John - SR-71 says:

I did a pre-ride of this route last Friday and learned some valuable lessons about my fitness. I developed a plan for todays race and did my best to stick to it. I started off averaging 300w over the first mile. I took a little breather on mile 2 (this was my nemesis in my pre-ride). I was able to control my breathing and maintain position, drafting a little bit. I was in 14th place!! Now came the hill. I felt energized and ready to attack the hill. Up I go at 300 watts! I was flying. But riders were starting to go past me. I was starting to get a bit frustrated even though I knew they were much stronger riders than me. I got to the top and the freight train of riders kept going by. I was trying to grab wheels, trying to push as hard as I could, trying anything to keep from falling back. I think I dropped back to 35th or so. There was a pack of Muckers that had gotten past as we were coming to the downhill. I went over the top all alone and tried the entire way down to catch that group. I was pedaling at 3wg trying to catch them. I never did. On the final 4 mile “flat” I had a little race with flyger, gunnera, GeorgeBookmiller and Guthinger-Mike. I think we all sort of wanted to draft but sort of wanted to pull away. It was a mess but it helped me push as hard as I could til the end. I managed 300w up the final sprint climb and then had to push to beat my goal. I crossed the line .06 seconds ahead of my goal!! Like Mucker, I also set a 5 min avg record and rode at my second highest average wattage for a ride. The only thing that I think would’ve helped would have been to burn a match to grab that group going down the hill. I’m really happy with how I rode today. These races are helping me get stronger.

Lamber Manuel says:

I like double challenges, because they skip the usual parameters and you can make a good impression if you are well trained. First race with an excellent start even though I already know that there will be a lot of bumps on the first hills. I got a good group, but I think they were looking for an asset they wouldn’t have to worry about. On the other hand, every time I saw a name not far away I tried to attack to close the gap. I’m glad I rode with Steven, even though we drifted apart, he’s a master of downhill riding. Nice team with osprey, FlyinSkyWalker, Kingcom, remko with here I lost the sprint, but happy to have often pulled the group. I wasn’t able to catch and hold Gazinho’s group… too bad. Thanks to everyone, but in my opinion there are still problems with the nearby avatars, it’s not clear how many there are and sometimes there’s no draw 🤷‍♂️

Wouter Groenen says:

A nice short race, so I thought. Short it was, but a though one. Produced a new ftp of 275 (back up to where I was this summer). In the end just over 1 mile too long for me. I started a little slow thinking I would go hard on the short climb and catch people there. That did work, but that left me low on gas in the last 1 or 2 minutes. I was in a nice litlle group with Mike and Batbuilder, but when Batbuilder started pushing 6 w/kg right before the last righthand turn I had to let go. Still managed to finish top 20, so right where I finished in the october championship.

Afterwards I rode the Rossfeld climb, another though one. It was easier in the sense that you could maintain a fixed pace, but still hard with long stretches of 12% + climbing.