Wednesday Night Worlds

Part of the LCBC training regime has been attending the Wednesday Night Worlds (WNW) ride, an unaffiliated, drop group ride. You’ll often see Cat 1 and 2 riders, along with the occasional Pros/Semi-Pros. Anyone making their way up the racing hierarchy or simply looking to test their chops against some challenging terrain and even more daunting riders, this is the place to be on Wednesday. You’ll find the ride breaking up as the stronger riders will make attacks and breakaways, testing the limits of the group. The route can be found here; 30 miles and over 2,500ft of vertical climbing through the Hunt Valley area.

This week, Luke and Joe made it out to represent LCBC. WNW had pushed back their start time to 6PM (from 5:30PM), but Luke wasn’t in on the update, leaving him plenty of time to warm up alone and reflect upon the ride to come. Unlike the past few WNW where the weather was temperate with a cool, mild breeze; tonight was cold with a solid overcast of dark clouds. Because of the weather change, the normal 20-25 attendance was whittled down to 15 riders.

Heading out of Oregon Ridge, Luke was at it again, leading the pack the majority of the way to the Stringtown climb. One can only assume he simply loves being at the front, hammering away until he can do so no more, plus likely keeping himself warm. While Luke was off leading the charge, Joe maintained a position in the middle of the pack and began to feel the effects of the cold. As the group turned onto the Stringtown and began the long effort upwards, Joe decided to raise his body temperature a little and move his way up towards Luke, who was still hammering it away, and hopped in front to get some work done. As the group made its way up the climb, the clouds opened up and spit out some mean sleet and hail to sweeten the Stringtown climb experience.

Finishing the Stringtown climb and continuing up Yeoho, Joe found himself in a breakaway with Andrew Suchocki (Kelley), where they caught up with two additional riders, Chris Beck and an unknown rider, and separated themselves from the main group. Joe’s legs weren’t feeling prime for the sustained effort of a breakaway, but dug deep, settled into his drops, and persisted on. Joe was able to contribute to the breakaway, pushing when necessary and having just enough time to recover on the descents. Meanwhile, Luke, Galen Wallace (Kelley), and 3 others formed a group and began the inevitable chase after the breakaway.

It wasn’t until the top of Corbett and the turn onto Glencoe where th breakaway split up, already losing the unknown rider a few miles back and now the remaining three creating separation amongst themselves. As the three approached Upper Glencoe, Chris went on the offensive and delivered an attack up the climb, followed by a response by Andrew, and Joe ten seconds behind him. As Joe topped the climb, Chris and Andrew were rolling through York, leaving Joe to contend with traffic for a good 45 seconds.

At this point, Joe decided to revert back to his tri-athlete days and throw down some TT/Threshold work, maintaining a constant 95-100% threshold for the remaining 8 miles, staying ahead of the group behind him. With an average 171 bpm and 98% FPT from York to the top of Cuba, Andrew (and Chris from time to time) remained in sight as he turned on Priceville, finally catching up to Andrew at the bottom of the last hill up Cuba, where Andrew turned the afterburners on and pulled away from Joe to finish the last climb, leaving Joe with a solid third place finish. A couple of miles back, Luke’s group broke up towards the end of Priceville and his friend Stewart flatted, where Luke stopped to help him get his bike back on the road.

Joe and Andrew rolled into Oregon Ridge together w/ the main group 5 minutes behind, followed shortly after by Luke and Stewart. Always an adventure and a test of your limits, WNW is where it’s at when it comes to race season training.