devashish_paul wrote:
lakerfan wrote:
Rode the course today. First time since 2004 and they obviously haven't paved the roads since then. Those are the worst roads I have ever ridden on in my life. I'd honestly say they were borderline unsafe. Countless potholes, cracks, etc. If you have any loose fillings then they're gone after 56 miles. I thought it was super hard to get any rhythm at all.
Is Nasty Grade or the run the worst? I'd take both of those easily over these roads.
I'll be there for the long course. Should be fun either way.
The race only starts at Nasty Grade. That's the easiest part of a well executed Wildflower race. If it does not feel like a cruise heading up, the run will be absolute misery. The hardest part of the bike course are all the rollers after Nasty Grade heading back to T2...and after that you have the run which is the hardest part. You have to leave a lot in the tank for going in and out of what I call the "pit" at mile 10/12 range. Coming out of there is a killer especially if it is hot. You climb all the way to the final downhill but if you are done, you have no legs left for the downhill to the finish and that's steep an hard. In general I have had good races at Wildflower because I listened to guys like Monty who said that all the hardest part was starting at Nasty Grade. What I found was you can have a rythm up to and including Nasty Grade...after that and for the entire run, you're constantly being hammered by short or long duration hills and you can't get into any good rythm. I found this favored my background as an XC ski racer as almost all of the racing in that sport is hard and short spikey hills and I'd typically go to Wildflower a month after ski race season was done.
As for the pavement, I first raced in 1996, then 2007, 2010, 2015....no one touched the pavement since 1996!!!!
When I was referring to how hard it was to get a rhythm, it had nothing to do with the course terrain. It was all about the road surface. In fact, I was getting bounced up, down and around so much I'm almost convinced my power meter wasn't reading accurately. I had both pads on my aero bars drop on me multiple times due to large potholes. Lost a bottle (and half of my liquid nutrition). Btw, I haven't lost a bottle in probably 12 years. If there is anything remotely loose on your bike, I promise it will come off.
Sure, overall, the course is challenging and it certainly gets most interesting once you hit Nasty Grade. However, I'm not sure what the condition of the roads were like when you did it last in 2015 but these roads are pure 100% shit.
