Mike Horgan Hill Climb

July 10, 2004

I left home late, at 7:15 a.m. and got down to the race area about 45 minutes before the start. Checking in went smoothly for once and the bathroom wait wasn’t too long either. The skies were overcast and threatening some rain, but it never happened. The cooler temperatures sure made climbing Sugarloaf less of the sweat-fest it usually is. I warmed up with two or three laps up 6 th street, peed a couple more times, and staged for the race. My neighbor and teammate Ed Messman was in this race and also Mike Holmberg of the Tour de Boulder.

The gun goes off and I’m near the front, but trying to stay out of the wind and get a draft for the first 4.5 miles up Boulder Canyon. It isn’t too steep here and the pace is pretty fast. We averaged about 17 mph to Sugarloaf and my heart rate was above 160 for a lot of this section. Ed would tell me later he was at 180 bpm, but he’s a lot younger guy than me. Ed rode further toward the front for much of this section. I was just trying to stay out of trouble and out of the wind. I knew nothing was going to happen until Sugarloaf. In fact, for a guy like me, nothing much happens in this race. It’s mainly a time trial because the road is so steep.

Photo by Rob Karman of www.roadracingphotos.com

I think I passed Ed right at the bottom of Sugarloaf Road. He said his legs never really felt great. He had worked so hard just to get to the base of this hill and Sugarloaf isn’t exactly the ideal recovery terrain. Mike was just behind me, I think. I didn’t see these guys again until the finish, but they rode pretty strong and came in just a few minutes after I did.

Eric Coppock was a road marshal at the start of Sugarloaf Road and I gave him a wave as I turned up the hill. I had told myself not to go to hard on the initial steep section of Sugarloaf, but I still did. I was trying and failing to stay with the lead group. We passed by Betasso Road in 3:51. When I set my PR on this climb it took me 4:35 to get here. Ouch. That’s gonna hurt in ten more minutes. I passed by Sugar Stick Road (?) in 15:21 (previous PR to here was 16:20). As expected, this wasn’t the best strategy and I started to explode. I alternated between sitting and standing and just got the work done to the summit.

I probably went too hard on the lower section, but I still managed to PR for the Sugarloaf climb. My previous best was 32:19 and today I did 32:08, and this was with a smoking ascent up Boulder Canyon, so I wasn’t too fresh when I started the climb. Matson did the climb in 28:50, so almost 3.5 minutes faster than me. That’s outrageous climbing and is faster than the FKT set by Mark Schwab at 29m35s. Now I know this isn’t the fastest Sugarloaf has been climbed and if Matson, in the second group of the Cat. 3’s, did it this fast, I can only imagine what the pro’s ride this hill. Probably under 25 minutes.

On the descent to the dirt, I hit a maximum of 51 mph. I caught and passed some riders here, but it was mainly older guys and women. When I hit the dirt section, I flew by a couple of guys in my race, but then started to tire. I was re-caught by at least one of these guys. I once again settled into time trial mode and just suffered. I’m a little distressed that I couldn’t get my heart rate higher. Maybe my heart rate is dropping like Kraig’s dropped. I used to be able to maintain 170+ for an hour, now I rarely break 170 bpm. Maybe I’ve just gone soft and can’t suffer the pain as well as I have in the past. Either way, it sucks.

On the downhill dirt section I hit 41 mph and slid my back tire getting around the turn. I thought I was going down there for a second, but the maneuver had me pass three or four others. A guy with unshaven legs caught me here and I latched onto his wheel. This race seems to bring out the strongest aerobic athletes. The competition seems to be much greater than at a normal road race. Pack riding skills, powers, and quick bursts are more valuable in those races, while in this race it is pretty much just aerobic capacity and the pack completely blow apart after fifteen minutes. Whatever the reason, I plummet in the standings almost as low as a flat crit and these hill climbs are supposed to be my strength. I’ve got lots of work to do to be a competitive bike racer.

I just hold onto the wheel of the guy in front of me for a good ten minutes. I can’t come around and pull as I’m on the rivet. We catch another guy and he latches on. At each rise there are attacks, but it keeps coming back together and we’re a group of three when we hit the Peak-to-Peak highway. We catch and pass some more riders here, but once again mostly older guys, younger guys, women, and maybe one guy in our division. I’m still just holding a wheel, but when the guy in front of me pulls over I move up and pull, but not super hard, as I’m resting up for an attack. I shift up a gear, stand, and blast away on an attack. I get a good gap and settle down into time trial mode again, but they come back on me. Dang. It was just too far to go and I’m empty. They come around me and I latch on. Then Hairy Legs attacks. I stand up and give it my all, but I can’t stay with him. I drop back and suffer on into the finish.

Figure 1 : Heart rate, speed, and elevation profile for the race.

I finished in 1:19:43, good enough only for 21 st place. This is 17 places better than last year, but I figure at least ten of those places are due to the Magic Bike   ™, so only seven places improvement with all the riding I’ve been doing. That’s disappointing. Matson finished in 1:13:57 to take 21 st place in the Cat. 3’s. He was six minutes faster than me. That pretty much ends any illusion about trying to keep up with him at the Tour de Boulder. I’m way, way below his level. I was hoping to break into the top twenty. Heck, I’ve finished in the top ten in a road race and I’m supposed to be a climber. Clearly I’m not. Next year, I’m definitely breaking into the top twenty! J Full results are located here:

http://www.boulderracing.com/7.10.04.asp#men4

Tour de Boulder riders Jon Baker, Mark Schwab, and Don Powell finished 4 th , 16 th , and 23 rd in the Pro/1/2 division. Jon rode the course in an incredible 1:07:29. Damn, this dude is so incredibly strong.

The race is about 18 miles and climbs 4300 vertical feet, as the profile and map here shows:

Table 1 : Interesting splits are 2 (Boulder Canyon to Betasso Road),
3 (Betasso Road to Sugarstick Road), and
4 (Sugarstick Road to summit of Sugarloaf). The last one averages 9.9%!