MUCKERS 7pm Tuesday Race Night. 04/04/23
Rouvy Route Used: Avenue of the Giants | California | USA | 19.88 miles | 610 ft climbing
Route 1 from the Americas Nature Parks Easy Challenge.
41 registered | 25 finishers | 2 dnf | 14 dns
What’s not to love about this route?? 20 miles, only 600 ft of climbing, beautiful forest scenery, variety of climbs and some nice panoramic action shots while riding along! It even starts with a downhill so you can get up to speed as quickly and as pain free as possible. Yes, I love this Route.
Nice number of racers again tonight ( thank you all for your continued support as it wouldn’t work without you all being here ) and we were all ready to get going at 7pm (UK) and get going fast and find that draft as this was going to be a fast one.
46 minutes later and the top 4 fly over the finish line! 46 minutes!!!! I really hope one of these guys gets the chance to comment and let us know how this race went for these 4 riders?
claiming the gold is “luke_vin” who was just under 2 seconds in front of 2nd place “neilsbrynnum” ! 3rd and 4th had nothing between them but Rouvy awarded the bronze to “PatrykS_Gdynia_PL” which is a welcome return to the podium for the polish rider! Shame for 4th place “hj2010” but what a fast group of riders and you will have them next time!!!
5th came Muckers worldwide rider “leon_ledoux” the Netherlands rider just getting the better of his Canadian Muckers worldwide team mate “Chak“! Superb effort guys.
Another really close finish for 7th, 8th and 9th places with under 2 seconds between them all. “DomenDARDO” got 7th, “Arno_G_KMO_Cycling_Master” 8th and “gaetan42” claiming 9th!
So who gets the last mention? The 3rd Muckers worldwide team rider in the top 10, “S.Ludford” that’s who!! looks like he came over the line in a bit of no mans land which makes this 10th place even better in my eyes as the draft was strong tonight so to come over the line in no draft is a strong ride!
Well done to everyone who completed this and i hope you had fun! please comment if you get the chance as there’s definitly some stories to be told about this race!
Cheers.
| # | Category | User | Age | Team | Race time | TimeGAP | AV.mph |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Men |  luke_vin | 30-39 | CK Vinohradské Šlapky | 0:46:13.9 | 25.81 | |
| 2 | Men |  nielsbrynnum | 50-59 | 0:46:15.6 | 0:00:01.7 | 25.79 | |
| 3 | Men |  PatrykS_Gdynia_PL | 50-59 | Dream Tri Team | 0:46:16.10 | 0:00:03.6 | 25.78 |
| 4 | Men | hj2010 | 40-49 | 0:46:17.3 | 0:00:03.4 | 25.77 | |
| 5 | Men |  leon_ledoux | 50-59 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:49:15.7 | 0:03:01.8 | 24.22 |
| 6 | Men |  Chak | 50-59 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:49:16.3 | 0:03:02.3 | 24.21 |
| 7 | Men |  DomenDARDO | 40-49 | 0:50:23.3 | 0:04:09.4 | 23.68 | |
| 8 | Men |  Arno_G_KMO_Cycling_Master | 50-59 | KMO Cycling Master Team | 0:50:23.3 | 0:04:09.4 | 23.68 |
| 9 | Men |  Gaetan42 | 30-39 | 0:50:24.7 | 0:04:10.8 | 23.67 | |
| 10 | Men |  S.Ludford | 50-59 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:50:36.9 | 0:04:22.10 | 23.57 |
| 11 | Men |  Rens_Piccavet | 30-39 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:51:05.6 | 0:04:51.1 | 23.35 |
| 12 | Men | Mucker1974 | 40-49 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:51:05.4 | 0:04:51.5 | 23.35 |
| 13 | Men | BojanG | 60+ | 0:51:07.5 | 0:04:53.6 | 23.34 | |
| 14 | Men | Andy_PELOTON | 40-49 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:51:10.5 | 0:04:56.6 | 23.31 |
| 15 | Men | ronron77 | 40-49 | CYCLING CLUB 9000 | 0:51:22.3 | 0:05:08.4 | 23.22 |
| 16 | Men | Mitko99 | 40-49 | 0:52:21.7 | 0:06:07.8 | 22.78 | |
| 17 | Men | ogee | 50-59 | NMCC | 0:52:25.2 | 0:06:11.3 | 22.76 |
| 18 | Men | kylofski | 40-49 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:52:25.3 | 0:06:11.4 | 22.76 |
| 19 | Men | Ryanio-Bianchi | 40-49 | 0:53:25.7 | 0:07:11.8 | 22.33 | |
| 20 | Men | rogerstrainer | 50-59 | GRC | 0:53:39.7 | 0:07:25.7 | 22.23 |
| 21 | Men | JEFox76 | 40-49 | 0:55:02.10 | 0:08:49.4 | 21.67 | |
| 22 | Men | 7zoltan9 | 40-49 | Wikper Team | 1:04:35.6 | 0:18:21.6 | 18.47 |
| 23 | Men |  cdtchris | 60+ | Muckers Worldwide | 1:04:41.9 | 0:18:27.10 | 18.44 |
| 24 | Men | Arohlik | 40-49 | 1:08:22.6 | 0:22:08.6 | 17.45 | |
| 25 | Men | Ken1979 | 40-49 | 1:15:18.4 | 0:29:04.5 | 15.84 | |
| dnf | Men | hsymanzick | 50-59 | dnf | – | ||
| dnf | Men |  eldeivi | 40-49 | dnf | – |
12th tonight! that’s a good result for me, I’m normally low 20s! but I love this route and felt quite strong, even if I wasn’t feeling it on the warm up! Got going quite strongly then got into a nice strong group for the majority of the race with Andy_PELOTON, ronron77 and BojanG. we all worked well together to keep the pack behind and we eventually caught up to Rens, who I think used us to recover then launch an attack for the sprint finish which he won! Excellent tactics from him! Superb race and over far too quickly 😉
Muscles still recovering from The Hills of Flanders on Sunday but I wanted to give this my best shot without putting my face in the (virtual) wind too much. A large group rode the first 3 or 4 miles at the front together, but weirdly, I started to notice ‘the draft’ was only working for me behind certain riders resulting in efforts to follow wheels not being rewarded as expected. ‘Rens Piccavet’ and Myself dropped off the front group and ended up riding together with the prospect of 10th position ahead. Rens, unfortunately for me, was one of the riders where the draft did not work in any position I tried. This meant I was getting no rest at all so I ended up in the odd situation of deliberately resting and dropping power every time I was on the front, Rens must have wondered what I was doing but I needed to create resting opportunity somehow. Then we had to consider the ‘battle’ for 10th, I tried a few kicks but each time Rens rode back to me, I then did 3 ‘big kicks’ as my last option assuming that would end my race, I was surprised to see it had worked and there was finally fresh air between us. I was even more surprised to suddenly see ‘DomenDARDO’, ‘
Arno_G_KMO_Cycling_Master’ & ‘Gaetan42’ ahead of me, it was worth the effort to complete the catch. I made no effort to share the work from this point, I was happy for them to tow me to 10th position and was able to freewheel to the line from a long way out, although again, the draft effect only worked behind ‘DomenDARDO’ – so an odd and slightly frustrating experience.
how weird is that! i’ve never heard it mentioned or seen this before when you can only draft behind certain riders?? that makes the result even sweeter though doesn’t it! well done Steve and thanks for commenting. hopefully see you on Thursdays.
Great route. Finished in the low 20’s, of course that’s not too hard if there were only 25 finishers.
I was 22nd when Rouvy app decided to take a break. By the time I kicked the app into working again, I fell behind 7zoltan9 by half a mile. I eventually made up the distance, but at the very end he was too strong for me, generating over 8w/kg at the finish and blasting by me, taking the 22nd spot back. Excellent route.
such a shame when you have internet/app/server issues. spoils the whole thing for you. hope you get it all sorted soon as you are due a nice result! cheers for commenting.
Close call, was impressed by the strong finish sprint of DARDO who during the race I was sure to have distanced. Great sprinting qualities ! Race was nice, flat courses always guarantee close results due to drafting and higher motivation
Thank you for Commenting Arno. 8th is a superb result, just get DARDO next time!!
Thumps up too all who finished the race and especially to my competitors in front of the race. Great route despite I didn´t had to much time to enjoy the views 🙂 I think the cooperation among the 4 of us in front went quite well and I enjoyed seeing my fellow Dane “hj2010” in the leading group. However yesterday “luke_vin” had the the best legs and was the rightful winner !
hi, nice to hear you all worked well together as that really makes a difference to keeping you out of reach of the chasing pack doesn’t it. . Nothing worse than you all being side by side and trying to slow down to drop back into the draft!! Sounds like we had a rightful winner as well. cheers again.
After the disaster race Hills of Flanders, my home region race where I really wanted to perform well, but couldn’t put any power out, I temporary changed my name to Andy_PELOTON. Yesterday’s race was a punishment ride for myself and the idea was to start not to fast and then ride as hard as I could untill the finish, ignoring riders in my draft. As I see it, this could have 2 results. Or riders I pass just take my wheel and enjoy the draft, or riders would try to take a pull also, and we would blast across this course. It was the second that happend, everyone in the group tried to do his share of the work. Everytime the power of the riders in my group dropped, I went to the front and start drilling it untill someone tried to overtake me. Great race, great fun!
I definitely got the benefit of your draft Mucker, especially those odd times the other 2 opened up the gap (usually when i was taking a drink!) and you helped me back up to the group. Thanks for commenting.
Nice ride again and a lucky win. I wanted to just spin the legs after hard week, but when saw muckers race I could not resist. It was mostly flat, but with few upwards sections and few surges we stayed in 4, mostly sharing the effort and flying away from chasers. I saw the guys do the hills hard, but not the donwnhills, so on one of the hills I tried to go over the horizont. The group fell apart, I got few meters, but after some time the rest regrouped and bring me back. So 4 again. I was feeling quite well, so tried again few kilemters from finish. This time I got around 30 meters, and as other had also the final sprint in their minds it was just enough hesitation so I could make it to the finish line one second before sprinting Neil.
Good race again!
I really appreciate it when the winner comments so thank you so much! Very interesting to see how you worked it to your advantage as well. Thanks again and well done!
Not a good race for me tonight. Took about 10 days off the trainer, what a mistake it’s surprising how that affects your performance couldn’t hold the power like usual. Lesson learnt 🤔
In a good group for the first 10km however lost my draft and couldn’t catch up with the pack so decided to not push it to much and let the next group catch up , stayed with them for around 10km , but just couldn’t keep the power up to stay in the group fell behind again.
It was indeed strange to see Rogerstrainer dropping backwards from me! its usually the other way round, which it probably would have been had it been hillier. It is also mad how much you do loose if your off the bike for some time, and 10days is a long break for cycling legs! you’ll be back on it soon and I’ll just have to look back on this race as a distant memory
Well, with not being on the bike for 5 days, I decided to take it easy. That was my plan, anyway. What happened was I started off below 143 bpm until I started to catch a few people. First was “JEFox76”, and then after about 8 miles, I caught “ogee”. “ogee” and I started to move a little faster. By this time, my bpm was around 165, and the idea of taking it easy was out the window. We could see “Ryanio-Bianchi”, “rogerstrainer”, and “Mitko99” in the distance with about 7 miles to go. For the next 6.5 miles, the four of us kept swapping the lead in our little group until “rogerstrainer” started to slowly drop off. On the last hill, “ogee”, “Mitko99”, and I pushed hard to get a little distance between us and “Ryanio-Bianchi,” which we did. But then “Mitko99” pushed hard and dropped “ogee” and me. With 600 yards to go, I needed to beat “ogee” to 17, then glitch time. “ogee” was 17, and I came in 0.2 seconds later. Thanks, Neil, for the “Easy Ride”!
that little competitive demon on the right shoulder was whispering in your ear I see… I’ve said it before, and ill say it again, its actually harder to be disciplined and take it easy on a race night when you just know you can catch/beat the riders around you! Sounds like you met quite a few riders along the way as well and it seems from all the comments and my experience that a few packs of four riders seemed to emerge and work well together.. is that the magic number?? hopefully see you on Thursdays race now Spring is over (it was a nice 2 days after all) and the rain has come back here in Bolton!
Thanks Neil for organizing the race! It was a fun race. I was with the front group from the beginning for awhile, but then got dropped on a hill climb. Well, it was expected. Fortunately, I was able to rejoin with my teammate “leon_ledoux”. After working with “leon_ledoux”, we took turn pull and draft, we were able to move couple positions up and behind the first group. What a teamwork!!👍👍
perfect team mate for you was Leon. both of you guys are really strong so i can totally understand you guys working well together. cheers for commenting Mucker!