Race: Snelling RR Men’s M35+ 3/4
Date: June 8th, 2024
AVRT racers: Shai Traister, Daniel Choi
Top Result: Shai (7th/21) Daniel (9th/21)
Course: The original Snelling course - 11.7 miles of rolling farm roads with decent to bad pavement. The final sprint is 300m after a tight right-hand turn. The road was very bumpy, with sketchy turns partially covered by gravel.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11607878557/
Nutrition: Two bottles (one frozen) with 60g of carbs. 2 bottles from the feed - one with 60g of carbs one just water, 2 gu gels with 25mg of caffeine.
This year Snelling was postponed from its usual spring date to June. The weather was warm (afternoon race) with highs in the upper 80’s or even lower 90’s. Remembering the horrors from last year’s Patterson pass, I paid special attention to hydration. Drank a full bottle before the race started, started the race with 2 full bottles (one frozen), and was determined to pick up bottles from the feed zone.
The race started at a rather slow pace that picked up on every small hill. People kept attacking right from the first lap, but all attacks were of solo riders and I knew there was no way a solo rider would go all the way (esp. so early in the race, where everyone was relatively fresh) so I didn’t bother chasing and just sat on wheels. The first part of the course had a slight headwind, which would also make it very hard for a solo rider to stay away. As I expected, every single attack was brought back and the pace would slow down again. Especially weird was PenVelo that had 4 riders that tried attacking and counter- attacking again after each of their riders was brought back, all for nothing.
After one lap, when we passed through the feed zone for the 2nd time I grabbed a bottle, put it in my cage and continued racing. About 2km later the road was very bumpy and that bottle shot out and fell to the ground. 2nd time through the feed zone I grabbed another bottle of cold drink which was awesome, and another bottle of water which I poured over myself - very refreshing. Unfortunately, the cap on the malto bottle was leaky so with every sip I took about half of the malto mix would spill over me (and the bike 😂).
On the third lap, on the left turn the rider on my left didn’t keep his line and swerved right to the outside. That would have forced me making a sharp turn into a huge gravel pothole, so I decided to keep going straight off the road and onto the gravel bank which allowed me to drop my speed and make the turn safely. I also had to go around the motorcycle which stood on the side of the road. Got back on the road, but since the pack wasn’t going super fast I closed the gap pretty quickly.
2 notable events (and missed opportunities?):
On the 3rd lap - one of the 2 DelceVita riders tried attacking. I was on his wheel so I follow him, and pretty soon we got a ~5s gap. Not huge, but something. When he slowed down I should have rolled through and try to make it stick. I didn’t - as I was trying to recover from following his attack - so we slowed down and the pack caught us. In hindsight I probably should have given it a chance.
On the last lap 3 riders managed to get away on the rolling hills. This seemed to be a dangerous move so I decided to bridge across. Another rider decided the same, so I slid behind him and waited for him to close the gap while being ready to jump across if he blew. He made it across, which was a good opportunity for me to counter attack, after getting a draft across the gap. I believe that the entire field was following us so it’s not like this was a big opportunity, but in hindsight probably would have been better to give it a try.
Going through the feedzone for the last time Daniel who was just in front of me grabbed the drink from Drew, so I planned to grab a bottle from Roger - but I ended up with an ice sock which I stuck in the back of my jersey - super cool (literally). Also grabbed another bottle of water.
Pace picked up with more attempts to break away, but nothing stuck, so we got to the final right-hand turn and 300m to the finish line. I slotted behind one of the DolceVita riders but got pushed away from that wheel. Made the turn and started the sprint. The road on the last stretch is super bumpy and my bike and rear wheel bounced all over the place. It was hard for me to push full power on such a bumpy road, I passed a couple of riders, and was passed by one. Finished 7th. Daniel was behind me and got peeped on the line and finished 9th.
Thanks to Drew, Roger (and everyone else) for all your help in the feed zone - you guys were life savers!