topflightpro

It's a bit of both. The city depended heavily on cotton and textiles, which all moved away. And, in the 70s and 80s, there was massive white flight to Columbia County to the north. There's quite a bit of money still in Augusta. It has a surprisingly large manufacturing and chemical industry, but that is outside the city.

Downtown was basically abandoned, and efforts to revitalize it have been stymied by two large property owners who hold about 60 percent of the land. One has done a lot, building new hotels and a convention center. But the other is a true slumlord, who owns a couple of burned out buildings that she refuses to invest int.

mattm

From last year, but the race is coming up again so I finally got around to making the vid. Got in the winning move, but two guys lapped the pack and the rest of us didn't.

Burlingame crit 2016:

hack

really bummed auburn and burlingame are on the same day ... both are such fun courses

mattm

Yeah. And also because it means both races will have half of the field they could have had..

mattm

Yeah those are some good vids - he seems to know how to race well. And they are some sketchy af races, so the videos are exciting.

For instance: (skip to about 1:14:12)


Watching some of his (and the Williams bros') vids makes me feel like I don't actually race bikes, I just pretend I do.

hack

Exactly ... bummer RedKite had to cancel Martinez. Would have been nice to split up Burlingame/Auburn on Sat/Sun. The folks putting on Auburn are trying to rebuild the race. They're getting the downtown merchants engaged, securing a bigger purse for the fields, etc.

rubiksoval

Yeah. I was 10-12 riders back in that vid at that point. I'd moved closer to the front earlier and then started shuffling backwarsd with a few laps to go. Just not prepared/experienced enough to push through the surges and hold position. Something I just have to keep doing bigger races to get used to. Ended up 15th. Saw him go down. Blehhh.

That guy in orange and black for Gateway Harley Davidson is Bryan Gomez. He's got a bunch of big results (4th at Dana Point, couple of top 5s at Gateway Cup, 6th at Sunny King, etc.) and is 22 I think. Did u23 worlds for Colombia. He seems very smooth on the bike, though and doesn't seem overly aggressive in those four races (though I wasn't ever really beside him when it mattered, I guess).

globecanvas

The bar hook... (a) POV rider has drifting left off his line and it's his fault, (b) hooking rider was out of control and it's his fault, (c) shrug emoji.

mattm

Wait you're there?? Nice - post some race reports! And good luck.

This one of Ryan's too was interesting - he moved up from the back of the pack really well, only to get crashed out:

mattm

All of the above?

But mostly c, shrug/that's racing; didn't seem like Ryan went too far off his line.

globecanvas

Ngngngngng after watching I'm going to have nightmares about the light pole in turn 2.

rubiksoval

Yep yep. In the results thread, this page and the previous page for the other three races:

https://www.bikeforums.net/33-road-bi...esults-23.html

Doge

Kinda a re-post from 41, skipping fluff (maybe not).
I had never seen a hill climb race (and puppy has never done one) before this weekend. There is still confusion with the on-site officials and promoters how to score these. They say it is chip time, but after seeing one - it is a pretty good guess there will be photo finishes, there are just not enough of them yet.

Very cool races and quite different than a TT, or a RR with a hill - but it is more RR than TT. Simple. Line up and race the hill. It is just like what we see in the TdF without the 100 miles first. And the CO ones seem to lack O2. As reported by junior, they drop so and so, then becomes cat and mouse and so and so catches ... we've all seen it on TV.

This was not junior's best performance, but a good time anyway.

Ygduf

^^ Out here there is a Low Key Hill Climb series. Non-usac, but generally 100+ people (all talent levels) show up and we race them just like this. They are a blast.

Doge

My dad took me camping on Mt Diablo or thereabouts when I was about 5-6 - before Nixon. I wanted Daniel to do that, but there was always some crit going on at the time that he wanted to do with teammates.

The CO things just because of location all finish above 10K. Those that perform better high and low are different. I don't think it is acclimation alone. The UCI pro guy that lived at 9,000 got dropped shortly after the start, some of the lower living 5,500' riders did pretty well.

Alaska Mike

Sorry if it's been posted elsewhere in the 33, but what are your thoughts on this:
Ladera 45+ crash 6/11/17

I've seen debate on both sides of this incident, and have pretty much made up my own mind. However, do you think this falls into "rubbin' is racing" or "homicidal"?

Note: I'm not usually into crash porn (it is just too easy for me to relate to the victims), but given how people are taking away very different things from this contact, I found the debate interesting. Wanky has his own perspective and history with the rider in question.

biketocamp

This is the category 5 race of the 2017 Harlem Skyscraper Classic

globecanvas

I don't see many other racers. Were you OTF the whole race and got 2nd? If so, nice job!


PS I'm always surprised at how far it is from turn 4 to the finish. Ugh!

mattm

Men's elite nationals, last four laps (not mine, it's from the official feed):


Can't believe that solo guy otf crashed himself out! Looks like he clipped a pedal maybe.

mattm

Women's finish was good; two otf playing games, one chase caught 'em!

globecanvas

Those last 2 are both links to the same 6.5 hour long video, at least in my browser they are.

[edit] Ah it just doesn't jump to the right place. 2:57 for the men, 4:59 for the women.

The solo crash is at about 2:59, the feed blinks out at an inconvenient time but it almost looks like he just took a horrible line into the corner, like he totally forgot to set up for it or something.

mike868y

i can't even imagine the numbers mcnulty must have been doing to drop ben wolfe like that.

Ygduf

whoa. that's eamons team

mattm

Last lap of the pro men's crit. 6:15:50


Huff takes it in to the curb and keeps it upright.. impressive.

Doge

Pro group had it easy. It was 8:30, they shortaned the race, it was cooler and they knew how to ride their bikes.
Other than Brandon and Ben off the front it was *mostly* one group.
The U23s and 17-18s had over 100 riders each. Both groups had trouble on this corner.

I had video lens issues - but you get the idea.
This was a dangerous (IMO) corner where we had 5 crashes in 5 laps in the 17/18 junior men.
Ama is a local LUX rider that handled it well.