MUCKERS Explore Italy Grand Race 09/05/23
Rouvy route used : Rome | Italy| 7.11 miles | 150.92 ft climbing
Route 5 from the Explore Italy Grand challenge
30 registered | 23 finishers | 1 DNF | 6 DNS
2nd race of the night as I needed to slot this in somewhere and it needed to be after a race that wasn’t that long. Ifelt it fitted in nicely after the Misty cliffs route and this was scheduled for 45 minutes after that race.
This is basically a flat city route so drafting was going to be the order of the day to get this one done well, or use it as a bit of recovery or training after the flat out effort of the first race. As per all my races, its entirely up to you how you use them!
“JoseCostaRonda” definitely didn’t use this as a recovery ride, finishing with an average speed of 28.36mph and over 40 seconds in front of the chasing pack.
The chasing pack consisted of 4 extremely strong regulars with “Tuden” getting the better of them all in 2nd and “hinsbergen” just .2 of a second behind in 3rd. His Teammate “adampel” next in 4th followed by the American rider “nelsonsnyder” in 5th.
We then had just over a minute to wait before the next trio came racing over the line. “EdAlves” winning this little battle for 6th, Muckers Worldwide rider “Denny44” in 7th and possibly new team member😉 “MikeHagen” getting a much deserved mention in 8th!
A 4 way battle for the last 2 mentions next: Muckers Worldwide rider “Andy_UP” claiming 9th with “StephanieBriggs” coming home just behind in 10th.
It was a strange little route this one, but hope everyone enjoyed it and it ticks off another route from the Italy challenge and might have just made it a bit more interesting as a race route!
cheers everyone for racing, especially those who did both races tonight.
| # | Category | User | Age | Team | Racetime | GAP | Av.mph |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Men |  JoseCostaRonda | 40-49 | G. A. A Ronda | 0:15:03.1 | 28.36 | |
| 2 | Men |  Tuden | 40-49 | Flø Garage Cycling | 0:15:46.1 | 0:00:43.3 | 27.07 |
| 3 | Men |  hinsbergen | 40-49 | Team Adam-Chris | 0:15:46.3 | 0:00:43.1 | 27.07 |
| 4 | Men | adampel | 40-49 | Team Adam-Chris | 0:15:46.9 | 0:00:43.8 | 27.05 |
| 5 | Men |  nelsonsnyder | 50-59 | Raceperre | 0:15:47.4 | 0:00:44.3 | 27.03 |
| 6 | Men | EdAlves | 30-39 | A. D. Grijó / AutoMarques | 0:16:46.8 | 0:01:43.7 | 25.44 |
| 7 | Men |  denny44 | 40-49 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:16:47.6 | 0:01:44.5 | 25.42 |
| 8 | Men |  MikeHagen | 60+ | 0:16:49.6 | 0:01:46.5 | 25.37 | |
| 9 | Men |  Andy_UP | 40-49 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:17:14.1 | 0:02:11.9 | 24.75 |
| 10 | Women | StephanieBriggs | 40-49 | Raceperre | 0:17:18.8 | 0:02:15.7 | 24.66 |
| 11 | Men | Rens_Piccavet | 30-39 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:17:19.4 | 0:02:16.3 | 24.64 |
| 12 | Men |  lrollin | 50-59 | 0:17:23.4 | 0:02:20.3 | 24.55 | |
| 13 | Men | rouvy1bryon | 60+ | 0:17:50.4 | 0:02:47.3 | 23.93 | |
| 14 | Men | Kobus1979 | 40-49 | 0:18:37.8 | 0:03:34.7 | 22.91 | |
| 15 | Men |  S.Ludford | 50-59 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:19:00.4 | 0:03:57.3 | 22.46 |
| 16 | Men |  AndZan | 40-49 | 0:19:18.4 | 0:04:15.3 | 22.11 | |
| 17 | Men | Shrek707 | 50-59 | Tendola Cycling & Muckers Worldwide | 0:19:24.6 | 0:04:21.5 | 21.99 |
| 18 | Men | kylofski | 40-49 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:19:40.1 | 0:04:36.9 | 21.71 |
| 19 | Men | robbiedoo | 50-59 | Eastbourne Rovers CC | 0:19:46.2 | 0:04:43.6 | 21.59 |
| 20 | Men | Mucker1974 | 40-49 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:19:47.1 | 0:04:44.2 | 21.58 |
| 21 | Men |  poctak | 40-49 | 0:21:02.9 | 0:05:58.1 | 20.29 | |
| 22 | Men | UncleE64 | 50-59 | 0:23:27.9 | 0:08:24.8 | 18.19 | |
| 23 | Men | Swifty | 40-49 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:31:31.7 | 0:16:28.6 | 13.54 |
| dnf | Men | Lorenzino | 40-49 | dnf | – |
20th place but used it as a bit of Interval training with Kyle and it was great fun! We recovered and re grouped on the flats then did little sprints up the hills. We were joined by several different riders along the way so i hope it didn’t look too weird what we were doing to those guys!
I think I was slightly ‘punch drunk’ from the 1st race effort and nearly missed the start of this one. I clicked on ‘my events’ thinking I had 5 mins and it was counting down 30 seconds to start. I jumped on bike and started a bit lazy, I could see the group of about 5 riders that eventually competed for the last top 10 positions pulling away and decided I’d wait for another rider to chase it and take me with them, nobody tried to follow and the train was gone. ‘StephanieBriggs’ then bridged across really strong and I just couldn’t follow leaving me and ‘Kobus1979’ riding in no man’s land for 14th place. ‘Kobus1979’ rode smart and was saving energy, his Avatar name suggested a much younger man than me so I decided I couldn’t go to the finish line with him, I kicked really hard on one of the short underpass ‘kickers’ to dislodge him but he pulled big watts and easily came back to me so I let him go and rode to the finish line as slow as I could without conceding 15th place.
I only wanted a little recovery ride after an epic first race. Once we started, Mucker1974 said, ‘Let’s ride together.’ We caught UncleE64 and rode with him for a bit. Then the three of us caught shrek707. The four of us continued for a little while, but then UncleE64 had technical issues. Then there were three. This is when the fun started. Every little bump, we would race to the top, then recover. This happened all the way to the finish. I really enjoyed this flat ride. Thanks, Muckers.
That was a tough one. Had no legs after the first race, just dead. Started feeling myself about 2 km in, riding with denny44 at that point, so tried to work with him and maybe we’d both go faster. It’s really hard to effectively switch off virtually, and I tend to be impatient anyway, but we were doing okay. I had some weird avatar/video syncing things going on at the end so I missed that we were catching EdAlves, but I was in no shape for any kind of finish sprint anyway. I’ll leave that kind of thing to you young guns. (Actually, no I won’t.)
These flat routes are not my cup of tea, but I was a little frustrated I couldn’t get in the hight red the first race, and thought, let’s just go for it. I started off like crazy, following Tuden, Ed, Nelson and teammates Adam-Chis. As always, I could only stay in the draft for a few minutes. I blew up, let them go, saw Denny and Mike flying past while my legs said, “nope, not yet”. Had recovered just enought to get in the group with Jens, Stephanie, Irollin and Bryon. Staphanie was clearly the stong one in this group, as she chopped like only a Canadian lumberjack can. It was fun to battle for her draft with the other 3. Bryon had to let go on a little uphill. On rouvy, I usually loose every sprint I do, but this time few had a sprint left after giving it all in 2 races. I am happy with my top 10 mention so I could end race night with a better feeling as I had after the first race.