carlosflanders

Rumour has it that MJH2 is running a calorie deficit. Be scared.

As I was making zero progress in the 4s I was all set to race open masters this year and have fun being beaten up. Now I can't, so well done to ICA for the return of the 30+ 4/5. Might be able to stay OTF for 1/4 a lap longer this year. Hopefully they'll count results in these races for upgrades. I need 5 top 10s or 15 pack finishes to qualify.

30+ is a bit young for masters 1/2/3. This cat attracted two IL riders at the state road race last year. 30+ and 45+ seems like a very broad bands.

Glad to see that all the IL cup events are being consistent about running all the categories.

Good that non-IL cup events like Dixon and Joliet are mixing up the categories and are allowing folks to try out different flavours of fields.

What's up with $2 effective discounts for second races? Entry fees are my biggest cost every year. I'll be supporting the races that show some generosity with this.

Crits - we definitely need more crits. Especially in Wisconsin. Too many road races there already.

jcpups608

Really???
There's like 5 out of 50ish races. I think we actually lost 2 RRs from last year. I was thinking we needed more, but I like RRs.

I can always find something to complain about, but the reality is we've got it pretty good around here. At least the southern 1/3 of WI and the northern 1/3 of IL.

carlosflanders

Wisconsin has some lousy terrain for road races. They need to just give up on putting on RRs because they'll never be any good.

Just put on crits, lots of 'em. Especially flat ones with no more than four corners, three if possible.

MJH2

Really bad work things have completely ruined my progress over the last 3 weeks.

Especially once you get west of Madison. An added crit or two in Dodgeville or Spring Green would really fill out the schedule nicely.

In all of the difference of opinion in the Illinois Cup categories, it should be noted that they went out of their way to encourage more women to race. I expect that the Women's Cat 3 and 4 fields will probably both be light, but could be a decent way to involve more women in the long term.

Even so, I just added Dixon to the calendar. The Cat 4 chick in my life can suffer in a combined Women's 3/4 field, but I'll be racing 3 times!

jcpups608

Crits crits crits.

Psimet2001 

I'd have to be a 3 to be worried about that. Won't ever happen so no worries

WonderLake

I'm leveling off. Low. Bring it foo!

MJH2

So, what happened at the Spring Super crit today? I've only heard very little information. Namely:

-Ugly wreck in Masters 4/5 with an ambulance involved

-Jared Rogers hit the podium finally in the 4's (and good for that dude... I don't really know him, but he busts his tail every time he races)

-one of the races was shortened to less than a half hour?

That's all I got. What went on, people? What happened in the 3's? What about 1/2/3? I'm dying over here.

carlosflanders

Bitter wind chill. I was shaking badly at the start of each race, but once on the bike it was fine.

Strong wind all day, speed varied somewhat. Sun came in and out. Temp went up and down.

Cat 5: I think there was a small crash on lap 1. 4 guys got away on first lap and sprinted it out at the end. Race splintered into several groups.

Masters 4/5: 50+ starters. 7 laps of a 1.7 mile circuit. My main contribution to this race was not bringing up my breakfast.

1st lap was pretty fast. Then it slowed down somewhat with a lot of stop/start stuff and mucho bunching. Didn't notice any primes. Some sketchy riding but nothing out of the ordinary. Very strong wind made it hard work at the front.

Last lap was fast. Faster than the 4s I think. Too many fresh legs swarming up from the back. My timing was a bit off and the pack split in half. Chased hard but didn't catch on until the last turn. Turned out to be a blessing for me because there was a gnarly crash about ten places ahead. Didn't see the initial contact but about 200 yards from the finish two riders tangled and went down hard, bringing 3 others down with them. I would have been right there but for getting gapped.

Bikes and bodies all over the road. 3 guys looked ok but two others were not moving. Everyone behind soft-pedalled home.

Ambulances called. Heard later that the one spidermonkey (cat 5 winner) had a broken collarbone and no recollection of what happened. His bike was broken in several places. Could have been a lot worse.

Cat 4: Much smoother race. Plenty of people having a go at the front but very hard to make progress. Saw one guy slip a pedal and make an amazing save. A few incidences of riders being forced onto the grass through the chicanes. 1 prime.

Breakfast now digested, on lap 2 I jumped OTF to join Porkchop who was happily yoyoing OTF in both races. Don't know if it was to encourage or kill breaks. Yelled at him to hop on. Got a decent gap, rotated a couple of pulls. Was really nice to choose the best line through some of the faster corners. A third guy tried to bridge up to us but the pack decided to bridge up as well. We weren't making any progress against the wind anyway. I retired to mid pack to recover and practise moving up and back through the pack. A couple of laps later a break of 8 got a gap but a couple of guys refused to work and it disintegrated - almost. Two guys stayed OTF by a few seconds and then one punched it. No problem, he wasn't going to last very long in the wind and the race was only getting warmed up. Wrong. I was pretty surprised to hear the bell unexpectedly early - hadn't been monitoring the lap counter. punched to get up to tenth wheel but got swarmed when the field bunched up on turn two where you hit the wind. Rhythm Racing were blocking effectively. Worked up to tenth again but got swarmed again at the next tight curve. Several guys went into the grass here. Got boxed in for quite a while, the pace never really increased and was only able to start moving up again before the last turn. Sprinting into that wall of crosswind was brutally hard, anyone who mastered it has my admiration. Very difficult to find any gaps with riders spread all across the road and everyone desperate for a draft. Moved up a dozen places or so initially then kept my mediocre placing for the last 100 yards.

The last lap was slower than the corresponding masters 4/5 last lap. Rhythm racing blocked very effectively and their man soloed home by about 7 seconds, I believe. Very impressive to be able to keep up over 25 mph solo in that wind.

Cat 4 race was 6 laps for exactly 25 minutes. Knowing that we had lost 10 minutes due to the previous crashes, I presume the officials were trying to make up time by cutting the race short but, with the largest race numbers of the day and an already too-short 30 minutes scheduled I feel that it is important that the allotted time be used. There were several races with 10-20 participants where cutting short a lap or two wouldn't make any difference. 40 pairs of fresh cat 4 legs bunched-up and charging into a headwind finish is scary. 1 extra lap would take a little bit of extra nervous energy out of those legs. I would also recommend throwing in several extra primes to shake things up and string things out a bit more - for safety's sake. Just found it remarkably short for an IL cup race.

Credits:

Teamwork: Full credit to XXX for having a plan and executing. They went 1/3/5 in the 4/5 race and did everything right.

Rhythm racing raced hard at the front and showed that just a couple of riders can slow a pack very effectively.

Jared raced hard and positively and got a brace of well-deserved results. One of the nicer guys out there.

Gotta mention Tony Rienks. Got amongst them in both races, worked hard and came away with two top 10s.

Womens cat 4 and cat 3 got reasonable turnouts. No breakaways but the ladies showed excellent form in the final sprints.

Masters 45+. A Wisconsin rider rode away from everyone else and won by two minutes. He didn't even appear to have a good position on the bike - must be super strong.

Masters 30+ : Planet bike rider solo'd OTF for most of the race and was only caught with 1/2 a lap to go. The final bunch sprint was scary hard. The Polish guy who came second was very impressive - watch him to win a lot of cat 3 races this year.

Didn't see the other races. I enjoyed the day. Thanks to Burnham for putting it on. It's a long day and hard to keep on schedule. Don't want my comments to appear harsh but the 4 and 4/5 races are attracting far larger crowds than any other field and I'd like to see the races a bit more testing - especially in an IL cup event. I think this would make them safer as well, but I guess Cat 4 crashes will always be with us.

My personal goals were to not crash, finish with the leaders and get some practice in bunch riding and speedwork. Mission achieved.

Porkchopwi

Ha.
Nice to meet you finally, Carlos.
I had no idea that was you.
Sorta explains the CX brakes.

carlosflanders

Glencoe flyer is up. Didn't find any details of the course.

https://www.usacycling.org/events/get...ermit=2011-582

Pretty amazed that they managed to fit in all the IL cup cats. A long day.

They're having a separate cat 2 race. Dunno if that's a state championship - assume it is. Main male event is p/1 only - as are all NRC races. Presume that top IL finisher will be overall state champ. Unlikely to be in top 10. maybe even outside top 20. My money's on Schroetlin, dunno if Sherer is still resident in IL.

MJH2

Is that rumor that superweek might actually pull this off this year true?

https://www.pelotonstar.com/2010/04/f...superweek.html

P.S.- Where's Wilke?

carlosflanders

Been looking forward to this all year. MJH2 takes all the RRs and I take all the sprints.

btw, is it true about psi's upgrade?

MJH2

My second April Fool's contribution to this thread was my performance at Hillsboro yesterday.


Thank you and good night!

RacerOne

I was at Hillsboro, what race were you in?

MJH2

Cat 3. Fat guy, blue/black/teal kit, white bike... off the back on the first lap.

You?

Scummer

Hillsboro was awesome.. OTB after only 10 miles. Turned into a great training ride with a bonk, locked up left thigh and barely enough energy to finish the 2nd lap. And Curtis beating me to the finish line.
But at the same time Rob and I had some good times on the road just chatting and riding at a leisurely pace.

RacerOne

Cat 5, Green/black/pink kit, bike below.. 4th. I took some pics, I'll see if I see one of you.

Update: Tortuga kit?

Link to the photo's I took: Facebook Hillsboro - Roubaix 2011

Psimet2001 

Can't believe you don't like the fact that I beat you.....

After looking at the results I should have thrown in the towell after the first lap. Cramping from muscle fatigue before the end of the first lap and figured as long as I finished the second lap I would move much further up than I did last year - not so.

Riding with Scummer though was like a throwback in time. Loved it.

Psimet2001 

Can't see that without being your friend I think. MJH2 was/is on Bicycle Heaven.

MJH2

And isn't on Facebook!

RacerOne

Oops.. you're right.. here's the link for non - friend type people:

https://www.facebook.com/album.php?ai...1&l=90c07cca29

I can't believe the famous Psimet was there and I missed the chance to meet you.. how'd the Psimet Racing (red version) guy who crashed on the bricks turn out? Just the road rash I hope?

MJH2

Your pictures are from much too late in the race to catch me.

You did manage to catch BF members Wonderlake, and carlosflanders, though!

That wreck sequence is bad. In the one pic it looks like the bottles are still flying and Tim is wondering wtf just happened.

RacerOne

Yeah, I was watching the guys coming down the hill when I heard carbon breaking behind me and snapped those off. I don't have any idea what happened or caused it.

carlosflanders

Great pictures! Would you mind if I used a couple of them (credited) on my club's blog?

You got a picture of me doing what I do best - dragging musclebound midwesterners round the last corner. Only two of them got round me - both BHers.

Nasty crash for tspek, wrote off some nice wheels as well. Hope he's ok.