MUCKERS Explore Italy Grand Race. 11/05/23
Route Used : PEDALITALY Cinque Terre – Liguria – Italy | 18.09 miles | 2614.83 ft climbing
Route 2 from the Explore Italy Grand challenge.
33 Registers | 20 Finishers | 4 DNF | 9 DNS
Just the one race tonight I hear you say??? You are definitely correct! 2614 feet of climbing is enough for anyone after a day working so this is it for tonight. Also its quite good sometimes to know you don’t have to hold something back for the 2nd race as well, but I enjoy both formats so its not a permanent thing, just this route is long enough to be a stand alone race.
“Karel_sousek_drafting” made a welcome return to the Muckers races (even though I think the drafting part of the name might be new?) and set off with the goal of doing this in under 60 minutes which he achieved with a minute to spare to claim 1st place.
“robbiedoo” came over the line next to claim a very strong 2nd place, then, Making his debut for his new racing team…. “MikeHagen” claimed a superb 3rd for the Muckers Worldwide!
4th for the strong Spanish rider “Chorus” with the Romanian Rider “s.cata” rounding out this impressive top 5. all of these different nationalities completing this route with an average speed over 16mph!
6th came the 2nd Muckers Worldwide rider “Kylofski” who did his usual reverse psychology in the chat before hand, saying he had no legs tonight but we all laughed as it always means a strong ride is coming! fellow Muckers Worldwide teammate “mgk1971” came next, with what was looking to be a good showing by the team tonight!
“Henri_81” came through next in a very strong 8th place, then we had 2 more Muckers Worldwide riders coming home in 9th and 10th with “denny44” leading “S.Ludford” over the line to round out the top 10.
Can i just say a massive congratulations and thank you to all who completed this tonight. The climbing was tough tonight so we all did really well completing this! 4 gave up, but you didn’t! Well done again.
cheers
| # | Category | User | Age Group | Team | Race time | Time GAP | AVG Speed [mi/h] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Men |  karel_sousek_drafting | 40-49 | CK Vinohradske Slapky | 0:58:59.4 | 18.4 | |
| 2 | Men |  robbiedoo | 50-59 | Eastbourne Rovers CC | 1:02:24.8 | 0:03:25.7 | 17.39 |
| 3 | Men |  MikeHagen | 60+ | Muckers Worldwide | 1:03:45.5 | 0:04:46.4 | 17.02 |
| 4 | Men |  chorus | 40-49 | 1:05:50.1 | 0:06:51.6 | 16.48 | |
| 5 | Men |  s.cata | 40-49 | 1:07:47.1 | 0:08:48.9 | 16.01 | |
| 6 | Men | kylofski | 40-49 | Muckers Worldwide | 1:08:36.8 | 0:09:37.8 | 15.82 |
| 7 | Men |  mgk1971 | 50-59 | Muckers Worldwide | 1:12:20.4 | 0:13:21.3 | 15 |
| 8 | Men |  Henri_81 | 40-49 | Batauwers / Trail Riders Ommeren | 1:13:21.3 | 0:14:22.3 | 14.79 |
| 9 | Men | denny44 | 40-49 | Muckers Worldwide | 1:15:07.9 | 0:16:08.8 | 14.45 |
| 10 | Men | S.Ludford | 50-59 | Muckers Worldwide | 1:15:08.3 | 0:16:08.1 | 14.44 |
| 11 | Men | Mucker1974 | 40-49 | Muckers Worldwide | 1:17:03.1 | 0:18:04.9 | 14.08 |
| 12 | Men |  mszczu | 50-59 | 1:17:29.2 | 0:18:30.2 | 14.01 | |
| 13 | Men | lander_muc | 30-39 | 1:17:35.7 | 0:18:36.3 | 13.99 | |
| 14 | Men |  sycrel | 40-49 | 1:17:42.4 | 0:18:43.3 | 13.97 | |
| 15 | Men |  Andy_UP | 40-49 | Muckers Worldwide | 1:21:12.3 | 0:22:13.3 | 13.36 |
| 16 | Men |  remko_hijman | 40-49 | 1:22:01.2 | 0:23:01.1 | 13.23 | |
| 17 | Men |  Fuji54 | 60+ | 1:25:37.1 | 0:26:38.9 | 12.68 | |
| 18 | Men | Chicama | 50-59 | 1:26:19.4 | 0:27:20.3 | 12.57 | |
| 19 | Men | Eichie | 40-49 | 1:31:58.1 | 0:32:59.7 | 11.8 | |
| 20 | Men | Swifty | 40-49 | Muckers Worldwide | 1:32:02.3 | 0:33:03.3 | 11.79 |
| dnf | Men | fazzo34 | 40-49 | Muckers Worldwide | dnf | – | |
| dnf | Men | Tom-MWW | 40-49 | Muckers worldwide & Croston Velo | dnf | – | |
| dnf | Men | guest337 | 30-39 | dnf | – | ||
| dnf | Men | Jeroen1111 | 50-59 | Holland | dnf | – |
11th for me tonight and more than happy with that! really put it in on the first climb by staying on the wheel of “mszczu” and just seeing if i could stay with him all the way up the first climb. I just about managed it but I needed to recover on the downhill and then pace myself up the 2nd one. Got dropped up this one but I was waiting for the flat top part and last few climbs to put it back in which worked as I re caught “mszczu” and passed him and managed to keep him and the 2 other riders just behind him ( lander_muc and sycrel) who had been chasing me down preety much all the way along this tough route!
Apparently the scenery was beautiful … I don’t think I saw any of it. I had my eye on gradient numbers and watts (like a Team Sky rider) all the time. I had no pre-race plan tonight, although my fitness is feeling better and I’m “pretty fly for a wide guy” on the climbs, it just depends who else turns up on the night. So I started about 3.2w/kg to find myself 12/13th position and thought it’s worth digging in and see what happens. ‘Mucker1974’ was a couple of places ahead which is a good marker for me as I generally need a few miles to work my way to his wheel on a climb, suddenly I was 11/12th so I’m not sure who glitched out but I wasn’t going to complain. I was on my own for a long time following at distance ‘mszczu’ and teammate ‘Mucker1974’ but first I lost a place to ‘Henri_81’. As the 2nd climb ramped up I finally bridged to ‘star of the night’ in my eyes ‘Mucker1974’ who was in awesome form before closing down ‘mszczu’ and suddenly a Top 10 was looking good. Around this time Mucker ‘Tom-MWW’ had a technical and ground to a halt, my sympathies Mucker a good position was secure until that point. Now racing alone for 9th/10th position I saw teammate ‘denny44’ was closing down ‘mszczu’ and decided if he could pass then gap the rider I would wait so we could team up and secure the final two mentions. This was the way it went and we were able to draft to the line and we rolled over together trying to let each other have the 9th spot. I was more than happy with 10th on this terrain.
aww mate, thanks for the star of the night nomination, don’t give me ideas for another category 😂. You climbed really well tonight and we must do this again so we can actually take in the scenery better! Tom actually reported on his strava he ended up quitting due to not feeling well so we can’t put that one down to technical issues this time. i like to think our mounting pressure pushed him over the edge….. 🙄 cheers for commenting Mucker.
So I’m a Mucker now. I figure if Neil is calling it Muckers Worldwide, then it needs to be worldwide, so here’s my west coast North America time zone added to the group. Tonight was awesome. With two tough Tuesday races still in my legs, I was not expecting much. But for some reason, I had legs, and felt really strong, cruising with Karel the first couple kms, what the hell? But then he upped the pace a bit, and I didn’t want to go, though Robbiedoo and Tom-MWW did. I saw chorus and s.cata coming, so I waited for them, and we worked up the first hill together for awhile. We caught and passed Tom, then s.cata fell off the back, so it was chorus and me working really well together on the middle downish bit and up the second climb. It was about all I could do to stay with chorus there, but then, 2/3rds of the way up the second climb, where it flattens for a bit, I surged to see if he still felt strong. Got a gap there, so I went. Held the pace to the finish. I could see I was gaining on Robbiedoo, but I was never going to catch him. So it was great! Sometimes when you’re on, it’s just so nice to roll with it.
Thanks Mike for helping me during part of the race, but on the last climb I couldn’t increase the pace to keep up with you, I preferred to set my own pace.
This was always going to be a tough one, and before the race, I truly thought I had no power in my legs. These climbing races are my thing, sort of. Anyway, enough of the excuses; it was time to race. My goat-chasing Muckers teammate, Andy_up, had already said that he wanted to do Zone 4 training on this race, so that was one less racer for me to chase down.
After the first hill, there were two Muckers Worldwide racers in front of me: Mgk1971 and Tom-MMW. I was riding with Mgk1971 and S.Cata on the flats/downhills until we hit the second hill. In the meantime, Tom-MMW had technical issues, so there was only me and Mgk1971 racing for the top Muckers finish.
As we hit the second hill, I slowly pulled away from Mgk1971 and S.Cata. When I got to the top of the hill, S.Cata had caught me back up, and we raced along the last flat. As we approached the last climb, S.Cata pulled away with 4.2w/kg. I had nothing left. He can have this, as I’ve got the top Muckers spot, is what I was thinking.
As I crossed the line, I checked the results: 6 out of 20, not bad. Also, a mention on the race report too and top Mucker. Wait, I wasn’t the top Mucker. MikeHagen is now a Mucker too; he finished 3rd. Oh well, there’s always next time. Thanks, Muckers!
When I saw the profile, I thought I can do 2 things. Race as hard as I can to end 11th (Sorry Neil, I think I could have beaten you) or make it a nice long zone 4 training. I choose the 2nd option, and did 50min zone 4 training before this race. All added up 2h10min training, I hope to see results for it next week. I thank Denny for making the ride less lonely, thought his tempo was a tad to high, being a bit in zone 5 sometimes isn’t that bad either.