Wintergreen Ascent Race Report, Masters 40+

Another year, and another shot at the big guy trying to climb championship. The Mens Masters 40+ had the first block of starts, and with the new parking situation and a few other start area details, I didn’t get much of a warm up, about 10 minutes. But I did get a port-o-john run in, priorities and such. Wasn’t really nervous or anything this year. Just kind of rolled up, waited a minute and chatted with my fellow Masters, and then bang- off I go.

The first mile, which normally is pretty fast had a nasty headwind today which made that section much slower then usual.

After that was the demoralizing first set of steep sections before and after the gate house. Here I concentrated on form, and thanking my lucky starts I went with the mid-level SRAM 11-28 cassette I had laying around despite how absurdly heavy it is (made with scrap iron, and depleted uranium I believe). Heavy or not, the 28 allows you to keep a semi-normal cadence on the steep ramps of Wintergreen.

After the gatehouse steep sections, it was pretty smooth, steady (and painful) until the turn off to the main Wintergreen lodge, where there is a nasty, nasty pitch to the turn, and plenty of people watching you try it. Plus, right afterwards you see the 1 K to go sign, which may embolden you to push the pace- which would really hurt you given the two nasty sections between you and the finish. I held it steady, and powered to the finish. 45:28 I believe, good for 12th in the Masters 40+. Right on pace with prior years, but a tad off due to the headwind at the bottom is my guess.

Kudo’s to Craig and the boys at Cville Bike! Not only did they deal with a barrage of Wintergreen phone questions all week, they pulled out all the stops to get my much anticipated 2008 Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL 2 module built up with the parts off my 2008 Tarmac Pro so I could race it today. Of course, that means if you are in the market for a 58cm Tarmac Pro module (frame/fork/fancy crankset) to upgrade your current ride with, give me a shout.

Eric