Race Reports 01 Apr 2007 08:43 pm
2007 Uxbridge Icebreaker
Well, we’ve just finished cleaning up after getting back from the 2007 Uxbridge Icebreaker put on by BikeNXS. These short races are a lot of work – a good ten hours of packing, driving, registering, changing, cleaning, etc., for only an hour of racing! The weather was poor and there wasn’t all that much ice, but this was a fun event none the less. The weather was cloudy, rain heavy at times and around 6 degrees or so. Luckily, the course had a sunny week beforehand to dry out, so the mud was not the worst I’ve seen in the area. Here is what this year’s course looked like:
The vertical profile looked like:
with about 450m of climbing per lap. This year they put in a single-speed catagory, so of course I had to race that. Unfortunately, they only did a single-speed 25km catagory, so I didn’t get to do the normal 50km. Given the weather, I’m not complaining too much though! I rode my 29er single-speed with Schwalbe Little Albert tires at ~28psi and 34:18 gearing. This set-up seemed to be about right. The tires bit pretty well without feeling like they were rolling slow, and they were very fast in the sloppy single-track. A slightly narrower tire might have been faster on both the gravel and in the soupy mud.
The singlespeed catagory was pretty popular. I counted at least ten singlespeeders at the start line despite the poor weather. My strategy was to go out fast and try to get into the front group of geared riders, then ease off and see what developed. This seems to have worked, as I was the lead singlespeed off of the start, and I was still the lead singlespeed at the finish! I’m very happy to start the season off with a win. The race felt good – I was riding hard, but not at 100% and my pace was high, so now I just need to keep this going through the rest of the season! Here is my heart rate data from the race:
My average heart rate was 177bpm for the race, which is lower than my averages at o-cups last year, so I think I can dig deeper if I need to. You can see the drops in my HR when I spin out going downhill!
True North had a great showing at the race. Lots of fun, lots of medals. Make sure to check out the team results and reports on the team website!
on 01 Apr 2007 at 9:09 pm 1.True North Cycles Racing Team » 2007 Uxbridge Icebreaker said …
[...] season for me. I felt strong through the race and could have dug deeper if I needed to. Check out more details of my race on my site if you want [...]
on 02 Apr 2007 at 10:14 am 2.Eva said …
Congrats on an awesome race! :)