A couple of weeks ago one of our sponsored team members, Rich, had the opportunity to partake in the epic race that is the Tour of Battenkill. Rich put the Velocite Magnus, along with several other items from the Velocite arsenal, to the test. Here's his take on how the race unfolded and the performance of his Magnus. Check out Rich on that epic day!
Tour of Battenkill/Magnus Review:
I've had my Magnus for about 4 months and I've ridden quite a few races on
it already, but I figured do a write-up after I rode the 102k, 50+ Category at
the The Tour of Battenkill. The Tour of Battenkill is a race in upstate NY,
starting in the town of Cambridge. It boasts ten sections of dirt road, a
covered bridge and a whole crap load of hills. It's a well organized race with a
huge participation, there are 5 men's cat 4 races alone, each with 125 riders!
The 50+ race had a field limit of 150, filled, with a waiting list!
I started the race on my Velocite Magnus frame, Licos handlebars, EtherealBottle Cages, and TLCS31 Carbon Seatpost. I do have a pair of Noir 38/50 Tubulars, but I decided to save them for another day and instead opted for a very worn (expendable) set of Zipp 303s with Gator skin tubular tires mounted
on them. I got to the start line with about 3 minute to spare after checking out
the run-in to the finish.
Starting at the back, I had about 10k (5k of which was dirt), to get to the
front before the first climb. The Magnus is very well suited for this task, it's
very stable, it goes where you point it. It took a bit of work, but by about 3k
before the climb I was comfortably in the top 20 riders. We hit the first climb,
it's paved and at its steepest maybe 18%, not crazy long though. I worked my way
up over the top without any problems. looking around it looks like the field
size is quite a bit smaller now, maybe 50 or less.
At the bottom of the decent we hit the second section of dirt, this time it's
a steep climb. Here's where my race starts to unravel, we start heading up the
climb, I'm feeling confident. The dirt is really packed down, the bike is
great. I'm thinking "man, am I glad I checked out that finish!". I no sooner
finished thinking that thought and some of the guys in front of me start to
sputter. Now I realize that the road is only smooth in the car tire tracks! Now
the top 15 guys are just rolling away. I finally find a hole to ride through and
get clear of the group I'm in, the 15 guys now have a pretty good gap. I'm
now in panic mode, the 15 guys are getting close to the top of the climb, I
don't want to be chasing on the descent, so I go flat out trying to reach them
before they hit the top. I tagged onto the back just as we crest the top. We go
flying down a short descent and we're climbing again, I still haven't recovered
from the previous effort, so I'm just trying to hang on at this point. This
climb is long and stepped, with the top in sight I finally pop. I'm wrecked,
crawling up the the rest of the climb, about 5 guys go by me like I'm standing
still, I have nothing. As I hit the top another group of about 5 catch me, this
time I manage to hang on. We're now descending fast, still on dirt, single file
and weaving though potholes, this is fun. We're slowly picking up the riders who
passed me and we can see the lead group ahead.
It takes awhile, but eventually, we reconnected with the front group making
it about 25 total. It was a pretty cool feeling though, somewhere behind us were
the remnants of the rest of the field. At 45k we hit another good size climb. I
cleared that without any incident. Up ahead was a new section they added this
year, added I believe because of construction. I had heard that the dirt
section of this new bit was pretty rough, that turned out to be very true. Lots
of loose stuff and really up and down too. I lost contact in that section with 3
other guys. We worked and traded pulls for the remainder of the race, a couple
of times we even get pretty close to getting back. The the last half of the race
was really hilly and with about 15k to go we saw them for the last time.
With 10k to go, 6 or 8, 50+ guys caught us, along with 6 or 8 guys in tow from
part of cat 4 race we had past earlier. I stayed with the guys from my race
until the finish and was able to beat all but 1 rider to the line, finishing
23rd (I had hoped for a top 10, but in the end I'm happy finishing where I did).
In closing I'd like to say, I am really happy with my Magnus and the way it
performed at in this very difficult and technical road race. I've read in
some of the forums that people feel it's a criterium bike, and it is great in
criteriums, but I think what makes it a good crit bike is the same thing that
makes it ideally suited for a hard road race like Battenkill. It's just a very
solid, predictable bike, I can honestly say I'm more confident on this bike.
Whether I'm flying down a dirt descent, riddled with potholes and gravel or
diving through the final turn in a criterium.
As far as Battenkill goes, the $75.00 entry fee is, I think, the most I've ever
paid for a single day masters race. But in the end, it was well worth it. The
course was epic and the race was very well organised.
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