Many bike riders who ride in large packs have been told to stay near the front. Riding near the front (but not AT the front) of the group is easier because the pace is smoother. Riders near the back often have to close gaps if a rider in front of them fall off the pace. They also suffer the "slinky effect" going through corners where they are required to decelerate into a corner and quickly accelerate out of the corner to keep up with the group. For this stage's analysis, we'll compare the power of one of the ISCorp riders who was able to stay near the front of the race to another rider who started further back in the field. We'll see what difference a rider's position in the field makes on the power requirements to stay with the field.
Race Summary
As the men lined up for Wednesday's criterium in St. Paul, the rain continued to fall. The pro women had just finished their race in the rain, and if the sky was any indication, it didn't look like it was going to stop raining anytime soon. On top of the technical race course, rain was not something the riders were excited to see, but the race must go on.
The course consisted of 6 corners with a long downhill leading into a ninety degree left-hand turn onto an incline stretch. The start-finish stretch was on a downhill slope. This should have been a fast and furious race leading to an exciting finish. The race was indeed fast and furious, but the finish was less than exciting.
The ISCorp riders report that from the gun, people were crashing on every lap - it was that third corner coming off the downhill that was picking off the peloton one by one. At one point, a Toyota United rider slid out, and as he skidded along the concrete on his rear, he threw his hands up in a display of exasperation - this was the second time he crashed in the same corner.
The race was scheduled to be 45 laps long. After 20 laps of racing, an official on a motorcycle crashed and took down some riders. The race was neutralized to make sure the downed riders and the official were okay. The riders regrouped at the Start Line and decided that it was not worth it to continue in the current conditions with 5 hard stages to go. The racers themselves voted not to restart the race. There would be no winner for this stage.
ISCorp Teams' Point of View
At the beginning of the race, each team was allowed to designate one racer for a call up. Generally in large races like Nature Valley, all the riders line up at a "pre-start" line, and individual riders are called up one-by-one to the real start line. After the pre-designated individual riders are called up to the line, the rest of the field is allowed to roll in mass to the start line. With a field of 150 riders on a technical crit course, it is a huge advantage to be able to start near the front. On the ISCorp team, Steve Scholzen, a podium-finisher at this year's collegiate nationals and the team's designated sprinter was given the call up. The rest of the team had to fare for themselves in the field.
After the race, the ISCorp riders talked about how they felt during the race. The three guys who didn't get a call up thought the race was incredibly hard. Steve, on the other hand, was able to float in the main pack at the front and thought the race wasn't hard at all, so for this stage's power analysis, we'll compare Steve's power file to one of the other ISCorp riders who was further back in the field.
Power Analysis
The graphs below were taken from the PowerAgent software with a Smoothing Factor of 10 and a Sampling Factor of None. They very clearly show the difference between riding near the front and riding towards the back of the field. Team captain and Saris Design Engineer comments:
Once I actually looked at the power files, it was interesting that Steve's peak powers for all time increments, and average power for the race were lower than Matthew's. Matthew was 100+ riders back; Steve never floated further back than 30th place. Steve's power graph is also very consistent from lap-to-lap (there's a repeated pattern of power output for every lap), while Matthew's is all over the place. I think you can assume that this was because Matt went hard when he had the opportunity to move up, or when a rider in front of him opened a gap, while Steve's power was dictated by the course, instead of the riders in front of him, or lack of.
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If you have any questions for the riders, post them in the comments, and we'll post the answers.
Next up: Stage 2's 60-miles road race. Rumor has it that we will be able to compare data with one of the pro racers on Toyota United, so keep your fingers crossed that we get the logistics worked out on that. Start time is 5pm, so look for an update tomorrow.
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