The Sage Brush Safari race was held on April 5, 2009, the third round of the new Sho Air-Specialized U.S. Cup of mountain bike racing. The race was also the third round of the Kenda Cup West series. The Sage Brush Safari is very well known for its epic super-fast singletrack. Wildfires and restrictions in Lake Morena, CA prevented Team Big Bear from hosting this fantastic event in previous years. But this year the race was on, and CycleOps Powered Athlete Manuel Prado was in the thick of it. Below are his race highlights and power profile.

"The wind was blowing furiously, but this did not stop the 500+ riders at the start line from having a good time racing their bikes. Working as a group was important today, and I kept an eye on my CycleOps PowerTap - especially in the first 10 minutes of the race - making sure I was not doing too much work too early.

"Once the pack of riders arrived to the first climb, I knew that I had good legs and decided to move all the way to the front of the pack. Right before the top Pro riders crested the first climb, Andy Schultz from Team Kenda made a very aggressive move and blew things apart, maybe he was just making sure he could have the hole shot for the first long singletrack. All the Sho-Air Pro squad responded well and got right on his wheel. Sam was the first one to pay the price of team Domestic and got gapped a little. I went to the rescue to work together to close the gap to Sid and Andy, but the 2 leaders were making steady progress as we started the major climb of the day to the top to Mt. Pinos. I was riding right at my power threshold limit all the entire climb. By the time we crested I was in 5th place about 30 seconds back from 3rd and 15 seconds back from 4th. I tried to close the gap on the descent but the two riders rode just as hard all the way down the mountain. The descent had short little climbs where you had to power hard to keep your momentum. I made sure I could hold over 400 watts on these short climbs in order to stay in contact with the 2 riders in front. Once at the bottom of this descent, all we had was one more climb to go and a sweet singletrack descent to the finish. I was still fighting hard to catch up to 3rd and 4th, but the other riders rode just as hard. The same separation they had at the top of Mountain Pinos is what they had at the finish line, roughly 20-45 seconds to 3rd and 4th.

"This race is really what Epic Mountain Biking is all about - a big figure 8 loop with fast super-fun singletrack. It’s truly one of the most memorable in the US Kenda Cup West Series.

"I was pleased to have raced my Specialized Epic for this event, each time I got to the downhill sections I was so happy to have my 4” of travel. As the others were getting bounced around on their hardtail bikes I was flowing on the rocky rough sections of the course, not to mention that on the climbs my bike automatically locked-out to turn into a hardtail-feeling bike and allow me to climb fast and efficiently.”

Team Sho-Air had a great show this weekend with all 3 of their riders in the podium. Sid Taberlay (Sho-Air/Specialized) took the win with Andy Schultz (Team Kenda/Tomac/Hayes) in second, Sam Jurekovic (Team Sho-Air/Specialized) in third, Rob Squire (U23 National Team) in fourth. Prado completed the podium in fifth place at the third stop of the US Kenda Cup West. Next stop will be the Sea Otter Classic in Monterey April 17-19, which is also the second stop of the Pro XC Tour.

Prado shared his data with us. First we took a look at overall data.

Then we broke it into sections to take a closer look at what it took to power over the course. We opted to divide the data according to the terrain of the course.

Then we took Prado's peak power outputs at different time intervals and compared the peak power output for a given time period from all the sections.

This graph shows that Manny achieved his highest 5 second, 30 second, 1 minute, 5 minute, and 10 minute powers within the first 16 minutes of the race. In mountain biking, establishing a top position in the field early on in the race is important because making up time later on may not be possible if you are stuck behind slower riders. Manny worked hard to get to the front and stay there.

The salmon colored bar represents the major descent on the course, so it is not surprising to see that his peak power averages for all time frames evaluated were lowest during this section of the race. Going downhill, it is often more energy efficient to keep your speed up by staying in an aerodynamic position, rather than trying to keep pressure on the pedals at a maximum. Mountain biking also adds the challenge of obstacles along the path, so a heads-down, all-out approach is not often the fastest strategy on an off-road descent.

Prado finished with a strong surge, obtaining his second-highest 5 second best power during the final segment of the race.

Thanks to Manuel for giving us an insight into what it takes to race in the top of the field at a pro-level man's mountain bike race.