Solo Attempt at Napa

If you don't try, you won't succeed. Yeah, my first legit solo attempt to win has me thinking in catch-phrase-philosophy. Despite some developing sickness (tightness in the chest and an occasional cough), I felt I had a good chance for a great result this morning in Napa.

In my favor:

• Good legs after light week, decent Friday prep ride, and OK warmup
  
• Technical course that I knew from last year (4 90s plus a P turn with a 90 + 130 threading back through a traffic island)
  
• Smallish field (~40) for less swarm, though probably not that important given the course and the fact I lined up at the front.
  
• Small field also meant that while I didn't have any teammates, no other teams were particularly well represented either. There were a couple flashes of teamwork in the middle, but basically it was a race of freelancers.
  

Course Map:

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I was comfortably near the front most of the race, happily following wheels 5 or so back when it was strung out, and moving to/off the front whenever the leaders sat up and we swarmed up. I worked a whole lot less than at Brisbane, but did put in a handful of good pulls. That said, pulling through on the finishing straight meant keeping the lead through the 4 90-degree turns that follow the straight before pulling off. The course is so short (less than 800m per lap) that this represents only a few hundred meters. A couple times I didn't do this and I got caught in some massive swarm, losing a lot of position as we blobbed.

So I felt like I was positioned well and knew that position was critical for the finish, with only the first few wheels able to win it in a sprint. But I also knew that position could be quickly lost. So when I wasn't occupied with turning and dodging fallen riders (a few did fall in the P turn), I was mulling over a couple tactical options that mainly boiled down to "Win the sprint before the sprint" so as not to lose position in the pre-sprint surge (like at Madera and Brisbane). By that I really meant "place" rather than win, since sitting 2nd or 3rd wheel into the final turn would have been ideal. And I'd also had the scenario from last year running through my head, where the winner took off with a few to go and I tried to follow but didn't have it. I told myself that an attack could work if the bunch slowed down in the last couple, the timing was right, and there was some confusion on who'd take up the chase. And I was feeling quite good, with the tempo in first 35 minutes warming me up, not wearing me out.

With the self-imposed mandate not to get caught too far behind to sprint for the win and the thought that I could do OK in a sprint, a break, or solo, I headed into the final few laps watching the group momentum. Things were moderately fast early on (avg 24), but some laps after the primes were done were quite slow (avg 21.5-22.5). 5 and 6 to go were slow/swarmy, then 3 and 4 to go got peppy and position was easier to manage. Approaching the line with 2-to-go, it felt like things slowed a bit with and so I carried my momentum from the surge out of the P turn and went off the front.

As I was moving up past the first 5 guys approaching turn 1, I had an out. I could have played it for position and to motivate the other leaders to work. But the switch flipped to "all out" and I drilled it through the corner and kept going. I had a lot of speed (30mph in the straight, 27mph through the corner), the group didn't react until I was passing them in the corner on a fast outside line, and I was pedaling through the left-hand 90s (the right was a bit tighter). So, yeah, there was a real gap by the time we hit the straight again.

I was flying. Did the lap in 58s (27.5mph) vs. 1m03s for the previous lap (23.7mph). Felt great. Then I hit the P turn again, took the surge out pretty hard but told myself to go steady. It was starting to hurt now, a minute in, and here's where I lost a lot of time. My speed was much too slow on the straight (25-26mph) and if I had some advantage over the group in the turns, the group had a big advantage in the straight. A little more juice here could have gone a long way, since the momentum was key to carry into the 90-degree turns. As it was, I was steadily pedaling through the turns, faster here than it had been in the pack most laps, but by the back-straight, the announcer was calling that I was going to get caught.

And I did get caught, just before the P turn. Two guys came past into the corner. I didn't have it to stay on their wheel coming out. Worse is that I didn't jump on any wheel, so while I had moderately OK power left (did 650W for 14s, half in the saddle), I wasn't in a draft, I didn't have a sprint, and I was fading fast. In the corner it was "hoping for top 5", then "hoping for top 10" with 100m to go, but a handful of guys past me in the last 50-100m.

Got 11th.

Here's the graph for the final 5 minutes:


Power numbers were solid but not exceptional. 60s and 120s power averages were brought down by the hard cornering (479W for 60 / 406W for 120). Between P turns, it was 510W avg on the first attacking lap, 410W avg on the 2nd. 5-min norm power: 370W.

Weighing the outcome, I feel better that there were a few ways this could have turned out, and I tried something new. The solo attempt was a risk for me, but a legit enough option given the course and pack dynamics of the day. Waiting for the sprint would have given me a good run at the podium or top-5, but if I got caught out of position I would have been not only out of the results, but wouldn't have had a chance to really throw down and test the legs.

A nice bonus would be if someone posted a good photo of my flyer. If it wasn't effective, I hope it at least was entertaining for the rather sparse crowd of 8am spectators. ;)

Not 100% on racing Santa Cruz tomorrow morning. Legs still feel great, but the chest felt super tight immediately after the race and had a cough for a bit. The chest-tightness symptom just showed up yesterday evening after being around someone with a cough on Thursday, so I'm watching to see if symptoms develop. Now I probably won't drive down until the morning, so at least I can watch and visit some family in SC as planned.