Libby Hill & Mighty Metropolitan ... on to flat ground!

Whew, that was a tiring two weeks! Looking back, Libby Hill, It's been two weeks but here's my memory. We raced pretty hard across flat ground, had two hard, short climbs, and then I didn't have much left for the last climb (Libby Hill). I didn't make the early attack at the start of the segment and with the steep grade at the bottom of the climb never made up any ground. Looking at Strava they gave me a 92 stress effort for the 55 minutes so it wasn't an easy race. We had a pretty good sized field in the late race B's. No surprise that a power climber like Zach Juracich won the night, congrats to him! I would love to do this event only course again. It would be really fun if we could do those power rollers a few times to setup the finish with a little more chance for a break. Mighty Metropolitan. As someone that can't sprint and can't climb I have difficulty finding a course and collection of racers that will let me win :). That said, Mighty Metro suits me pretty well. The climbs are hard but short, provide some recovery and just really make you hurt. In the Early B's we went over the first part of the climb quick enough to start it hurting, the 2nd stair step was just hard tempo. There is a pretty big flat section after the 2nd rise but the changes in grade that existed still hurt and kept you watching the front of the pack. The KOM follows and that's where the grade steepens and selections really get made. Craig Martin got a gap of 10 seconds over the top but Matthew Dutton (Fell Swoop Polaris) and I pulled him back in. About 6 more riders were a few seconds back so we decided to wait. The downhill and distance to the finish banner was pretty long and it was good to have a group. Lap 2 played similar to the first including Craig Martin going all climber crazy on the KOM. Dutton and I pulled him back. I was working for Dutton so pulled much of the way back to keep the split on the field and his 2nd place and my third. See how I didn't mention neither of us beat Craig? We could/should have played it differently but happy with the night!

Next? on to the Classique which is very flat! New people to watch and a pretty different kind of effort.

We do have Innsbruckring coming which has a selective climb, often a downhill chase but mixes in quite a bit of flat. It's really a fun course

We also changed the last race to the Park Perimeter Loop which is rollers for the whole race. It has produced reduced field splits and really hard racing in the past!

Current standings in B's