MUCKERS 7pm Thursday Race Night. 06/04/23
Rouvy Route Used: Red Rock Country | Arizona | USA | 18.4 miles | 1010.5 ft climbing
Route 3 from the American Nature Parks | easy| challenge
48 registered | 35 finishers | 4 dnf | 9 dns
Who would have thought we’d have 39 riders ready at 7pm (UK) to start a Muckers race! And on a normal Thursday night as well?? Not me! I am still blown away by how many riders I get on my Muckers races so I just want to thank you all so much as it really makes a difference having such a large group jumping on one of my races. 39 has to be a week night record for me though!
When I first started this process last year, I was happy with 5 or 6 having a go as all I wanted to do back then was schedule all the routes from challenges into the nights I was “allowed” on the smart bike, so if a few others joined, then I was happy enough, but not really focused on racing. But now with a strong core of regular riders and the support from my fellow Muckers Worldwide team mates, we always have competitive races all the way down the field, which has to be a good thing doesn’t it and I hope is a reason more of you keep coming back.
Anyway, To the Race. Reading the Strava reports from “hinsbergen” and “adampel” , it sounded like a tactical battle up front. These 2 team mates coming home to takes 1st and 2nd tonight after some nice team work. Only 5 seconds later came “Karel_sousek” to take the Bronze, with his team mate “luke_vin” just 20 seconds later taking 4th. All 4 averaging 26mph on a route with over 1000ft of climbing as well.
5th, and breaking up the 2 by 2 team mate order, came the Italian rider “R4-92-FrancoBelfiore” who seemed in a little bit of no mans land, as did “PatrykS_Gdynia_PL” in 6th and “yayarecki” in 7th. I do wonder if these guys were riding together and it all just fell apart??
It does however look more like a sprint finish happened for 8th, 9th and 10th with just 22 seconds separating the three. They came over the line “wurstrolle_81“, “robbiedoo” and in the last mention position came “uffzynda“! Top 10 all finishing in under 45 minutes!
11th and 12th came the top 2 muckers worldwide riders but as I don’t mention the riders outside the top 10, I best not ππ
But to the whole 35 of you that completed this route, a massive thanks and well done to you all!
cheers.
| # | Category | User | Age | Team | Racetime | TimeGAP | AV.mph |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Men | hinsbergen | 40-49 | Team Adam-Chris | 0:41:28.6 | 26.62 | |
| 2 | Men | adampel | 40-49 | Team Adam-Chris | 0:41:31.2 | 0:00:02.6 | 26.59 |
| 3 | Men | karel_sousek | 40-49 | CK VinohradskΓ© Ε lapky | 0:41:35.8 | 0:00:07.2 | 26.54 |
| 4 | Men | luke_vin | 30-39 | CK VinohradskΓ© Ε lapky | 0:41:57.2 | 0:00:28.6 | 26.31 |
| 5 | Men | R4-92-FrancoBelfiore | 50-59 | ASD Cicli Bettoni – Costa Volpino | 0:42:32.2 | 0:01:03.6 | 25.95 |
| 6 | Men | PatrykS_Gdynia_PL | 50-59 | Dream Tri Team | 0:43:26.8 | 0:01:58.2 | 25.41 |
| 7 | Men | yayarecki | 50-59 | 0:44:04.10 | 0:02:36.4 | 25.04 | |
| 8 | Men | wurstrolle_81 | 40-49 | 0:44:32.4 | 0:03:03.8 | 24.79 | |
| 9 | Men | robbiedoo | 50-59 | Eastbourne Rovers CC | 0:44:39.5 | 0:03:10.9 | 24.72 |
| 10 | Men | uffzynda | 50-59 | 0:44:54.4 | 0:03:25.8 | 24.58 | |
| 11 | Men | Chak | 50-59 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:45:44.3 | 0:04:15.7 | 24.14 |
| 12 | Men | S.Ludford | 50-59 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:46:02.3 | 0:04:33.7 | 23.98 |
| 13 | Men | BoguslawPionek | 40-49 | 0:46:04.2 | 0:04:35.6 | 23.96 | |
| 14 | Men | mgk1971 | 50-59 | 0:46:17.9 | 0:04:49.3 | 23.84 | |
| 15 | Men | PeteBurford | 60+ | Oxted CC | 0:46:32.5 | 0:05:03.9 | 23.72 |
| 16 | Men | Mucker1974 | 40-49 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:46:38.6 | 0:05:10.2 | 23.67 |
| 17 | Men | Daniel_G. | 40-49 | 0:46:58.1 | 0:05:29.5 | 23.5 | |
| 18 | Men | jeff65 | 50-59 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:46:58.10 | 0:05:30.4 | 23.5 |
| 19 | Men | rouvy1bryon | 60+ | 0:47:17.7 | 0:05:49.1 | 23.34 | |
| 20 | Men | G.Fox | 50-59 | 0:48:18.4 | 0:06:49.8 | 22.85 | |
| 21 | Men | kin_kwan | 40-49 | 0:48:29.7 | 0:07:01.1 | 22.76 | |
| 22 | Men | paulux58 | 60+ | Rouvy QuΓ©bec | 0:48:30.8 | 0:07:02.2 | 22.75 |
| 23 | Men | rogerstrainer | 50-59 | GRC | 0:48:31.8 | 0:07:03.2 | 22.75 |
| 24 | Men | widle | 40-49 | BTT Libochovice | 0:48:32.1 | 0:07:03.5 | 22.74 |
| 25 | Women | sunniva | 40-49 | 0:48:46.4 | 0:07:17.8 | 22.63 | |
| 26 | Women | mms3v | 40-49 | 0:49:12.3 | 0:07:43.7 | 22.44 | |
| 27 | Men | Andy_UP | 40-49 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:49:12.3 | 0:07:43.7 | 22.44 |
| 28 | Men | KarelBBB | 50-59 | 0:50:21.3 | 0:08:52.7 | 21.92 | |
| 29 | Men | Wallao7o | 50-59 | Team Lard | 0:50:46.3 | 0:09:17.7 | 21.74 |
| 30 | Men | Wiep | 50-59 | 0:51:57.3 | 0:10:28.7 | 21.25 | |
| 31 | Men | PiotrKwiatek | 50-59 | 0:53:33.2 | 0:12:04.6 | 20.61 | |
| 32 | Men | Paulo_Tann | 50-59 | Brazil Virtual Cycling | 0:54:07.4 | 0:12:38.8 | 20.4 |
| 33 | Men | Michal-Scorpio | 40-49 | 0:55:53.2 | 0:14:24.6 | 19.75 | |
| 34 | Men | pdasilva_1967 | 50-59 | 0:59:42.3 | 0:18:13.7 | 18.49 | |
| 35 | Men | Majrano | 40-49 | 1:14:43.3 | 0:33:14.7 | 14.77 | |
| dnf | Men | cdtchris | 60+ | Muckers Worldwide | dnf | β | |
| dnf | Men | maratonbiker | 60+ | GURE | dnf | β | |
| dnf | Men | ashleyhalsey | 60+ | ABRT | dnf | β | |
| dnf | Men | Fred88400 | 40-49 | dnf | β |

Warm up went well and i was ready right from the start! 1 was 13th at the 1st quarter mile and happy with my start but the top 12 were way to strong for me to even stay with in the draft and as it got more hillier, i expected to get eaten up and spat out the back by the oncoming train of riders. The first group to come along seemed my first best shot to stay with so i jumped on and surprisingly, I stayed with them! Swapping places from 13th – 17th it was a really good group consisting of “rouvy1bryon”, S.Ludford”, “G.Fox” and “mgk1971”. Some regulars here that I don’t normally stay with so lets see what happens?? 5 miles in and we’ve already done over half the climbing and its was now some nice downhill to hopefully recover and assess the situation, I was now 18th but we were a bigger group, so all still together up to 13th! Some surprisingly dropped off, some not so surprisingly, dropped me but at the end i came over the line in 16th having achieved my top 20 goal I set myself before the race. Really enjoyed this and the packs I rode in! cheers guys.
Very nice race and a good profile – a little bit of everything for everyone. From my perspective at mid-pack, it was interesting as we ran a small group of 5 for a while and I must admit I didn’t do too much work on the front – saving my small energy for the finalΓ©. We finished as four with a sprint that saw me being piped at the line by one of the guys.
I was very surprised to see a contestant up the road doing twice my W/kg, but he wasn’t at the head of the race but dangling in no-mans-land. it didn’t make sense. An analysis of his race showed he averaged 145W for the race! I know it may be too much work to weed out the weight cheaters on your scoreboard but I noticed his activity had already been ”flagged” in the Rouvy Fair User Policy…I don’t know if it is an algorithm that does that or a human but it was flagged.
Hi Paul, thank you so much for the comment. yes, its very frustrating when you see someone with questionable figures and I have flagged riders myself in the past but its pretty much impossible to do it for everyone who races without deep diving into each persons stats. The report takes me long enough already so I just have to hope that the majority are racing true which i know they are. Just flag whoever you can to rouvy as they will look into it and get in touch with that rider. Generally its the same answer and they are on a dumb trainer and just not set up correctly but just flag them if you see them please. cheers again, Neil
Will do Neil!
What a race again! Thanks all the participants and organizer. From the start list I thought it would be a battle of two teams. Me and Karel vs Adam and Chris. Yes, this is how cycling works.
After the start bigger group formed, hard to control. I felt really good, so when there was a chance, I tried to rise a tempo a bit to make a group a little smaller. One by one during the hilly part and we stay in 6.
Then unfortunately drafting issues started, leaving me without the draft for the second half of the race. It seems others can still enjoy drafting behind me, so I did what I can to reduce the group as much as possible. Leaving me and Karel and Adam and Chris in the final selection. I was still hoping to get the drafting back, but it did not happen.
Finally, I was dropped in the downhill section where I was not able to match the speed of the drafting trio. Then I could be just watching the Adam-Chris duo perfectly using team advantage to get 1st and 2nd.
I’m not happy you had the drafting issues but I am glad you mentioned it. I was getting paranoid it was only happening to me. I was OK in this race but it happened again to me in later Las Vegas race. It seems that when riders come past in a group that my avatar does not ‘tuck in’ and steer behind last rider to gain the draft.
hi Luke, thank you so much for commenting again. Adam and Chris are so strong as a team that its not often they don’t get at least one of them in the top 3 so to be with them is just mind blowing from my point of view as it is. Such a shame about the drafting issue. I’ve reached out to my contact at Rouvy to let them know as another rider mentioned it as well so it sounds like a very strange glitch. well done again!
Solo effort tonight,could nt find a group to work with,spent the entire race trying to get on Rouvy1bryons wheel,eventually caught him with a mile to go.Not sure the downhill route suited my bike gearing,would spin out at 30mph,so had to coast down the declines,got caught on the line by the German rider Daniel.Great to see so many riders,many thanks to Neil and Kyle for organising these events
cheers for commenting Jeff. you might “think” it was a solo effort but it kept the pressure on my the whole ride, especially when i hit the hill first and the gap would start to decrease rapidly! panic climbing ( i hope you are seeing the vision of me stood up and screaming in fear at the nearby list!) but then that relief setting over my soul as i go over the top and start to speed up, you hit the bottom of the hill and that magic distance figure starts to increase again…… All the way along this ride, that was the pressure from your “solo” effort π«π
I wanted to do a HR zone 4 ride, ended up in a group with KarelBBB and mms3v. It became a HR zone 5 ride because mms3v was drilling it on the uphills. It’s very nice to see so much riders, bigger chance to end up with someone or some group to draft and/or compete against.
its so hard to stick to a zone ride when the field is this big isn’t it. at least you tried…….ππ Cheers Andy!
Enjoyed this one, I didn’t start too hard and tried to find riders willing to ride as a group early on. Very soon ‘BoguslawPionek’, ‘mgk1971’, ‘Mucker1974’, ‘rouvylbryon’ and ‘G.Fox’ joined me pulling turns on the front and we were moving at a fair pace, although, we didn’t seem to be getting any nearer the top 10. I didn’t consciously try to gap this group but a gap started and I found myself alone for about 6 miles, ‘Chak’ was 400ft ahead but the 800ft to the man chasing seemed so much closer. At the end I tried to relax as I had one eye on the next race of the evening in (virtual) Las Vegas but ‘BoguslawPionek’ had other ideas and was suddenly putting down the power and catching fast, he clearly wanted me to get to Vegas sooner.
Strong ride and I was happy to hang onto you for as long as I did but you are right, we weren’t really making any inroads to the top 10 even though we were going at a fair pace. I knew eventually you’d just get away as I was very close to the red as it was being in your draft, so it was inevitable you’d pull away but i tried! i was flat out 110rpm hill climbing just to stay with you all then tried to recover in the draft down the other side! this wasn’t gonna last all the way π Cheers for commenting Mucker.
There seem to be drafting issues with Rouvy sometimes, I noticed some weeks ago on the Giant Tree route and again in a race at Geraardsbergen https://my.rouvy.com/onlinerace/live/113795 (here I was not the only one without any drafting!). I informed Rouvy and Madeleine from the Rouvy team wrote back a thank you note, but I don’t know what they have done to fix it. Probably nothing.
Concerning this race, I had a nice draft ride with “wurstrolle” for a long time, thank you wurst for pulling me π We managed to catch the British fear “robbiedoo” but then these two riders opened a competion on the last km which I wasn’t able to follow any more. Batteries were half empty and had to last until Las Vegas later. Same very nice drafting fight with “wurstrolle”and others (robbiedoo, S. Ludford) in Vegas, but you will see there in Neils next report.
It was much fun to ride with you, you all did a great job !
CU soon and happy Easter holidays π£π, Chris alias “uffzynda”
I’ve also reached out to Rouvy about the drafting issues so i hope they do sort it. I’ll be in a very bad place if I loose the draft !!π I was with you guys at the beginning but once i saw it was you and wurste, i knew i was over achieving π₯΅π₯΅π₯΅π΅π΅. So i had to let you go. Strong result which almost feels like you might have tried harder at the end if we didn’t have the Las Vegas event to do afterwards, even though i di state in the title of it that its a cool down race……..π
A great race night again with a lot of familiar names and some new ones. Decided not to go to mad at the start max 4w/kg instead of 6w/kg as I found the other day it tired me out to quickly sapping the energy I would need for later on. I’m not the best at racing on flattish routes, but will try my best. Had a good group to ride with 2 Canadians Paulux58 and Kin_Kwan after Daniel _G dropped us pushing 7w/kg one minute he was with us then suddenly over 100m Infront no way to catch some one that strong , so the three of us rode together taking turns in the front worked really well. 500m count down started we all started to power up paulux58 made the first move then me and finally Kin_Kwan suddenly Kin_Knaw shot pass the both of us passing the finish line first then Paulux58 and finally me all of us finished 1 second apart . A very strong finish from all three of us.
excellent comment Roger, thank you. sounds like a lot of us got into our own little groups/packs and then rode well together to see who could then win there little battle at the end! Thanks again for jumping on as often as you do, really good to see your name in the start list when it pops up!