Takin’ Chopz

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I was yesterday years old when I learned that Janeane Garofalo voiced Colette in Ratatouille

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Benicássim > Castellón

VCV started with a banger of a stage, not only because the route itself was fairly challenging and technical, but also because the outcome was one that I don't think anyone was really anticipating. 

Setting out from Benicássim, a beach-side suburb about an hour north of Valencia, the peloton got straight to business, with teams sending flyers up the road left and right. After Mallorca, we at Project Echelon were feeling confident with our abilities to mix it up in the early phases of racing, as we had developed a good rhythm of swapping between teammates in order to tag moves or initiate them ourselves. The open highway section for the first 30 kilometers offered ample space to move up and around the pack, so we were doing well to make sure we were represented in any move that looked to have potential to be let go. 

Of course, luck isn’t always on your side, and right as we exited the highway and began the first of several climbs throughout the day, a group of 5 went up the road, quickly followed by a chase of 2. I say luck wasn’t on our side, but, really, this was also a matter of positioning, and, hindsight being 20/20, it made sense that the break went at the base of the climb, and I should have been prepared for that. 

As the gap was established, the peloton sat up, and when I say sat up, I mean they REALLY sat up. The gap ballooned out to more than 5 minutes in the course of the first climb, which we took at what I can only describe a frighteningly leisurely pace, given I knew the easier we went now, the harder we would go later down the line. 

However, the hard tempo that I think we were all expecting didn’t come for a verrrrrrry looooooong time. No single team wanted to take up the chase, and a little more than halfway through the stage, the gap had extended even further out to over 8 minutes, meaning if someone didn’t take control soon, this break was going to make it to the line. 

Eventually, teams like Bora and UAE would stick some folks on the front and we would begin to ride harder, and by the time we were within the last 35 kilometers, we were going at a breakneck pace. This last phase of the stage presented the crux point of the day, a twisty and technical neighborhood jaunt composed of ridiculously steep climbs and even steeper descents, reminiscent of a Sunset Loop at Redlands. Through this section, Tyler would work his way into the front group, but I would come undone and grind my way to a grupetto that would be my company up the last of the day’s climbs, the Alto del Desierto de Las Palmas, a beautiful 5.5-kilometer ramp at an average of 6% that deposited us right in the center of the national park of the same name before sending us down an extremely fun, virtually brakeless descent that plopped us back in the hustle and bustle of the city. 

While I was struggling to just make time cut, it turns out that two riders from the same team in the breakaway had yet again broken away on this very climb to build a gap of over a minute, which they would hold all the way to the line against a fast-charging peloton trying to play catch up from a day of lolly-gagging. 

I would roll in with my group, happy to have made it through the day, but ruing the possibilities of what could have been had we gotten a man into the breakaway. 


Note: the power data is inapplicable, as the unit was suffering from some connectivity issues.　

👏 132.04 new kilometers

-- From Wandrer.earth

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Sam Boardman

Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana: Etapa 1

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Takin’ Chopz

Briannnnnnnnnnnnnnn

WAKE UP LEGZ

I was yesterday years old when I learned that Janeane Garofalo voiced Colette in Ratatouille

Morning Ride

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