Monday, September 26, 2011

HoengSeong Road Race Report

Last Sunday we had a race in HoengSeong about 1.5 hours from my house. It was a team race each team had 5 riders and the top 3 riders times counted. So basically the strategy was to keep at least 3 riders in the lead group. The course was really hard and had 2 pretty long climbs in it. After the first one we still had 3 in the lead group me Hwangeol and Yeondeok but the second climb had a long section at 13%. At the top the group was reduced to 14 riders and we had lost our 3rd guy. Yeon Deok and I were still up there but 2 other teams had 3 riders at least still. I tried a few attacks but nothing was going anywhere. The tactics are a bit weird in this kind of race because its all about time so winning the sprint didn't give you anything. There were a few more small hills before the finish and we raced pretty hard up all of them but didn't split our group up anymore. Hwangeol did a good job of riding though and finished in the second group (which was only like 4 riders) he beat out all of the other teams that had 2 riders in the lead group so we got 3rd out of about 20 teams. Overall a decent result for the team. Our other 2 riders didn't far as well Minseok got stung by a bee and MyoJin ran into someone who fell in front of her on the second climb! They were both fine though. I really liked the course but it would definitely be fun to do it as an individual race rather than only as a team race next time. The next race is in 2 weeks its a mountain bike race held mostly on farm and dirt roads near the ocean. This weekend is a 3 day weekend and I'm definitely going to try to get some more good riding in. I'm also still suffering from a cold which I have had for 2 weeks now! Its gone into my sinuses and I have head aches if I don't take decongestants! Hopefully that gets better soon too!! It feels pretty much fine when I ride though.

1 comment:

Jeong Kim said...

I read MyoJin's race report on her blog. It looked like a pretty fun race. US racing scene, as for NorCal is pretty set: crits and road races.

ROad season is done, but cyclocross is about to start up.

BTW, great job at the race. You and your team looks like they had a fun time. Reading the race reports feel like what it was like to race mountain bikes in the late 80's and early 90's; fun and full of camaraderie.