Joe Conquers the Dragon

Was lucky enough to be able to join the last of the 2015 Classics races; Jiulongshan (九条山), a multi loop hill race that had previously featured as part of an ITT, earlier in the season.

The fact that there was also a CX race included in the programme, the next day, did have me questioning the merits of doing a regular road race in Shanghai, in December.

This coupled with many people skipping the race, to instead head to Siem Reap, also left a feeling of having picking the short straw.

Anyway a race is a race right and the proceeding few days had been cold, but dry in Shanghai, so how bad could it be?

Joe had been kind enough to drive down and the weather had been looking good as we headed south, towards Pinghu and the Hangzhou Bay bridge.

Enroute the rain came and whilst waiting in the car, it progressed to hailstones. Long forgotten memories of having the heater cranked up to the max, dreading going out to play a game of Sunday League football came flooding back.

We’d opted to skip the ‘warm-up’ in favour of staying dry, so had no real idea about the circuit, apart from it being a 4.2km loop featuring a 700m, 9% climb that had been dubbed the Cauberg on Strava.

Ningbo resident and current Classics leader Jeffrey Reed, was soon knocking on the door letting us know that the call for Masters had been made.

A depleted Masters field, owing both to Siem Reap and sensibleness, took off one min after the A race. The rain had continued unabated for about 3 hours now, although the hailstones had since moved to Shanghai. With the temperature down to 4C, we were off.

It took 2km to hit the bottom of the climb and very soon the small peloton was strung out. Joe’s multiple ascents on Libby Hill on Zwift was to prove the perfect training, as he soon pulled away, taking one Charinko rider with him.

So as we reached the summit; Jeffrey, by his own admission not best suited to hills, couldn’t hold his team mate’s wheel and I, in turn, couldn’t manage to grab his. That ultimately became the shakedown for the whole race.

The first half of the descent would have been fantastic on a dry day. The lower half was unfortunately on concreted sections, some of which were starting to crack, so was sketchy at best, in the wet.

I couldn’t manage to bridge back to Jeffrey, so he was left to work over one other Charinko rider. Joe dueled with his Japanese breakaway companion for remainder of the race.

I was privileged to see Joe on his last lap give a masterclass in hill climbing as he pulled away from the Charinko rider, towards the top of the climb.

Joe was ultimately a well deserved Jiulongshan winner and may have also claimed the series green jersey. Jeffrey came in fourth, more than enough to secure the series yellow jersey. I think I managed sixth after riding solo for the rest of the race. Only a small, but hardened Shanghai Cycling contingent.

So how bad was it? Without doubt, worst conditions I have raced in. Although a rain jacket did manage to keep the core warm, neoprene booties and full winter gloves proved no match for the elements, as the extremities soon lost their feeling. It took several cups of ginger tea post race to get the feeling back in the fingers.

Would be keen to go back, but definitely not in December.

Thanks to 51bike.com for the photos