This week was the queen stage of the Tour of Watopia, with the “Long” race featuring an ascent of the Alpe. There was no way I was doing that, so we instead raced the “Standard” race, which itself was pretty challenging — one lap of the Climber’s Gambit route, which features climbs up the “original” KOM, Titan’s Grove, and a summit finish up the back side of the Epic KOM.
The roster was just Zinj and me, but then we bumped into Casey in the starting pen. Casey had a good run with us here in WMA a few years ago before he headed out to the wilderness of Arizona or New Mexico or some such, and it was great to run into him again. He joined us in the race (though not on Discord), so I am including him in the results.
With a lot of climbing but a flat opening section, this route was begging for the big boys to break away early to try to establish some gaps before the climbing started, and that’s exactly what happened. A group of a half-dozen got away within the first couple minutes, and I clung to their wheels, relishing the rapidly-increasing gap between our break and Zinj’s chase group. I somehow made it up and over the little KOM with the front group, and the gap stretched out to almost a minute, but the rollers before the Titan’s Grove climb did me in, and I drifted back to Zinj’s group after the climb.
Once we hit the big final climb to the summit finish, it was every rider for themselves, and I was summarily ejected from the group. Zinj easily rode away, opening up a two-minute gap over me by the end en-route to a top-ten finish. Casey finished a few minutes behind me — hope to see him again at some of these events going forward. (Casey — we are on Discord at https://is.gd/nccdiscord).
Here are today’s results:
- Zinj Guo (B) – 9 of 64 = 91.9 points
- Jonathan O’Keeffe (B) – 13 of 64 = 85.3 points
- Casey Gibson (C) – 45 of 64 = 40.6 points
Here are the series standings:
- Jonathan O’Keeffe (3 races) – 259.4 points
- Zinj Guo (1 race) – 91.9 points
- Melissa Warwick (1 race) – 85.3 points
- Tim Downey (1 race) – 73.5 points
- Casey Gibson (1 race) – 40.6 points
Here is the NCC Zwift schedule:
- Tuesday 6:00 PM – Time Trial / Hill Climb
- Wednesday 8:00 PM – Social Ride
- Thursday Evenings – Road Race (times will vary between 5 PM and 7 PM EST)
- Sat 9:00 AM – Social Ride
Join the NCC Club on Zwift or check Link My Ride on your mobile device for information on each ride.
To learn more about the NCC and Zwift rides, please visit our Zwift page.
