Tuesday has dawned bright and beautiful, with no precipitation in the forecast. The Mass Bay Road Club website has a headline "the water has dried up and we will be racing 5/23" on it. After last week's flood cancellation, this will be my first chance to actually get out there and race. For me, nothing puts a little speed in the legs like a night at the 'tuck.
A few of my newer friends have been asking me about Wompatuck. This training series has been running on summertime Tuesday nights since before my time. It has always attracted enough talent to make it one of the best training races in the country. All the cool kids from Boston usually ride down, and the South Shore has quite a contingent of its own cyclists. The local pros generally attend when they are in town, and Hamilton even came down right after the first time he finished the Tour. The series has been so popular, years ago a second race for Cat 3-5 was added on Wednesdays.
What makes Wompatuck so successful? Certainly not the geography. The race is a pain in the ass to get to. Hingham is a seaside town, on land that juts out toward the harbor. The traffic getting there from points nearer to Boston generally sucks. It can take me over an hour to travel the 25 miles from my office. The race is in a heavily wooded, swampy state park. The mosquitoes are brutal. So why go? The race, the competition, and the course, that's why. You see, the course is on a wider than usual bike path through the woods. The 1.3 mile circuit is pretty flat, but it has some elevation change. The turns are pretty gentle, so there is not much to slow you down. Put a big field of fast riders on this tarmac, and the effect is like bullet traveling through the barrel of a gun. With all the trees, windbreak exists all the way around the course on both sides.
Without any wind, riding at the front is fast, very fast. And we are talking good riders here most of the time. At the back of the pack, to say you get a good draft would be the understatement of the century. It is like riding in a vacuum. Even a marginally fit rider can stay on at 50 kph on this course. The pace has to be extraordinary for things to go single file and break up the field. Breaks go, sure, and I would not call it easy, but it is really hard to actually be dropped here. You just have to put your head down and fight through the duration of any big surges. No wonder people love it.
For someone serious about training, the 'tuck is perfect. Ride up front, and you have to match pulls with the best riders in New England. Getting cooked? Just go sit in. Nothing like a few laps at 100 rpms, basically simulated motorpacing to flush the legs and bring on recovery. Need a super hard interval? Take a flyer. They'll come and get you, unless you are really on your best day. For sprinters, the wind up usually starts at 600 meters out, and if you mean business you'll be pushing 60 kph when the real showdown begins at 200m to go.
It is know wonder why in the summer we can't wait till Tuesday.
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