zitter

crit was actually on campus around the music center, the RR was in woodland, 6 mile laps with 8 laps for the B's, belgianesque type conditions (rough road section, rollers with headwind, single narrow lane, couple fast flat sections)

bostongarden

omg...memories are rushing back...that is so cool that you have it...is it possible that I also had a big-circular clunky speedometer on it -- or maybe that was on another bike later in life?

Aerodee80

Ontario Crit Easter Sunday CAT 3

3rd

I started with no expectations, it was hot, so I stay hydrated before the race started. During the start I paced the pack for 1/2 lap then two guys got in front of me. I didn't realize we're on a break until I look back two laps later. I tried to see how I feel on working on a break, no good! Too Early! I dropped myself back into the pack.

Toward the end of the race I felt good and comfortable. There were breakaway attempts by at least 3 groups for a good few laps but they fizzled out. So at the last lap last two corners a big surge occured plenty of guys were dropped and I started to hurt. By the last corner coming from inside and 15-20 guys back, we sprinted a long way. Then 100m to go, my legs started to hurt yet I continue to pass everyone except two guys. It was painful, I maxed out my HR, my lungs were burning..I couldnt recover enough for the next race. Just to only hang on for 2-3 laps (30+ Cat 1-4).


Its been a sucky year for me as a CAT 3 so I hope this is a good sign. I just gotta position myself better...not 15-20 guys back, should be less than 15!

TMonk

nice work!

shovelhd

Absolutely. Well done.

waterrockets 

Congratulations...

sdgrannygear

the guy that won the cat 3 is a beast, he starts his sprint from way back and pretty much smokes anyone who tries to drag race him, got to attack him with a break away. the masters 30+ was painful, seeing all the stars and stripes on those sleeves was intimidating. Crazy that monster media pretty much has an all star team on its roster.

shovelhd

That's not fay-ah. Wah wah.

sdgrannygear

yeah, they are pretty good.

https://www.monstermediaracing.com/team-riders

That being said, I have no delusions of beating any of those guys even if they weren't working for each other.

Aerodee80

They are more fun to watch than being on the train with them. With the hot weather on top of that big kudos for anyone that finished that race.

jameskpolk

Belated ECCC Yale Circuit Race - C
8 out of 32

Fun course. They run a 4mi circuit with a start on the flat first three corners of the crit course, that then peels off and climbs for around 275ft, with one short 10% pitch around a hairpin. The descent has three hairpins, and then spits you back out on the 5th corner of the crit course. 3 full laps, and then a hill-top finish on the 4th lap, diverging after the 10% grade to go up to 350ft.

I learned the same thing echappist did. I didn't pay attention to pack attrition, and my 15th wheel or so position that had been mid-pack on previous laps put me on the back on the final descent. I burned more matches than I would have liked holding on to the end of the accordion through the crit course. Took a moment to catch my breath at the bottom of the climb, and worked my way up to the second row without too much difficulty just prior to the 10% pitch. A guy attacked from behind me in what I thought was too early of a move for a pack that seems to chase down everything. So I let it go. A couple other folks didn't. Turns out they were much smarter than me. Six guys went up the road, another five or six of us chased together, and the rest were pretty strung out, judging by the posted results. The finish line caught me by surprise, but I was able to spin up well, and just missed taking the "pack" sprint, such as it was.

Cons - completely misread the end race, and didn't join when I had the legs to.
Pros - was there for the end race, and spun up well, which I was quite happy with, as I've been working on developing a higher cadence for my weak excuse of a sprint.

Congrats to those with more successful weekends.

mattm

Seward 3/4's training race - 5th or so and won a prime.

The difference between that race and the 1/2/3's race just after is huge, obviously I guess; I was just happy no cat 4's crashed me out! I probably deserved it though for riding in that race.. but I had a bunch of team mates and wanted to ride with them.

crapweasel

It was plenty hard for us 4s. 1.02 IF for 45 mintues. It's been a while since I've done anything over 1. Pack finish though, so nothing to complain about.

Rode to work, to the race, raced, rode home. 3.5 hours, 240 TSS for the day. Oof.

mattm

The difference between the two races is less on speed, more on maintaining a steady speed. Though the 1/2/3's race is a bit faster, it also stays faster - it doesn't get all bunched up at the bottom of the hill each lap like the 3/4's do. Which is not to say the 3/4's race is easy by any means.. but to me it's almost easier to maintain a steady speed than to speed up and slow down a bunch.

Btw, raise that FTP! Unless you think you were doing the equivalent of a 40k TT effort for those 45 minutes.. =]

Crash716

I don't think Monster Media is going to last in it's current state for too awfully long. There's just too much ego on that team. There is just enough guys that can be the star riders on other teams but when coupled with the rest of them they are just also rans. Not to mention there's already been a fist fight on the team at one of the local races. They'll dominate this year, but I bet they will loose some of there strong supporting riders for next year as you just can't keep that much talent on one team here in Socal.

Racer Ex 

At some point it's pointless hammering amateur talent into submission. It's like hiring all the recently retired MLB guys to be on your softball team.

Yeah, if you're a full on pro team you want to dominate because that's how you earn. But at the 35+ level it's about competitive fun. If you get all wet over a free frame and $200 at 35 years of age you've missed the reality boat.

I'd rather go kick Goliath in the nuts than help him beat up David.

What's considered a heat wave here is pretty mild.

gnome

E Grade Handicap. 32km. small rolling hills.

Two laps of a 16km course with one of the steepest rollers just after the start and before the finish. Started on scratch with four others. fell OTB about 3/4 of the way up the climb before the finish line (about 150 - 200m from the line). We made up 1min 30 on the group starting ahead of us, unfortunately they started 5min ahead. Probably DFL. Still an improvement on my previous DNFs due to severe lack of fitness.

plantrob

SoYoCo circuit race, first chance to try out the cat 4 pack. 8 laps of a 2.5 mile circuit with some ups and downs. Sat near the front for almost the entire race, since the few times things slowed down and bunched up I was frustrated by my inability to move up. The race-determining feature for me was almost the steep downhill followed by a hard right turn with some gravelly bits. On the last lap, some guy came around and planted himself in front of me on the descent, then braked hard well before the turn. I just barely maintained control of my bike, my back end skidding out a good bit. Phew! The real race-determining feature was the sharpish uphill just before the finish. Big ring, but hard enough to slow things down considerably. It favors my strengths, so after starting the final uphill sprint in perhaps 7th position, I found myself passing most of the guys on the steep bit, with the exception of one who was a ways ahead. He thought he had it in the bag and ratcheted down his effort on the false flat to the finish line. I was sure I was going to beat him, but focused too much on him, only to be passed by another racer flying up from behind. Stupidly, I let up on my effort for just a second after he passed, and just failed to nip my original target on the line. 3rd place - I'll take it.

echappist

ECCC Race At Army

Men's B TTT. 2nd out of 9 teams

Didn't really want to do this at the middle of the week, then i didn't get a lot of training done. Furthermore, i realized i might not get a lot of hours on Sunday either, so i decided to participate in it after all. 4 teammates: me, a B rider, and two C riders (a power rider and a rider who's more of a climber). The course was rolling, with a few sections at 2.5% for a few minutes. We got rolling just fine, with everyone taking 30s pulls. At the first 2.5% section, i set a tempo that was too high and was gapping the C climber. Good thing it was at a turnaround, and our C power rider just hit the front on the downhills. The rest of the race was also fine, though it was a bit slower than i'd liked, even with me taking pulls in the 1-2minute range. We worked well together, and i'm quite happy with the results as this was our first TTT together.

Men's B Road Race. 42 starters, and




2.2 mile loop that starts with a long descent and flat section, a falseflat into the wind, followed by a 0.2-mile long kicker to the start/finish. I didn't have good position to start the race, but managed to work my way to the front as no one was working on the false flat. On the hill, i tried the sand-bagging climbing again, which meant that i had to move up in the wind on the false flat again. This went on for about three laps and i was tired of it. On the fourth lap (~20m into the race), i saw that two riders had a tenuous 5s gap on the false flat and bridged up while others were still going slow on the false flat. We worked together for one lap, and Andrew (climber7) and a Penn State kid bridged to our group when we were on the false flat again on lap 5.

The two people originally in the break were dropped, and the three of us began working together. A kid from Rochester Institute of Tech bridged up and passed us; he went on to win the race by 40s, though this sandbagger has received a mandatory upgraded to cat 3, finished at the top of the field since forever, and is still racing men's B races even though there aren't enough cat 3's in the field for him to earn points. Anyways, the three of us soon realized that the guy was going away and decided to ride our own race. Our gap was tenuous at the beginning, but it grew thanks to the blocking of my teammate and the PSU kid's teammates. Around lap 8 or 9, we realized that we were pretty much out of sight and had a good chance of making it. I began to suffer and was probably the weakest rider in the break, getting gapped by 1-2s on the climb and using the descent to latch back on.

On the last lap, we realized that we had a pretty comfortable margin, and the pace was ramped up leading into the false flat. I somehow didn't immediately get on a wheel and had to spend 10-15s chasing in the crosswind to latch on. When the final kicker came again, Andrew took off for the second and i got third. The poor Penn State kid got a flat and rolled in fourth. My first Cat B podium, and first upgrade points. Congrats to Andrew, who looked very strong.

Thanks to all who have helped with my training and put up with my demands for handwringing.

heppm01

FRCC "B" (cat 3/4) circuit race - 50' + two 1.4 mile laps - 7th out of 20 something

Not much to report. Small field - the forecast for rain, t-storms and strong winds must have kept a lot of people in bed. I did a hard ride yesterday evening and got all of three hours of sleep due to work issues so I had pretty low expectations going in to this.

No legs at the start and it went downhill from there. I managed to stay top 6-7 wheels for most of the race, close some gaps and chase some moves but I didn't have much depth and wasn't aggressive at all. With 15' to go I blinked and somehow there were three guys well off the front. We chased for a bit but with the winds we just weren't able to make up the ground.

Bell lap I thought I was perfectly positioned at 5th wheel. At 1k the pace picked up quite a bit then with about 300m to go the two guys in front just rode away from the rest of us - a rather impressive show of strength. I managed to pick up a spot in the sprint to end up 7th but to be honest it was due more to attrition behind me than any great riding on my part.

Good w/o but even better I put some HTFU points in the bank. So many times today I wanted to pull out - my HR and RPE were way high relative to our speed and every time we climbed the hill or I had to close a gap I thought it would be the last effort I could make. But somehow I stuck with it and kept doing what needed to be done to stay in contact. I'm sure the memory of this will come in handy somewhere down the road.

Cleave

+1
(I'd have +1 on the Goliath part but I have enough trouble with David.)

bostongarden

echappist -- very very happy for you!!!

climber7

jim's report mostly covered it, but i'll add my perspective...

army circuit race: team decided to skip morning TTT and just drive up this morning for the circuit. got a good warm up and got to staging relatively early, so started in decent position, and clipped in quickly on top of that. race was pretty uneventful and easy for the first few laps; i stayed pretty sheltered and felt good going up the "climb." found it pretty easy to move up there, which surprised me because power climbs aren't usually my thing. at some point, a few guys (including echappist) ended up a few seconds off the front. it started with one or two and grew to three or four, and at that point i decided to get up there. caught up mostly on the descent without working too hard. penn state came too, and then RIT bridged up soon after. i know how strong he is, so that was kind of when i realized it was a legitimate move. not really sure when the other guys fell off, but soon it was just RIT, echappist, penn state, and me. RIT pulled through into the headwind and i was pushing way over threshold just to hold his wheel, so we couldn't hang on and he ended up off on his own.

the three of us then worked together for the rest of the race. honestly, it probably wasn't the best-organized break in history, but i think we got some blocking from columbia and penn state in the field. we did share the work and managed to stay away, so i guess we couldn't have been too bad. i had to hold back a little to avoid dropping the other two on the climb every lap, so i knew if we made it to the finish together, i had a good shot. we stayed away, penn state pulled through most of the headwind on the last lap, and i jumped on the climb and took second (RIT won solo) pretty easily. although it's too bad that penn state flatted at the end.

a little bit of a weird race - i never got the impression that anyone was really attacking, and i'm not entirely sure how we ended up off the front - but it was my first time in a legitimate breakaway and my first podium finish at any race. especially happy because i didn't think this course would suit me.

it was certainly hard but i never thought i was about to die...which is interesting because NP was actually a few watts over threshold for the 54 minute race. maybe i'm in better shape than i thought.

Jsiegs

Did the same SoYoCo circuit race mentioned above. Cat 5, my second race, finished third. There was a nice, steep hill maybe 100 m before the finish. Pretty boring actually, after the first lap. There was some seriously sketchy riding going on that lap. There was a steep down then an immediate 90 degree right turn on rough and gravely pavement. No one was holding their line through the turn, I saw guys off the road in the grass and was thinking to myself that I really need to get to the front for that turn. Then there was a crash at a second tight turn, I squeaked by with just a slight elbow bump with another rider doing the same. Caught the front guys and the pack was whittled down to maybe 15 for the rest of the race. Next 4 laps were pretty uneventful. A little before the last lap 2 guys sort of floated off the front. I didn't think much of it on the penultimate lap, they weren't far and weren't attacking. Next thing I know halfway through the last lap, they're way off. We talked and some tried to make an effort to get them, but no one was willing to do any work. I tried starting with a good pull but when I tried to peel off everyone just stayed on my wheel as I eased. I had drifted left, everyone followed in a neat line behind, so finally I just swung right hard to get them off my wheel. I was third wheel coming into the final turn into the hill and finish. Attacked a quarter of the way up and was leading the pack by a good bit (10m maybe) at the top, kept the power down and maintained the lead over the line for third.

Found out after the race, one of the guys in the "break" had a few teammates at the front of the pack who slowed to let him get away. Good move, and stupid on my/our parts for not doing anything about it. Learning experience again for me. Won't let that happen again! Crazy how you can "know" tactics while watching races with commentators on TV, but in a race, I know nothing yet.

Hoping for another good result in my race tomorrow too.

TMonk

+1.

nice racing.