Tour of Tucker County 2009

Posted by Dan on 7. June 2009 18:14

This weekend's main event was the Tour of Tucker County in Thomas, WV. VeloNews claims the 2008 edition of this race was one of the 10 toughest single-day races in the US, so you know Team Fitness Together HAD to go. This year's race was made tougher by requiring riders to tackle the full length of the last climb, a four mile stretch of road rising about 2000 ft with an average grade of roughly 10%, reaching 18-20% at times. I did alright, but my kids puked three times just getting to the race.

Tucker County High School donated their parking lot for parking, registration and rider prep. The whole lot of us departed the parking lot for the ride to the finish area, then down the long climb that would eat our lunches later in the day. At this point, the shrewd rider would have noted the one-lane road with no markings, loose gravel and general dampness and turned around, opting to be entertained by the Pain Faces that would come in the next two hours. Unfortunately, one's level of shrewdness degrades at a rate proportional to the distance one drove to get to the race. So we sat there on a dank, dark road at the bottom of a precipice waiting for someone to tell us to race.



Near the bottom, the groups were staged at the starting line and rolled out with a five minute separation. Kyle rolled out with the 1/2/3s. 42 riders took off over the hill and around the corner and that would be the last we'd see of them until their spectactular finish. Next off were the Masters and Juniors, then the women, then us 4/5s. The last group to go were the Cat 5s that chose to stay away from us uncouth 4s.



The pace started out at a very responsible pace. The course travels along a river with a pretty flat elevation for a few miles, then turns right and begins the ascent into madness. The group did a good job keeping the pace just high enough to maintain a steady stream of shelled riders. The stairstepped terrain allowed us fat guys (those that haven't seen 140 lbs since high school) to close small gaps quickly simply by tucking into an aero position on the brief downhill sections.



Almost halfway up the first climb, I came across my wife, kids and Kyle who had blown up early keeping pace with the 1/2/3 group. Kyle's been off the bike since he was crashed out the Patriots Crit in Fayetteville, NC two weeks ago. I don't think he cares much for climbing, either, being a gifted sprinter. He gets props for showing up anyway with his busted up finger and fast twitch muscle fibers.

Eventually, the gaps grew too big and I was officially off the back with a small group of six guys. Throughout all of this, Wick was hanging near the front of our group. I'd later learn that he was redlining for nearly most of the climb, but you'd never know it.

After the KOM marker, I was prepared for the long, fast descent. I thought about stuffing my jersey with empty PowerGel pouches - you know, to protect me from the chill. But the descent didn't come. Instead, it was more climbing. Alas, as all good things must come to an end, so too did these wretched hills. The descent was pretty quick despite the sketchy road conditions. The roads were still one lane, gravel in some spots, pot holes aplenty and occassionally covered with wet grass. The sun did come out and was drying up most of the wet, so there was that. The sun could not, however, make the deer go away. The lead group was surprised by three deer crossing the road at three different spots. At least hitting a deer is softer than pavement and I'm sure any of the locals could make some great venison jerky for you. I guess there were many accidents on the descent as well as flats. My small group of 6 didn't experience anything like that. Smooth sailing.

Around the 1:20 mark, someone asked where the group was and another rider reported "5 minutes up". I found this more than mildly irritating, as there's no point to telling me 5 minutes. Lie to me. Tell me they're just around the corner, maybe 20 seconds away. Why on earth would I kill myself before a monster climb to catch a group I had no chance of catching? Fortunately, he was wrong. Two turns later we came upon our group, albeit much smaller and full of Masters and Women contaminants. Fat guys win again!

After regrouping, we recovered for about 10 more minutes as we approached the final climb. Here's what I remember: everything was fine. I was chugging along, in my big chainring, all fat, dumb and happy. Then one guy goes up the road and a few go with him. I think, "Oh, I should do that too." But the road had other ideas. So I shifted to the small chainring and uttered something like "bring it" or "why didn't I bring my cell phone so I could call my wife to come pick me up?" Half the group headed up the hill with stragglers strewn out behind them. Wick was about 5 seconds in front of me and having a hard time staying with the group. This was fine. Wick was clearly hurting on the steepest part of the climb, weaving a little bit. I'm convinced it had something to do with his lack of body fat. Then he started opening the gap on me and I was unable to answer. Two riders passed me as I happily chugged along, doing my best to stay around 85% of my threshold. I later passed those same two riders after one blew out his rear tire and the other decided to walk to show solidarity towards his fallen competitor.



The climb took about 30 minutes and was just shy of 4 miles based on PowerTap data. There were a lot of happy and broken people at the top of that hill, clearly pleased they were able to complete such a trecherous climb. My numbers for the climb (and whole race) were:

Duration: 29:35:34
Work: 470 kJ
Normalized Power: 275 Watts
Distance: 3.775 mi
Average Power: 265 watts
Average Heart Rate: 169 bpm
Average Cadence: 63 rpm
Average Speed: 7.5 mph

Over the whole race, I did an average of 245 watts for 1:58:04. Max speed was 45.5 mph with an average of 17.2 mph. That was enough to finish 14th out of 50 starters, 7:07 minutes behind the fastest time. Wick blew past a few more guys in the last kilometer and secured 11th place with a time of 1:56:41, a mere 5:44 seconds behind the fastest time.

Hardest ride ever and I can't wait until next year. Thanks to Backyard Bike Club and all of their sponsors for putting on the race.

Lydia got some great pictures. See them here.

More pictures from David Cobb of Team Traveller are here and still more from Trek301 are here. Results have been posted here.