The Cunningham classic has traditionally been one of my favorite races of the year. Over the last two years, I’ve raced it as an Under-19 and it’s always been an awesome event. This year, I’ve had to retire from junior racing and so what awaited me was a 167km journey – the longest race I’ve done so far. Is longer always better? Read on to find out.

I should perhaps start up mentioning that I came back from Europe two weeks ago after a four week holiday with my girlfriend. It was awesome and although I didn’t exactly get fat, I feel far worse than I did earlier this year. That being said, I felt good this morning.

Unlike previous years, the weather this year was almost what you can describe as ’summer-like’ – it was actually about 16 degrees when we started. The same certainly couldn’t be said about the conditions last year, which were quite a bit chillier. There was not really any wind at the start, though it picked up slightly as the race wore on.

The Elite A field this year was about 50-strong and as we set off, I think everyone was thinking the same thing – that it was going to be a loong race… the pace in the first 20-30 kms was quite reasonable without being crazy and a break quickly established themselves off the front. They were reeled back by Budget at about the 30 km mark, at which stage the gradient started to pick up. Another break went up the road and hovered about 400 meters in front of the field.

Before the KOM, I made the error of getting somewhat boxed in in the bunch and this, coupled with the fact that I only realized the KOM was coming up at the 1km mark meant that I timed my jump to the break waay too late. As it was, I closed the gap down to about 100 meters by the sprint and averaged 440 watts and 27 kmh, maxing out at 43 kmh and 1200 watts. Damn!

Over the summit, I waited for the group behind (I was busted), which had been reduced to about 25. Up front, about 5 riders were away as we hurtled down the descent. Going up the climb where the feed zone was for all the other grades, a group went off the front. At the time, I was at the back recovering and so my reaction was delayed and I crested the hill solo about 20 meters off the back of the second breakaway group. I was joined by three other riders, but we were not working particularly well together given one guy was sitting on. Hence, we never made it onto the break and rejoined the third and main group shortly afterwards. As it turns out, the first and second groups at this stage formed the decisive breakaway of the day.

Over the course of… well, the rest of the race, my group tried to nail back the break but despite that their lead eventually grew to 4 minutes. Three times I tried to get away from the group and bridge. First up, Herzo was off the front of the group and as he began to be reeled back in, I attacked and bridged up to him. For a while, we extended our lead but after about 10 minutes, we were brought back. Herzo tried unsuccessfully again shortly afterwards, but failed again. With the Great H as an inspiration, I tried again a little later but again it was doomed.

ON the second and final feed, one rider (whom I shall not identify) attacked and gained a gap of 500 meters  before we gradually brought him back. When he was 50 meters off the front, I surged and quickly got a sizable gap. This was at about 32 km from the finish. For the next 25 minutes, I soloed at an average of about 320 Watts and 41 kmh before I was joined by two riders coming up from behind. At this point, I was well and truly smashed and couldn’t do very much more than sit on. I informed the others of this, did as much work as I could and then didn’t contest the sprint, finishing in 9th overall.

I was absolutely destroyed. It wasn’t the hardest race I’ve ever done (in terms of statistics, power etc) but it was still an extremely difficult event.

All in all, I’m very happy with the race. If it wasn’t for a few tactical stuff-ups, I’d likely have been in contention for the KOM and in the main breakaway. Oh well!

Race stats

Distance: 169 km

Time: 4:09

Average Speed: 41 kmh

Max Speed: 67 kmh

Avg Power: 235 Watts

Norm Power: 282 Watts

Max Power: 1205 Watts

Work: 3520 kJ

Avg Cadence: 90

Have fun,

Kristian