Cycling: Racing into the Headwind

Chapter 176: Chapter 126: Scientific Training, All for the Best Results

After confirming the team roster, Huang Chong and the others packed their bags and got ready to head to the airport for Guangxi.

This is what professional road cycling is like; cyclists are constantly traveling all year round.

If they were amateur cyclists, they might even have to pay for their own travel, making it extremely expensive.

After boarding the plane in Hangcheng with his four teammates, Chen Junyi, and the National Team coaching staff, Huang Chong turned his attention to his system panel.

After winning two titles at the Asian Games, his personal UCI points had undoubtedly increased significantly.

The Asian Games is considered an international-level competition, for which the UCI awards points.

The ITT championship was worth 70 points, and the road race championship was worth 250.

So, by winning two titles this time, not only could Huang Chong receive a huge cash prize of five to six hundred thousand from the officials, but he could also convert these 320 UCI points into 320 Basic Optimization Value points to further increase his FTP Power.

Without any hesitation, he directly converted the 320 Basic Optimization Value points into Intermediate Optimization Value points at a 50:1 ratio, getting a total of 6 points, and then added them all to his FTP Power.

Besides that, after the road race was over, a reward notification had also popped up on his system.

He’d been too busy to take a closer look until now.

So, he took this opportunity to pull up the hidden reward message and saw that it read:

[Host has been detected completing the same race segment with a significantly improved time compared to the previous race. Awarding an extra 20 specialty Optimization Value points for [Terrain Prediction].]

[Note: The higher the Terrain Prediction value, the more vividly the host will recall the specifics of the race course.]

...

After reading the message, Huang Chong had a sudden realization. He thought:

’So the way to increase the [Terrain Prediction] stat is to race the same course multiple times, and I also have to improve on my previous completion time to get the Optimization Value reward for this skill... No wonder I could never figure out how to get the specialty Optimization Value for this weakness before. After all, besides the Tour of Qiandao Lake route, which I’ve raced twice, I’ve only ridden all the other courses once in a competition setting.’

At this thought, Huang Chong felt a bit fortunate. He was glad the National Championships and the Asian Games were designed to use the same course.

And yet, the difficulty of the two races was completely different.

During the National Championships in June, he rode conservatively and didn’t go all out at all.

But during the Asian Games, Lutsenko pushed him to his absolute limit, so of course, there was a huge difference in his completion times.

Huang Chong vividly remembered that at the National Championships, his average speed for the race was only about 44 km/h, taking him over 4 hours and 40 minutes.

For the Asian Games, however, his average speed was nearly 47 km/h, and his finishing time was just over 4 hours and 20 minutes.

If not for both of these conditions being met at the same time, it would’ve taken goodness knows how long to get the specialty Optimization Value for this weakness.

After all, he’d already raced these domestic competitions this year, and he probably wouldn’t race them again.

Of course, if he could enter the World Tour, the situation would be completely different.

Although for multi-day races like the Tour de France, the course changes every year, so it’s impossible to race the same one twice.

But the course terrain for the five Monuments remains largely unchanged year after year.

As long as he participates every year and achieves significant improvement, he’ll be able to earn dedicated Optimization Value for this weakness.

’Hmm, looking at it this way, if I want to improve my [Terrain Prediction], I’ll have to become a workhorse cyclist in the future and can’t slack off in the slightest.’

He grumbled inwardly.

With the boost to his FTP Power and [Terrain Prediction] stats, the values on his personal panel had changed.

[Host: Huang Chong]

[Weight: 65 kg]

[FTP: 396W]

[Cadence: 93]

[Sprinting Burst: 85]

[Car Control Techniques: 84]

[Cornering Ability: 85]

[Terrain Prediction: 66]

[Mentality: 93]

[Basic Optimization Value: 20]

[Overall Evaluation: You have reached the upper tier of a Mid-level Professional Cyclist. You are a stone’s throw away from becoming a High-level Professional Cyclist. Keep up the good work!]

...

Huang Chong reviewed his stats and was naturally quite satisfied to have gained these extra rewards from the Asian Games.

Although there was still a considerable gap between him and the top-tier cyclists, as long as he kept at it, he would definitely be able to go head-to-head with them in another year or two of riding.

"Here are the elevation profiles for the six stages of this year’s Tour of Guangxi. Take a look!"

Just as he finished reviewing his system info, Chen Junyi handed him a tablet she had already prepared.

Huang Chong took it and examined it closely, discovering a considerable discrepancy between the profiles and what Coach Han had described.

Admittedly, in the Tour of Guangxi, only the fourth stage had a mountaintop finish; the other five stages all had flat-road finishes.

But upon closer inspection, the "flat" stages here were completely different from the truly flat stages of a race like the Tour of Tai Lake.

Because before the flat finishes in the Tour of Guangxi, most stages, with only a few exceptions, included difficult climbs.

Stage one was a 135.6 km city circuit race in Beihai, consisting of three 45.2 km laps.

Each lap contained only one categorized climb: a 1.5 km, category 3 ascent with an average gradient of 4.7% and a total elevation gain of only 77 meters.

Stage two, [Beihai—Qinzhou], was 149.6 km long. It was a completely flat route, making it the only climb-free stage.

Stage three was a 134.3 km circuit race around Qingxiu Mountain in Nanning, consisting of five 26.86 km laps.