Nate552

Did a race in Saipan, MP, got second, beat by a local fast guy in the sprint. His coach followed our break on a moped giving him advice in their local language, so I had no idea what they were talking about.

mattm

Suffering/chasing in the 1/2's Wenatchee crit last weekend.

hammy56

fatty got beat by a guy sprinting from his hoods...

Nate552

He had bigger arms too.

waterrockets 

Good job Nate! That's a cool panning shot

Funny how the waffle kit is now the "retro" kit, huh?

theREEDeffect

Pushing the pace in a 5-man breakaway, ahead of a decently sized peloton. Went off the front shortly after, got caught by the break, which got caught by what was left of the main field on the last lap. Found some reserves to sprint for the win!

Chris R.

From a freezing cold and super windy race this past April. 60km/h winds and a 100km race in open terrain. 152 racers in my class. i had a flat, goy dropped bad and then made my way back to finish 33rd. A crap day all around. Good for the mental aspect though!

Chris R.

Racer Ex 

At 750m, swimming in lactic and spinning like a hamster on meth:

skinnyguy

chasing down a 2 man break somewhere in no mans land. i chased everything like a dog with a ball. ended up getting a gap with 1k to go and placed 3rd.

wanders

I hate sandy corners almost as much as wet ones. Nice going skinnyguy.

Hermes

I really like this pic. You and Mike covered 500 meters in 30.1 seconds according to the split times I have. If you were in 98 gear inches that is ~130 rpm at 37 mph.

The Domestique

Me suffering

akenny

Three cameras?

shovelhd

How not to race a bike race, Volume 1.

hammy56

Chapter 1: How to "clip in", and then waste as much energy as possible.

shovelhd

Domestique took it to a new thread. Let's try and be helpful.

valygrl

State TT Champs suffering. Photo Credit Dejan Smaic.

https://www.sportifimages.com/RoadRac...6128&k=4vSkpdb

GirlAnachronism

Harlem Crit. I'm second from the left.

Jsiegs

Tour of Washington County Cat 4 RR. Quick question if anyone can help - does it look like I have my weight too far forward? My rear wheel sometimes jumps/skips when i'm sprinting out of the saddle and this may be the reason?

I'm in white (not the zebra):

graphs

I was in the S3 race too. My brain was basically melted by the end.

grolby

If you can put more power down that way, you're okay. But you might want want to look into consciously keeping back a bit, or trying out a longer (shorter? I don't know) stem or something if you can sprint just as effectively while being better balanced. My main concern, if I were you, would be sprinting out of corners. Combine just the wrong kind of turn (corners that lead into a bit of an uphill are what come to mind) with too little weight over the rear wheel and a bit of excess enthusiasm, and suddenly you're on the pavement. We had a corner in the crit my team puts on where exactly that combination of problems caused a lot of people to crash.

grolby

Suffering in the 3/4 race Saturday, legs already shot from my first race of the day (4/5). Also, no doubt suffering as well, my teammate (black kit, red bike just left of me in the shot), who raced the 4/5 with me, then raced 30+, where he crashed and took a big chunk of skin off his left knee, then got his bike and himself patched up and jumped into the 3/4 race as well.



He still went on to finish tenth in that race, whereas I... well, here I am, suffering OTB.

Jsiegs

Yeah, I'm much better (or the fields as a whole are) at cornering than when I started, but I still get some accordion effects going on in my races (This was my second as a cat 4). This corner was a fast/harder one, I don't know if the accordion effect was my fault or people in front of me or if I was just at the front and the leaders decided to sprint out of the turn and I was matching them (this happened a few times).

What exactly would cause the crash? Me coming in hot on the riders in front of me? Or just my own instability? If I was making that much effort out of a turn, I'm assuming it was necessary to stay with the guys in front, as I'm much better at not doing the whole sprint out of the corner, then slam on the brakes because I'm about to run into the guys in front of me thing.

I ride a relatively small frame for my height (6-1 and a 56cm) so that could be my issue too.

grolby

Not to hijack the photo thread, but anyway. First of all, the accordion effect is a basically unavoidable phenomenon of a cornering peloton. Not really your fault.

The kind of crash I'm talking about is one I've witnessed - basically, the corner leads directly into an uphill slope. Riders coming through the corner stand and sprint out of it pretty much as soon as they're past the apex. But coming into an uphill like that increases the weight distribution imbalance toward the front, so the rear wheel skips out and down they go. So you need to watch out in situations like that.

In general, though, I wouldn't say that having your back wheel skip occasionally is a cause for much worry, if you aren't hotdogging it too much. I just see that as part of racing. A little bounce or skip doesn't have to be a problem if you don't panic and it doesn't happen in a situation where the loss of traction could be more than just momentary.