I've been looking at google street view and it looks like there are a lot of flatish paved rural roads east of CO Springs. Am I getting the wrong impression?

Looks like average temps for that time are 70's/80's? Is that right? Any risk of really hot weather? (which I struggle in).

Both TT options have around 1,000' of climbing or so. So I don't think it will be an Watts/CdA contest. Aero of course will be important, but you're going to have to bring some horsepower also.

I reached out to Chuck Hodge, chief of racing and events for USA Cycling, and asked about the course this morning. He was kind enough to respond immediately with the following:
We are going to be meeting with local agencies to finalize details early in 2019 - although we have preliminary agreements on our chosen course. Our goal is for a flat 20k and 40k and we are looking at certifying for records.

We will produce course maps and related information once we have our final agreements in place.

Chuck

Yeti racer wrote:

Is this TT per qualification only?

Yes, you need to buy a license and travel to Colorado Springs. If you can afford those things, you are qualified. :-)


Seriously, all you need is a license. For the TT you can be a cat 5. For the road events you'd need to be a cat 3 unless you're 60 I believe then cat 5 is okay.


I did a bit of looking through the BRAC web site to see what races were held in Colorado Springs. If I had to guess, this is likely to be the road race course.


https://www.strava.com/routes/13429290



They held the Junior and Master state RR championship on this course last year on 8/12. Also worth noting that Pikes Peak is traditionally on this weekend. Was 8/11 last year. So if all you want to race is the TT, do that and then to the Pikes Peak fondo on the weekend. Just bring appropriate gearing for a mile at 10% at almost 14,000' above sea level.


The road course looks like a race of attrition. Not particularly hard, but will wear on you. That and it peaks out at ~7,200' above sea level. But the climb only averages about 3%.

I have raced at Air Force probably five times and there have been about four different coarses. The one consistent thing about them all is that they will be a mixture of long'ish shallow climbs and maybe a couple of short punchy climbs of the 75 yard variety. Toss in one or two fast docents with a corner or two and there was probably 2 miles of dead flat stuff by the football stadium a couple years back. Nothing like the long climbs that decided the Utah and Bend races.

My guess would be that the route will be determined by what is available. They will be busy tormenting the incoming cadets in August and the fall sports teams may be practicing, so I would be surprised if they ran through campus. I think the loop you showed on Strava would limit access to the visitor center. My guess would be they would use the upper part of the Strava loop and run the route down and across the lower sports fields and by the pool, but that is a total WAG.

The one commonality is that they have never been pure climbers coarses. They are consistently hard and you will need to ride intelligently to do well, especially if it is breezy. I would guess it will be a race of attrition

I have no idea what they could do at Fort Carson for the TT. I have never been there. The outside bet would be to run the TT in South Park. Probably 20 years ago they ran a National record challenge up there. Bostick, Frye, Colby... were all there. There was new pavement, but the weather was unusually bad on both occasions. That would be a super fast coarse on a good air day.

I've been looking at google street view and it looks like there are a lot of flatish paved rural roads east of CO Springs. Am I getting the wrong impression?

Looks like average temps for that time are 70's/80's? Is that right? Any risk of really hot weather? (which I struggle in).

That's pretty exciting. I like flat and fast TT courses!

Thanks.

Flatness is nice, but if you want a fast course it's also important to have an eye to prevailing wind direction and intensity (usually increasing in the morning, and decreasing in the evening). And if there is steady wind, it's faster to have a headwind on the downhill stretch, and a tailwind on the uphill. Of course, good pavement is important. Smooth asphalt, not chipseal. Even smooth chipseal is slow.

But "flat" is relative for Colorado. I don't know anything around here that's flat like Moriarty, NM.

Michael

Well parts of South Park are pan flat. It has been too many years since I drove over to the north end from the Springs, but that might be a possibility.

Alamosa is 165 miles from Colorado Springs. I can't imagine they'd expect people to drive 5+ hours round trip on top of racing, and hopefully lodging/racing additional days in C.S., as great of a course as it may be.