Flatballer

Our home MTB race (the only one I'm doing this year, no money to travel for a discipline I'm terrible at and don't enjoy racing as much) is next weekend.

So I'll have some MTB pics soon probably.

spinwax

Rough day in the saddle. I cramped up...severely! I struggled to finish, but I finished. I got slaughtered. My time was terrible compared what I have done this climb in before, but it was still good enough that I even caught some of the 1-2 Pros, 35 and 45+ that started out 10min before me and to put me about 32nd out of 250 or so racers. It was not my day though. I wanted to win my Cat and be in the top 15 overall. It didn't happen. Oh well, next yr. It was still fun and there were some great people out there racing. The kid that took 2nd over all is just a stud and a nice guy on top of it. 22 yrs old and placed right behind Neil Shirley. Awesome.

I am in the blue and white. In big pain. This was Sat and I still can barely walk 2 days later..LOL

umd

I don't think that picture likes embedding. I can go to it and see it but it shows a red x here...

spinwax

Crap... I look like hell anyways...LOL.

Should be fixed. I used another host.

robncircus

Mt Charleston Hill climb I assume?

Rob

spinwax

yeah, Mt. Charleston kicked my ass climb!!! I was in pure agony. Cramps are not fun.

jordangerous

This is from back in august, and it is the last sanctioned race for me in 2009...
I pulled for a few laps and this is when I was on the front suffering..
I ended up winning the race so I guess I recovered enough at some point.

A BIG thanks to Matt's girlfriend Kira for taking the great pics!

umd

^^^^

wow that's an amazing picture.

ridethecliche

+1

That needs to be framed.

Pulling at the front with a smile on your face while the others suffer behind you.

Awesome!

ft_critical

So do you think I get him by the line for the win?

NomadVW 

Not really suffering this day, but long time since I've had a photo in here. Good race that day.

OTF and on the move:
https://linc.zenfolio.com/turkeyday2009/e7bf029e

waterrockets 

Hmm. Yes.

Your top spokes have more motion blur, and you're much more aero -- so your speed should be a lot higher.

Is that on an auto race track? It looks like rubber is laid down similar to a drag strip.

Nice. Looking strong there.

brendon_ak

No way, that guy is wearing a pro kit, so obviously he's a pro....

ft_critical

Sadly, missed by a tyre width in spite of a big lunge. But as you say I was carrying more speed - all about timing isn't it.

Yep the finish line was on a drag strip, very sticky and a head wind.

ridethecliche

Sprints are all about positioning and timing. Learn that now or forever be 2nd.

I need to learn to get even lower in a sprint. I should be hitting 40 mph on the flats with a bit of a leadout at the wattage that I'm hitting, but I'm a few mph off.

fly:yes/land:no

so close. i was hoping that the win would go to a fellow joy division fan.

waterrockets 

Are you sure that lower is more aero for you? You could test it with coast-downs. Note that the jump from 37mph to 40mph is HUGE as far as power requirements/aero improvements go.

spinwax

You better have beat him! He is sprinting on his hoods, wearing a CSC kit!

ft_critical

I know, how embarassing!

Flatballer

Wrong discipline, but I promise you it's suffering. Mountain bike short track, in the rain, really technical for a short track, and then a long uphill.

Short track is pretty much pain for the entire time. My race was only 20 mins, but it took forever.

agoodale

That previous picture reminded me of this one. It looks like I'm at the front of the pack but I was really sitting around 10-15th at this point.:

A big "Thank You" to UMD's wife for taking some great shots that day!

ridethecliche

I mean, I hit 1366W for 5 sec and that only got me up from 33.4 to 33.8 or so...

I think it was on a slight uphill, but still...

WCroadie

That's a really great photo!

waterrockets 

Yeah, on flat ground without wind, that same power would have me over 33.8. The thing is that you really can't look sprint speed for anything useful. The course and weather are too variable. If you want to tune your aerodynamics, then you need to do some testing. If you wanted to throw some math around, you could just go do some sprints with your current position, then do some with your elbows bent a fair amount more. Then see where you stand with power, acceleration, speed, and CdA in Excel. You could also plug numbers into one of the power/speed calculators and get an estimate of CdA there (tweaking until your power and speed matches up).

Testing is key though. Absolute speed is pretty meaningless.

umd

Thanks, I really like that one too