Hour of power, pain and suffering. No excuses, every man for himself.
It’s a time trial time again. This time on a super lumpy course, super tricky in terms of pacing, equipment choice and attitude towards jersey points.
Yorkshire UCI course is the most rhythm killer course any keen time trialist can imagine. It’s everything but flat. Constant up and down, constant change of gradients, there is not 30sec long section one could ride with one transmission. Its a constant up and downshifting on the cassette, searching for perfect gear ratio.
It is not only a TT event that is interesting at this stage, but it’s also Fight for jersey since stage offers points for all three jerseys at once. The only problem is, every jersey demands a completely different approach and focus for points to grab.
The green jersey hunters or the sprinters have perhaps the easiest task. All they need to do is sprint twice super hard for 400m and simply finish the stage. There is a max 16pts to score, and it is the fastest time on the sprint segment that counts this time. Beware, normally it’s first over the line that counts, but not this time. It’s the fastest segment time! So, sprinters warm up your hams and put the hammer down for those few hundred meters to score the points.
The black jersey hunters or the climbers have a different task, which will require a bit longer effort than those of sprinters. There are 6pts only to grab since the only official climb is fairly short. What they need to do is to climb the KOM segment as fast as possible and finish the stage. As with sprint challenge, it is the fastest segment time that counts, not first over the line! So, climbers warm up good and do those two climbing efforts as hard as it would be for dear life to score points.
The yellow jersey contenders have the hardest job to do. Unlike sprinters or climbers who need to focus only on a short part of the course, they need to dig all-out into the pain for the full distance. They can’t afford to lose energy with all-out sprinting on banners, they need to focus on continuous maximum effort possible so they will finish the stage in the shortest time possible. Depending on the individual ability and strength of a rider, it is going to be an effort between 40min for fastest to 50min for the last riders to finish the stage. It is going to be a painful, arhythmic, a rather long effort for them.
It sounds like a fun stage, isn’t it? See you all there!
All categories 
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will do 2 laps or 27,5km distance and 480m of altitude.
The race happens on Sunday 1.3.2020 at 10.30 CET. Register here now.
Have you ridden the course “UCI Worlds Harrogate Circuit” before? The easiest way is to check the segment in your Strava account.