Monday, May 12, 2008

GTC Championships

This Saturday is the 4th annual GTC championships. "Historically speaking the inaugural event was 2005 as I (Dan) had missed the entire 2004 season. In 2006 Brent Owens took the win after the 2-man breakaway of Welp and Stone missed a turn. In 2007 Welp won from a breakaway of five riders including Stone, Behning, Simpson,and Coy." (corrected by Dan)

"I suspect Tim Stone really wants it this year but will work for his son Michael if they can get away. Expect Brendan, Andy, Tracy and Theron to be contenders also."

I think this year will be the toughest edition with a rising junior star, hungry club members, and new masters team racers. I think it will be over soon for most, possibly before New High Shoals. Who knows what alliances will form? All I know is that compared to my yearly racing, the GTC championship stands out as the hardest race of the year. Stats from last year...

64 miles in 3 hours
Max Power: 948w
Average Power: 210w--Normalized Power: 257w
Time spent sitting in: 30 minutes (15%)
Time in threshold: 20 minutes Time above threshold: 45 minutes
Variability of terrain: 1.22
Burned 4 matches at 30 seconds each between 300 and 5oo watts. Dropped at mile 55.

3 comments:

minor2nd said...

Hopefully it will be a good day and exciting race.

Historically speaking the inaugural event was 2005 as I had missed the entire 2004 season. In 2006 Brent Owens took the win after the 2-man breakaway of Welp and Stone missed a turn. In 2007 Welp won from a breakaway of five riders including Stone, Behning, Simpson,and Coy.

I suspect Tim Stone really wants it this year but will work for his son Michael if they can get away. Expect Brendan, Andy, Tracy and Theron to be contenders also.

APBIORoswell said...

If Brendan and Andy show up I guess we will be watching at the side of the road again. Should be good. Looks to be warm.

minor2nd said...

"...we will be watching at the side of the road again."

Last year I chose not to do the finishing loop before the race had begun. However I did contribute to the success of the breakaway and only eased up for a couple minutes to let Jeff Welp get back on after he had stopped at the feed zone!?

However this year will be a totally different story as I don't even expect to ride the entire route. If Brendan and Andy don't miss a turn then one of them will likely win.