gsteinb

ok. lame or not it is the way it is. he's not upgrading and no one is force upgrading him. same argument takes place every year in NY. bottom line is he's not competitive in masters races or anything about cat 3-3/4.

globecanvas

Or in this case, taking points/places away from cat 4s as well.


TBH I don't really care what this guy does because (1) he is 57 so more power to him and (2) hate the game, not the player.


Also it makes me feel like the northeast is just more badass than everybody else. We have to beat olympic cyclists to get out of the 4s!

jsutkeepspining

bad when you get your **** wrecked by every tom dick and harry that you can beat in a fast flat technical (only the roundabout portion). I'll just blame the gf

Wylde06

I almost did Tour d Burg this year...but then realized I didnt want to spend a total of 5 hours in the car for a 30 minute crit. I went last year and had fun, but I went to a friends house the night before..so the drive wasn't as bad.

jsutkeepspining

THe drive killed me. I was fine for the first 2 hours, but the last 1.5 hours i was bored out of my mind and falling asleep. Got to the race ready to pass out, and raced like it. Not one of my finer moments.

ShutUpLegs

Race Avenue Criterium
4/5: 1st
3/4: 13th

Course is 4 corners that you can take wide open, but did have a couple rough spots in the road. Start/Finish and back stretch are about 3 blocks and the other 2 were a short block. Got a preme about 10 or 11 laps in and tried to keep it going for a break. The guy who is currently leading the BAR (I'm 2nd) was on my wheel, but he didn't have enough in the tank to work with me and after a lap and a half we were caught. Coming out of last turn I am 5-6th wheel and know that you cannot jump early because it is a long way to the finish (750 meters?). BAR leader jumped shortly out of the turn and right in front of me. I was trying to stay as patient as possible eventhough I knew he went to early and he was giving me the perfect leadout. No one was able to stick on our wheels and with about 100m to go I started to come around. Won by a wheel length or half a bike length. Was a very satisfying victory!

I felt recovered enough for the 3/4 race which took place about 2 hours later. Won a preme and stayed solo for about 3 laps, recovered, bridged to a small group with 5 to go, but was caught almost immediately. Was not in good position going into last turn, but sprinted pretty much out of it and picked off a bunch of riders to cross 13th.

CAT 3 Upgrade submitted and approved!

mattm

Congrats on the win & upgrade!

shovelhd

Congrats on the win and the upgrade.

Tyrell

Congrats, SUL! I'm looking forward to racing on Thursday so I have something to post in this thread beyond congratulations.

Hermes

+1

rideaz

Awesome! Congrats!!

mattm

SJBC Training Crit, A's group. 1st.

18 laps today, 1.5 hours total.

Small group, maybe 15 - 8 or so from my old team, 5 or so from another team, a few random guys, and me. Sprint was at the top of the hill this week, which really hurt.. 20s @ 900-something watts was tough, but it did the trick!

172 TSS, probably need to retest the FTP.

Caad08

eh, too slow for p1/2, too fast for cat 3. At 57 I would also just have fun as a cat 3. Don't like it? Then get faster than him or deal with it is what I say.

aaronmcd

Dang, no kidding! And 900 for 20" would be good for me. My 30" record is under 800!

mattm

so he's fast enough for the Olympics, but not p1/2 races, got it.

not to mention it sounds like he hasn't even tried the 1/2's, so how do we know he wouldn't survive there?

and finally, masters - masters is where that guy needs to be if anywhere. masters was created for guys like that!

globecanvas

No masters field at that race due to a failure of imagination on the part of the organizers.

gsteinb

he went to the Olympics 34 years ago, as a track sprinter. and yeah, he raced in the upper cats, but like many many older formerly super fast guys he downgraded over time. occasionally having form, and sometimes not, or even not racing at all. it is fun though watch west coast guys whine about east coast sandbagging. he's really really not that good. he can kick for 200 in a race where he didn't have to work. that's it.

gsteinb

He's not an effective masters racer, which is why he does cat 3 races.

Here's me beating him long for a prime in a race I went on to win.

shovelhd

So you beat him. Big deal. He's ten years older than you. He would be an effective M55+ racer. He knows it. He just doesn't race it. I certainly don't see him in these fields. He races Cat3 by choice. His upgrade rep keeps him at Cat3 by choice. The rules are in place but a wink wink and a nod nod keeps him where he wants to be. He is not alone. There are many like him. That is the point that is being made here. There are rules for some, and different rules for others.

gsteinb

there really aren't 55+ races in NY. Park race are 40+.

he stays a three because his main agenda is racing tuesday nights at floyd bennett. He, like most guys, can't finish the 1,2,3 race there and as a 40+ cat 3 he can do the 3/4 race (any 3 under 40 has to do the 1,2,3 race).

no one is force upgrading a 55+ year old guy.

I've yet to hear of a single verifiable force upgrade.

I'm not the upgrade rep, and honestly anyone's opinion on this is irrelevant to me, as mine should be to them. Bottom line is if guys are worried about a guy like this they don't belong a two.

topflightpro

A couple years ago, a local guy who was a former masters world champion, downgraded from 2 to 3. He was getting up there in age having moved up to the 60+ category and was having trouble being competitive in P/1/2 fields. He didn't want to just be pack fodder. (He also did most masters races.)

The local official granted him his downgrade request, which caused a lot of people to complain, but warned him that if he started beating up on the 3s and taking all the prize money, she'd upgrade him back to a 2. There were several times in 3 races where he would be off the front in a break or solo but would hit the brakes at the end so as to not finish too high.

Of course, this person is no longer racing having accepted a two-year ban.

waterrockets 

Yeah, I'm there with this too. When I was working on my 2 upgrade, I wanted the sandbaggers to show up every race, because I wanted the challenge of trying to figure out how to beat them. At the time, my goal was to do something in the 2s when I got there, and I figured that faster racers in the 3s would make me better, even if it took three more races for me to earn my points. Luckily, three races is about how long it took for them to figure out how to stamp out my kilo...

shovelhd

Again, it's not about this guy, it's about the rules and selective enforcement. I don't know how I can be more clear. I have absolutely no problem with force upgrading a 57 year old guy if that's what the rules dictate.

mattm

sounds like a good day to check up on his grandkids.

gsteinb

And I'm saying selective enforcement doesn't exist. "Force upgrades" is a thing guys say to make themselves feel important. It doesn't happen.

The whole sandbagging argument is kinda silly, and usually wildly misguided. This comes up every year in NY. It used to happen to Dr. Will. He'd win a race and guys would yell sandbagger. Funny part of it was he didn't have close to the points to upgrade because he was a TT guy. He'd win a race or two, his points would expire and guys would tell him to upgrade.

In addition to JJ there are a couple of other guys that anonymous folks on NY cycling forums want to upgrade at any given time.