Methow Valley Tour omnium - TT and Hillclimb

The Time Trial:
(thanks to Kristen Smith and MVSTA for the startline photo)

As I wrote in my post last night, I was pretty excited for this morning's time trial and beginning of the Methow Valley Tour omnium. This weekend's courses are on my home roads and I am very familiar with them. My TT form has been steadily improving this year and I feel like I am going really well right now. Given all these factors, I was optimistic for today's TT and expecting a big result. I usually hover around the top 10 in time trials an felt that now was the time I could step up and bump up a few places and maybe even score a top 5 placing.

The TT course features four significant (at least to me) hills that are usually my undoing. This year I planned to start out a little easier than normal until the base of the first hill and then ramp it up on the hill, recover a bit on the backside and flat section before the second climb and so on. I hoped that by doing this, I could avoid losing big chunks of time on the hills, especially the last one which is followed immediately by a gradually rising false flat that makes it difficult to get back up to speed.

The plan seemed to work well on the outbound leg and the first two hills. I got up and over them pretty quickly and seemed to be on a great ride. The return trip over the hills was less impressive. The first one was passibly okay, but the last one left me crawling along at the top as usual. My 30-second man who I had passed just after the first hill on the outbound leg passed me back. To add insult to injury, he was on a standard road bike with no aero trickery. I comforted myself with the thought that I would get him back before the finish as it was all downhill or flat remaining.

Try as I might though, I was unable to close the gap back to him and trailed him across the line by a few seconds. I congratulated him on his effort and he replied that I had made a great carrot for him. I told him I just die on those hills and he said, "I noticed." I had hoped to turn in a time of around 22:30 which I hoped might put me near that elusive top 5, alas I was only able to go about 22:52. I say "about" because there was a scoring error that added a minute or so to everyone's times. The placings and gaps were all correct, but I'm not sure if the error was exactly one minute or little more or less. My target time would have gotten me 7th, as it was I ended up 10th. Another "hovering" top 10. Related to the size of the field though (72 riders) it is my best TT placing ever, so I'm pretty happy even if frustrated by those freakin' hills!


The Hillclimb:

Speaking of hills, we got to race up a big one this year. Usually the second event of this, and most, omniums is a criterium. In the MV Tour the criterium has been held in Twisp. This year however Twisp has a large street project going on in their downtown that has torn up most of the criterium course. Undaunted, the organizers came up with a great replacement event, a mass-start hill climb. The course starts out with about a 1.25 miles of flat before hitting the steeps in earnest. The next 1.25 miles are about 10% followed by 5 miles of pitches ranging from flat to 10%. All told, the course is about 7.5 miles long and according to the tech guide gains over 1600 feet.

As expected, the pack splintered as soon as we turned onto the climb. Not being a climber (see part 1 of this post), I assumed my customary position drifting off the back and settling into my own rhythm. Being a local really helped out in this event. Many riders rode beyond themselves on the early steeps of the climb trying in vain to stay in contact or chased too hard on the intermittent flat sections and struggled mightily in the late stages of the climb. I rode my pace, picked stragglers off whenever possible, and managed a 44th place finish out of the 72 starters. Truly not a headline worthy finish I know, but given how I usually suffer on this climb in training, I was quite pleased with it. As a bonus, with the points this weekend in each event going 50 places deep, I even added a few points to my weekend total.

I really hope they keep this event in future years instead of a criterium. I suffered like mad, but you can ride a crit anywhere. This hillclimb stage was unique and fun and I think makes this omnium a little more special.