Lotoja 2019. 13th? Total time 8 hours, 58 minutes. best finisher on my team.

LoToJa was weird this year. Well, it's always weird. Was in the (really) early break for the first two hours. One of the teams pulled us back and then it got real chill until the 1st climb. Another team (jeo) basically attacked the neutral feed on the first climb which is pretty BS. We all rode together after the descent. I came off just a little bit over the second climb but chased back on pretty easy. Then jeo called a pee break and one their guys rolled off the front while everyone was stopping. Not cool... Came off again on the last climb and legit thought my day was over with 100 miles to go. Somehow a group of 4 of us chased reallllly hard for almost 2 hours and we got back into the lead group. That same jeo team attacked the last feedzone again and I had no idea. One sec I'm with the group, next the guys are up the road and the rest of my day consisted of just pedaling the last 50 miles basically alone.

Weird day. Happy to finish a gain, pretty upset at some of our competitors. I know what the rules say, but there are unwritten rules too. Had really hoped for a result here, but alas, I got dropped in the same place as lat year, but made it back on this year.

2 minutes faster than lat year despite significantly slower conditions. Last year averaged 164 watts. This year averaged 180. NP of 211 for almost 9 hours.

I'm gonna call it a season. No road races left, I might hop in a few cx things over the fall (SSCX on a flat bar bike ftw!). Other than that it's just mtbing, lifting and whatever I feel like until it's time to get ready for xc skiing again!

Nice result @Ttoc6
@revchuck Did you do Lotojo?

Nope, it wasn't in the budget this year. Thinking about doing it next year, though.

Okay. For some reason I thought you were training for it. How is your training?

3rd place in one of the 50+ weeknight CX races yesterday. My first CX podium Yay! Not much to CX race stories as there aren't a lot of tactics, more just excuses.

I do feel like I can identify the moment at the start of lap 2 when I was passed by a guy, who then lost the wheel of the 2 leaders and by the time I passed him back there was a big gap that I couldn't close. Maybe I could have dug a bit deeper, or been a bit more aggressive in that moment and stayed with the leaders. There was another race on the course that started in front of us, so a lot of the race was a matter of how fast I could pass others lagging in the other race instead of being slowed by them through technical bits. But as I said, these are just excuses and I'm pretty happy to get a 3rd place.

Last minute threw together a sscx machine for the series this year. Still waiting on a couple of parts, but janked it together. Running the chain through an ultegra derailleur for tension and flat bars + mtb brakes. Super fun to race. I was sitting 3rd for the entire race and flatted with half a lap to go. My poor tubular... Ran it in for 5th. Bummer...

Glenmarnock 3/4 RR - Last race of the season for me. 40 mile lumpy course (Scottish RRs tend to be shorter and multiple laps of a circuit). 60+ starters.

I did my best to animate throughout and started and/or bridged to a few moves. All ultimately got brought back. Finish was flat and windy and loads of guys started too soon. I was as well positioned as I've been all year, but I just didn't get to a spot where I could fully open it up and finished 3rd in a really close one; the top 4 were basically spread across the line. Podium in a race I'd somewhat targeted and at the end of the year feels good. Beating up on some young kids is good too. If my finish had been sharper throughout the year, I'd be a 2 now.

Me too.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...f15e01e94b.jpg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...052a9acc95.jpg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...43d2aa9df6.jpg

Its a good thing you're sponsored by a Chiropractor because it looks like you'll be needing one!

Men's 4/5 cross race, 16 of either 38 or 40. List was pretty long. Just wanted to see I was in upper half to upper 1/3. Progress.

Done in by the call-ups again. Behind some guys who just didn't gas it at the start. I made a few spots up early but decided to TT it instead of burn too many sprint matches. It worked better, better finish spot. I did recover a bit drafting a guy for a bit then went by. I made a bad error though that cost me catching a group of 5 guys 100 yards up. I lost my lap count and thought I had longer to go. So, last lap was not a bazillion % effort. Womp womp.

So, back to ferret's cross thing about A/B/C working well. I could see that Sunday. The winners were easily way ahead. Shoot couple of the 4/5 winners were bunny hopping barriers like second nature. Also, one of the guys doing super well in 4/5 routinely I heard a few guys giving a hard time at the start because he's on a pretty nice MTB for cross. I didn't care, if it's fair game so be it. I do think though as courtesy if you're close or winning podiums in your races, I think it's time you get a cross bike. I run 32's out of budget right now to not carry extra kit at home, but seeing some the tire I saw among the front folks I'm wondering now "well ****, why not me too".

Shoot, it felt like 75% plus of the the entire place was disc brakes too.

I'm just learning to think like when I competed in elite junior golf tournaments..........you won't win, just get some finishes in.......and get lucky and scare some folks for top 10 once in a while.

I try not to think about how many seconds per lap disc brakes and having several more mm's of tire would save.

But, still, big improvement from race #1 . I need to get a call-up though so I can ride in a group with the front runners for once.

Still fun, I'll do some more. I'll consider modest kit updates like going TL on my spare wheelset and bigger tire.

This is MTB - so skip if you want. Riding the last laps without a saddle/ funny / not so funny stuff. My kid in the white and blue #279. The carbon seat rails shattered.

I did my teams CX race today (after working registration for 5 hours), probably got 30th out of 40 in 4/5.

Since it was California CX you have Cat 2 roadies and maybe a few Cat 1s lining up in the 4/5's. It was hands down the biggest field. I was able to put out good power and pass people but those people passed me on the technical sections; my off road skill are atrocious. W/Kg wise I was stronger than 3/4 of the field, but really I couldn't put that to use on that course.

It was honestly a just something I did for fun, and I had fun and didn't crash. Maybe next year I'll put in some time and improve my off road handling, but I'll probably ignore it again next year!

Seems like CX is bigger than road here lol I did the CX thing again yesterday at my club's annual race. Got 16/54 in the 4/5 40+ field, almost had 14th but didn't put down enough power and got picked off near the line. It was my best ever finish though, being in upper third, since we're staged by crossresults points in my region I'm hoping I can keep chipping away and improving my starting position (I was staged in the middle). Had an IF of 0.85, which might be the highest I've done in a CX race

This is one of the un-intended consequences about having separate categories by discipline.
Besides being a pain to manage you get Cat 1 roadies in Cat 4/5 track, Cat 4/5 cx, Cat 4/5 MTB.
USAC will allow an upgrade, but more paperwork and requests and turn downs.
The turn down response is along the lines the Cat 1 needs to learn how to race with the group (4/5s) in that discipline.

I never have (and doubt USAC upgrade folks have) seen a Cat 1 road rider race with the pack (meaning in the middle knocking it out) of 4/5 roadies on a cx, MTB, track course.

Win...Sunday Oct 13th, Fiesta Island 20k TTT, closed course to all traffic, 64 degrees, very light winds start time 7:03 AM.

https://i.imgur.com/DkHcsU3.jpg

When we arrived it was dark and our plan was a warmup on the road. We started our warmup at 6:40 with enough daylight to see. We did not want to go through the effort of setting up trainers and etc so we lived with the warmup we got.

My wife, as usual, blasted out of the hole while I was screaming whoa. I was not ready for that much juice with no warmup to speak of and then I had to suffer for about a 1/2 lap. It was all good. We had a solid ride with good exchanges. I started to feel good on lap 2.

This is a very well run race with a lot of categories. They even sweep the road with a street cleaner before the race. Kudos to the race promoter for a very high value race experience with fast results, smooth check in and in general a good vibe for new as well as experienced racers.

Congrats! I had a wedding Saturday so we took it easy on Sunday morning, otherwise I would have shown up to race and volunteer.

Congratulations!
Do you play Glenn Gould - Bach in warm up, or save that for the after party?

Actually - warm-up tunes could be a thread.

Thanks Doge. No Bach on my warmup list...yet. There may be a couple of Bach pieces that may work like the B minor Fugue or the Partita #4 overture or a mix of the Goldberg Variations. Currently, Lady Gaga's Joanne album is my go to play list for warmup . I think she is amazingly talented and probably plays Bach. I am sure she could sing his choral works.

If you start a warmup tunes thread, I will post for sure.

Never worry about Cat1 and 2 roadies in cross. They turn like roadies.

I turn like a roadie!

I only turn left well.