year) was day-of. 

First lap was uneventful, but going into the 2nd lap I was looking out for some moves from the juniors since this was their last lap. Indeed their attacks started and I decided to follow. The first junior had a mechanical up the final climb and we watched him first try to run up the hill, then after seeing he got caught, lift his bike and throw them in frustration to the side of the road.

We continued with our race. After the climb, Greg managed to get away on the descent. The PV guy and I took turns and brought him back after half a lap, and we continued as a small group.

Going into the finishing climb on the final lap, I knew that Greg had a good sprint, so I decided to go from the bottom of the climb at a high pace. I might have had a small gap, but by the time we got to the downhill section in the middle everyone was on my wheel. I slowed down a bit to recover before the final stretch to the line, and that’s when Greg started his sprint. Did my best to follow - including hitting all time high 30s power @645W! - but it was too late. On top of it I got peeped on the line by Luc from PV to finish 3rd.

In hindsight, I should have not started the climb at the front, and instead attack from the back all out. Also keep the power high through the downhill (easier said than done) and push all the way to the top. I believe that part of the reason was that in the back of my mind I knew I had another race starting in 50 minutes (possibly the more important race) so I didn’t fully commit and trust myself with half the climb still remaining. Finished 3rd/4. 

3/4 Race Recap: 

I did my best to recover as much as I could in between the races, but nevertheless, legs felt heavy as we rolled. This race was 5 laps, but was combined with E4 who only did 4 laps. 

This race was considerably faster than the 4/5 race, and the front was setting a high pace on every climb. I was mainly trying to follow wheels and conserve energy as much as possible. On the 3rd lap I had to cross the yellow line due to safety reasons - just for a few seconds, didn’t pass anyone and didn’t do it intentionally, but still the moto relegated me to the back (and insisted that I go to the very back and not just “near the back”). Did some effort to pass several riders on the rollers to get into a good position before the main climb which was successful - I managed to get to the front group on time which was key because we were going full gas on the climb with many riders going off the back.

Lap 4 continued at a high pace, and I knew there would be attacks as this was the last lap of the E4 field. As expected the pace picked up, but the main climb wasn’t as fast as it was on lap 3. 

Last lap. My legs were starting to complain. On the rollers just before the last climb I got gapped with one of the accelerations. Rolled it in for 8th but made sure I wouldn’t get passed but anyone else who got dropped earlier.