Road Racing in the Vuelta de Costa Rica is like doing interval sessions for 4 hrs a day, day after day after day. I havn't done intervals in 2 yrs and these intervals are the variety that last anywhere from 10 seconds to 1 hr, the pack decides. The first few days blew my lungs up and left my legs in a world of hurt but since then the body seems to be adapting alright as I have slowly moved up from finishing in the mid 30's to 25th today. With the so called "flat stages" behind us we will start up on the mtns tommorow.So far our team of 7 from Canada has had its ups and downs as Jean Michael Lachance was in the sprinters jersey for 3 days before crashing out in todays stage to join Arnaud who also crashed out of the Vuelta. There are 5 of us left now and the pace is picking up although we seem to be getting more adapted to the nasty pace being set by the Ticos.
The 5 teams from Costa Rica are flying as this is there show. Guatemala is all over the place. On day 3 three of them hit the same pothole with two of them flatting and the other going down. They also have a crazy 110 lb climber who is riding in the top 10. The Russians won stage 2 and 3 but then boycotted the race after one of there riders was dsq for cutting 20 km of the course and then winning a stage. Not to sure what happened there. The Dutch are suffering as I don't think they have hills in Holland like they do here. The Colombians are starting to rev it up as the real mtn stages start tommorow. This week they have been busy shaving bus drivers heads and whistling at girls.
Highlights of the week have been watching a dog run into the middle of the pack and somehow dodging all the bikes and not causing a massive pile up. Yesterday we deceneded a road at 75 kmh with 1 ft deep potholes all over the place. It was like dodging land mines. At least 3 riders hit the pavement hard and about 12 others flatted. Today the huge crosswind sent a few riders mtb riding into the ditch. I never new road racing could be so exciting but I am starting to find a liking for it. Tommorow will be a real test as the road tilts skywards.
5 comments:
Destroy them on the climbs.No mercy!
That's a totally enjoyable post! What a place to road ride let alone mtb. Rock on the hills!!
YAH MAN! awesome
I raced mtb Elite for 8 years before I tried a road race, there's nothing like it ! The pack, the tactics, the attacks, and best of all.. having a Team.
gotta get Cody into HIGH gear :)
Nasty Pace x 12 stages = good fitness to start a new early Mountain bike season ..
I am sure that you will destroy some Costa Rican Mountain Bikers in January.. and will be the time to come back to the real MTB adventures. Amigo!
Cory awesome stories - much higher intensity biking than I'm up to... other than my out of shape body is faster than most little scooters and tuk tuks in Cambodia!
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