HK National Champs Road Race - a report

Epic race....

A massive low pressure front hit HK in the weekend and Saturday the Time Trial was cancelled because of the rain.
So Sunday morning I woke up at 4am and it was glad to see that it was not raining; roads were wet, but it seems a decent morning for the race.
The course was in remote area of HK, with twisting downhills under the trees... in short, slippery when wet.

At the planned start time of 6am (yes... a bit early, but cycling races in HK are all dependant on the road closure permit from the Police... which is very hard to obtain... ), we were told to wait a bit more and that was just enough for a massive tropical thunderstorm to begin: rain start pouring down right in droves.
So we go for 7 laps of carnage...

from that moment on, my memory of the race is like one of those race TV broadcast from the motorbike where the camera lens is fogged by the rain and it hard to understand exactly what is going on...

here some flashes...

- after 1km, right when we are taking the downhill, a dog tries to cross the road... first round of slamming brakes, I was right at the front so I pass by and dive into the downhill..... at the bottom, I can see that my downhiller skills are still reasonably OK... I went down quite conservatively, but it was enough to stay well in front... while going down, I think to my kids and my wife at home and how much unpleasant would be to end up in hospital...

- at the first turnaround point, I am quite surprised to see that the group is already broken down in pieces from the downhill...

- first climb: pace is really strong. Obviously the Elite1 riders push the pace to thin down the group to something which is more easy to control and less dangerous. I struggle a bit but stay in the first group

- a lot of rain... we are racing right where the yellow zone of the Rainfall map above... 40mm of rain in 1 hour!!. Visibility is minimal, my contact lenses begins to float in the eyes because of too much rain. It is so strong that my arms are painful because of the rain hitting...
The descents are covered of rain and the road starts to be flooded in several points... I am really scared to go down at some turn.

- I do not remember too much, but after few more climbs and few more downhills, I turn back and I see that we are down to only 15 riders in the front group...wow...

- on a climb, there is a sudden attack and I am too slow to react. I was already tired, but reacting that slow was a nonsense... so the front group broke into 2 and I am now in the 2nd group with other 4 riders

- more rain and more floodings... in some points the water was reaching 20-30cm and we are forced to go into the opposite lane to avoid going too deep. I start to wonder why they simply do not stop the race...

- after 4 laps (60km), I am really tired... I never trained more than 50/60km and I start to feel the distance.
In our small group we agree to keep going together to the finish line. We are out from the fight for the win, but still in honorable position. The leading group is in front of us of maybe 1-2 minutes.

- 5th lap... I am officially cooked up... the good proposition of staying together broke down on a climb and I am left alone...  I am really tired and also is really stressful to plunge every time into the downhills, because the roads are more and more covered by water and I really do want to avoid falling down, but at the same time I can not lose too much time...in the last few Kms start wondering why I got the silly idea of resume cycling races... like I had not enough until I was 25...

- while completing the 5th lap, I was told that the race was stopped because of road conditions... God bless them...eventually...I just want to get changed and go home and forget about cycling for a while...

result: 11th overall

COMMENT: now with relaxed mind, I can say that I did a great race, for sure at 100% of my capability.
Looking at the results, ahead of me mainly Elite 1 riders (most of them are Pros with the National Team) , plus John T and Darren B (whose names do not need comments for local readers..).
All other Master and Elite 2 are behind.
So the 4 weeks of real training did really paid a dividend.
I am not yet competitive for the front of a Elite race, but getting near....

DATA SHEET: Garmin file for all you want to know...
For the whole race, I averaged 172bpm...which is an effort level higher than a marathon.. peak at 192bpm is which my real max for cycling... so for sure I did not spare the effort.
Average speed of 33kmh, which gives an idea of the difficulty of the course and the rain.


Total rain for the day: 150mm+ in the area (the race venue was right where the map is in brown...)

Nice race report from team mate HERE (the report is exhilarating when it comes to the story of the junior rider  who "drowned" into a flood)

Dramatic videos from action camera mounted on a rider
Video 1
Video 2
Video 3

As soon as I can find pics online I post something to give a better idea... (it was not really a day to take out a Nikon from her folder, but there were some photographers...)