HIKCRIT Flat Criterium Series

Course: Richmond Flat Roads
Distance: 45km / 28mi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olA9xCfRCs0

I’ve had a week off Zwift. I was beginning to struggle keeping my numbers up and I was getting quite tired off the bike too so I had 3 solid days off the bike over the weekend and started again with my commutes to work on Tuesday with a 90 min ride after work.

Today I decided I need to do at least one race before the Innsbruck Team Challenge on Sunday. I’ve stayed away from chats about teams etc. Been an A cat is simple, I just put my name down and rock up. Thing is, I found out today its 71km long ffs 🙂 This lead me to think I could do with some endurance in my legs so I decided to do a longer race than normal tonight.

So todays race was a couple of firsts. I’ve never raced the HIKCRIT series before and I rarely get to do the Richmond map and I’ve never raced on the Flat Roads course either. At 44km and pretty flat, it was a good choice for a long workout.

The numbers in the pen were impressive outside of the big KISS races etc. 150+ riders set off and the pace was high. With a solid 3 days of commuting and 25 miles already in my legs today, I was sensing this was going to be hard.

The pace through the first few laps seemed really fast with quite a big group of around 40 out front with no one scared to take it on and have a go. It was a good interval session if nothing else. The course is around 5km and at about half way there is a left hand turn with a 2% power climb where everyone seemed to just try and blow it to pieces. Every lap the group strung out and it put me in the red. With 2 to go I was hanging on a bit. The legs were really shouting at me to stop. A couple of big efforts on the penultimate lap saw me stay in touch and then I knew I’d be fine for the last lap. With a 700m to go a rider opened the sprint and it was a case of sprint and hang on as long as you can. I blew and had nothing left rolling in 21st.

With my commute in my legs, it was a great workout. I’m only riding to work tomorrow and then I’ll rest up for Sunday. My legs should be tip top and back in shape hopefully.

Ride on!