PowerCranks Win At Piuma Wednesday, July 06, 2005 6:37:21 PM PT
by Josh Horowitz
Last year PEZ-Man Josh Horowitz used the Piuma Hill
Climb to prove his love for his fiancé Rachel. After winning the race
and her heart – he returned this year using PowerCranks to prove
another point…
Ever since last year’s article, “Pez Man Wins Race, Gets Girl”
and all the attention it received, there has been some contention
between my fiancé and I whether the mountain top proposal was a grand
romantic gesture or a giant publicity stunt. Although I’ve assured her
over and over that writing the story didn’t even occur to me until
after it was all over, I’m guessing there’s still a shadow of doubt in
her mind.
Josh pops the big question last year.
So when I told her I had an idea to top last year’s story and that I
was going to write about it for Pez, this probably didn’t do much to
boost the validity of my argument. I figured she already knows I’m a
publicity hound (she uses a harsher word that also starts with an H
sound), so at this point, it was too late to change her perception.
Some of the areas toughest hombres showed up for this year’s Piuma hill climb.
Same Great Stunt – Whole New Twist… er, Crank
Anyway, the “brilliant” idea I had to top last year’s story was of
course to win the race again, but this time while racing on…
PowerCranks! Now there were a few problems with this idea. After having
done an entire winter of 25 to 30 hour weeks on the cranks, I hadn’t
been on them much since the season started because of all the racing
and traveling. The second problem was that this year’s Piuma Hill Climb
had been moved up to June. This meant that it was neatly wedged in just
two days after I returned from Elite Nationals in Park City and one
week before I leave for Cascade in Oregon. Finally there was the
problem that the Paketa with the PowerCranks weighs almost 5 pounds
more than my Cannondale Six13. In other words, I wasn’t sure if I would
be able to make it up the 2,500 foot climb let alone win the race.
The new light-weight PowerCranks going on… just remember to always tighten your bolts.
Nevertheless, the folks at PowerCranks were happy to play along and
soon a pair of the light weight Cranks were on the way to my door. The
plan was set in motion.
Exhausted from the drive back from 7500 feet in Park City, I slapped on
the new cranks the night before the race and was ready to go. Since I
was going to be at a disadvantage anyway, I figured why not go all the
way and throw my heavy PowerTap wheel on so at least if I did win, I’d
have some good data to report back.
Here comes the race...
Race Day
The race drew a huge field this year with over 50 riders from all
categories at the start line. There was the usual suicide attack from
the gun and then over the first steep section, the lead group of Cat
1’s and 2’s established their pace and started to motor over a flatter
section. As I shifted into the big ring, I managed to stick the chain
right between the big and small rings. Turned out I hadn’t tightened
the bolts the night before and they had started to come loose. I free
wheeled for about 20 seconds trying to get the chain to go back on with
no luck. Finally as the lead group rode off into the distance, I
stopped the bike to try to manually get the chain back on. Although it
seemed like about 2 minutes, the reports from the pack which passed me
one by one as I fumbling with my chain put my stop at about :40 to :50
seconds. Finally I got the chain back on and started to crank.
According to my PowerTap, my power for the next 4 minutes averaged 450
watts and peaked at 821. I caught the group fairly quickly only to find
that my main competitor, Bryan Duff, last year’s second place finisher,
had taken advantage of my misfortune and moved on up the road. Working
with a teammate, we pushed away from the lead group and the chase was
on. Finally, I jumped across the final 50 meters on my own and with
about 1.5 km to go on the first part of the climb, the race was neck
and neck.
Josh & Bryan putting the hurt on.
After a short fast descent, we made the left turn onto the final climb.
At this point I still felt good, but the combination of the chase and
the PowerCranks was starting to tire me out. To make matters worse,
Bryan was sitting on my wheel refusing to take a pull. Last year, he
had done the same thing, assuring me the whole time that he would not
sprint around me at the line. Not trusting such a big victory (remember
I was proposing) to chance, I dropped him anyway and won the race. This
time, I wasn’t so sure if an attack would work so I took him up on his
offer and pulled him to the finish. At the end, he feigned an attack as
if he was going to break our deal, but ended up pulling back and I
crossed the line for my first PowerCranks race victory.
All in all it was a great training ride and proof that with enough
miles, one can adapt to PowerCranks the way they would with any other
crank. Despite my self-induced technical problems and heavier bike, my
time was only 30 seconds slower than last year. Average power was 375
watts and cadence averaged 82 rpm. For those who haven’t ridden the
cranks, that’s a pretty high cadence, especially for a climb and I was
quite pleased with that.
