mattm

i think he bounced off the dude on the ground

Racer Ex 

Oh, that thing. I think the qualifying system is just a money grab by the UCI and kinda dumb compared to the old system. Don't think it impacts the fields all that much, the guys I know who go still go.

I'm waiting for them to come up with a stupid qualifying system for track world's next. Maybe a volleyball tournament...

Doge

Speaking more youth, but Cat 1 too. Nats was 109 miles for U23. That was the longest USA race for many of the riders. 109 miles for a Cat 1 race - U23 race is rare.

I think a national championship race should be of similar length and style course raced all year for that group.
I understand venues with have pros/cons compared to where each rider is from, but 109 miles is long.
In this case, 23 laps could have easily been 109miles, 104miles,99miles etc. It is not like they had 40 mile laps that they had to choose between 80 or 120 mile.s
Seems a USA non-pro (Cat 1) or youth pro race (U23) could have been 90 miles without controversy.

rubiksoval

You know, you could be an adult with a halfway reasonable retort rather than a complete ******* who does nothing but make asinine potshots...

Or maybe you can't.

Grow up, get a clue, and don't argue **** you're too ignorant to intelligently refute. Sage life advice for you, bud.

rubiksoval

Yeah, I pretty much agree.

The pro race in Knoxville was the same length. Seems silly.

Doge

The counter point for 17-18 and U23 is these are worlds UCI selection races. So as UCI likes 109ish mile races then I can see doing one for Nats. Of course - I'd try to match the course, which "we" don't do, but at least I understand the distance thing.
Pros of course are that long.

Cat 1s - Why?

Racer Ex 

You do realize that you called him an ignorant ******* while chiding him for not putting forward a reasoned retort?

Cognative dissonance?

globecanvas

The thing about internet spats is that they don't stop until one party decides to let the other one have the last insult.

Racer Ex 

Incorrect.

(chuckle)

Ttoc6

Did the Gran Fondo today. Don't want to start the debate again of them being races vs rides, but the front group was pretty compettitive. Most of them were 3's. This ride pulled over 1000 people to come participate. Probably a discussion for another thread, but why are so many people coming out for these things and not for races...

Anyways, 100 Miles, 1 smal lclimb, one big canyon road climb in the Cache Valley of Utah and Idaho. Front group was made on the first small cimb that was like 5% for 1.5 miles maybe. Not really a hard climb, but it was a crosswindy descent that I think scared some people. Everyone the nroad together for about 40 miles and we cam eto an aid station. It looked to me like everyone was stopping to pee and grab water. Apparently a group of 7 skipped it. I looked up while I was peeing at a tree to see that the main group (that did stop)was already half way up the riser before the big climb... Chased hard for about half an hour and made it all the way to the front of the chase group. That hurt. Luckily I made the catch right at the steepest part of the climb which is I guess one of my strengths relative to others.

Group of probabl 6 chased hard down the descent, rotated well and I think we had the front 7 within a mile of being caught. But then somebody HAD to stop at the next aid station (77 miles in) to refill water again. There goes any chance of us catching since 1 person stopping meant the whole group stopped.. I refilled on gator ade and grabbed an orange and took off solo. The group behind our chase pack caught and then the larger group caught me. We paceelined solo through the tailwindy, flat section after the climb for about 22 miles. When we hit100, my navigation turned off and we still had 6 miles to go to the finsih. Some really tired people at that point in the group. Super messy "sprint" that I really didn't care to contest.

I rode most of the second half of the ride super pissed off. People jumping through aid stations or attacking feedzones is just so stupid. Swore at somebody on the climb (probably shouldn't have, but I was grumpy and had been dealing with Freds all morning). Forgot that people here in Utah are scared of the (f)word, ****.

globecanvas

Giro del Cielo crit. Finished somewhere in the back third of the field.

This is a stage race, and I usually do the masters, but my teammate isn't old enough so I signed up for the P123 crit stage only, to help him out. This morning he texts me from his broken down car on the thruway. So, no teammate and no stage race, just a crit.

Hit 900w on the little hill every. single. lap, 1000w on 6 laps, 1100w on 2 laps. Coming out of the hill was a windy stretch where everybody wanted to be to the right of everybody else. causing a fair amount of riding through branches and grass.

Last lap I was moving up the outside on a buddy's wheel and then he flatted, which sucked for him and wasn't awesome for me either, but really we were going so fast that I needed to have already been about 10 spots further up at that point to be able to do anything in the finish.

I got to race with @dz_nuzz and teammates though, so that was cool. I've done plenty of P123 races when there was no masters field but I think this is the first time I've done a P123 field when there was also a masters field. It's amazing how much younger everybody seems when you take away all the old guys.

mattm

Watsonville crit p/1/2. We had 8/17 riders, so pressure was on us to win.

General plan was to get more than one of us in The Break, and we did that.. just didn't pull off the W. Team got 2nd to some pro kid so it wasn't a total disaster.

I jumped on a bridge attempt, sat on for a few laps, then tried to jump him when we got relatively close. Got within maybe 3 seconds of the break but we sat up. At the time I figured I didn't really need to be up there, but I wish we'd just closed the gap..

aaronmcd

Red Kite crits. Hot.

2/3, I think 28 on the line.

I waited for the first lull some 10 minutes in and rolled off the front. Took a prime next lap, built a solid gap over the next couple laps. A handful of guys bridge up including one really high threshold dude that likes to ride around in the wind off the front all the time.

We work mostly together for a few laps pretty fast, ease up a bit and a few more bridge up. I think were as many as 10, but we had a big enough gap that we stopped working and started racing again. Then fast dude goes up the road and too few of us start chasing too late.

7 to go I get a gap, and a lap later another guy joins me. We work a lap, but then a few more make it up and it falls apart. We all come back together racing for 2nd. I try out a bell lap attack which lasts about 1/3 of the course, another guy counters, pack hesitates, jumps hard and I can't follow. Come in 9th.

1/2 race had maybe 15 starters.
I and most others last 10 or 20 minutes. First race was hard. And very hot. Even some guys not doubling up went off the back. Some superhuman beast that nobody knew rode away solo from the 6 guys left in the pack.

mattm

Ha, sounds like the p1/2 race today at Red Kite.

He got 2nd at Burlingame, we had an eye on him and he still got away.. which is even worse. We just figured with six of us (eventually five) chasing at a good pace - 30 mph in to the headwind - he'd come back, but no.. he had a 40-second gap at the end!

So after 40 minutes of chasing, I threw in the towel and sat on the group figuring we should at least get 2nd out of it. Did that, and blew them away in the "field" sprint.

But man, that race's attendance has really tanked. When I moved here in 2013 Red Kite p1/2 had 50+, dunno what changed.

TheKillerPenguin

While the rest of the team did the whole Giro De Cielo race weekend I only signed up for yesterday's road race since I'm still putting a house together after moving.

The gist is, we got a teambro in the promising early break and they had ~2min by about the halfway point thanks to dz_nuzz doing false tempo on the front, but there was an overlapping of wheels and 4 of the 5 breakaway riders crashed. Our teammate has a fractured pelvis and a broken bike

We caught the lone survivor pretty quickly after, and maybe a few miles after that there was another move that started but the race had been pretty easy so I wasn't concerned about it as I didn't think anyone would be gassed enough for it to be allowed to go up the road. dz_nuzz knocked some sense into me though, and I started trying to bridge but got held up by physical blocking. Like I was second row but first row was fanned out yellow line to grass and I didn't want to push the center line rule. So I sorta danced around trying to find a hole until I was able to, then started my bridge attempt, and got within 10 seconds of the leaders but wasn't able to close the last part of the gap down. So I put my head down and solo'd the last 45 minutes in no man's land to the finish ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Pretty sad for my teammate, pretty annoyed at neutralizing myself out of the move, but pretty stoked I stuck a solo roll behind it. A nice confidence booster I guess, feel like I'm finally coming into my own.

Ygduf

Honestly, yeah.

CCCX used to be "small" with like 20-30 racers and Red Kite used to field 50+ all the time. Now it's like 8 at CCCX and 20 at Red Kite.

My race was boring. My team kinda ****ed me again. A boring and unremarkable 5th of 20 or something.

mattm

But we still get 70+ at Cal Aggie, go figure!

I won't say "racing is dying" until the big races like Cal Aggie, San Rafael, SF Giro, etc, start fading. So far, they're still going strong.

globecanvas

Whaaaaaa? I heard there was a crash in the break but that's just terrible. I hope he heals quickly.

TheKillerPenguin

He is in reasonably high spirits given the circumstances I would say, but this is his second major break of the year. He broke his collarbone and had surgery for it back in late March. It's a real bummer, he's such a stupidly strong climber but has had some pretty crap luck.

mattm

Sucks, for whoever that is.

globecanvas

His mom is going to make him quit the sport.

dz_nuzz

Let's not joke about that....really.

globecanvas

I wasn't really joking. 2 major crashes in a year could trigger a family intervention for anyone.

JJ121591

Yep, that was me. Someone shouted the gap, heads turned, wheels overlapped and the pavement came up before I knew what happened. 2017 is done for me. If I can do a 150w coffee ride in October I'll be ecstatic.

Just remember bros, every time you're having a bad workout and hating the bike, consider the fact that you're still riding one!

- Jantz

cold turtle

Why? Because it's the national championship. If there's a problem with race distances, it is that most road races are too short.