Ygduf

I raced some crits.

I did not win, but I did earn a ****** hat and some wine.










I basically did 8 mi of solo superman-break in the 2/3. Caught 250m from the line.




In the p12, I covered moves and got up into every break so my teammates could save it for the end. I started the first break, when we were caught I countered and started the third, third had the most juice. 8 guys, 25 minutes, caught... 250m from the line. Team didn't do so well in the p12. Dunno what happened, once we were caught it was get-out-the-way time.




I don't even care. Was a fun day, showed I had the legs to ride with p12. Need to work on the skills to actually place.

While I raced hard and lost, @mattm again raced smart and got on the podium. Dude's a wizard.

tetonrider

i was trying to figure out what kind of head you have!

nice efforts. you sound like one of the stronger/the strongest guys on your team, even in a discipline that is one you don't prefer. time for them to race for you? no reason you can't deliver results in these fields.

Ygduf

Mmmm. Maybe in a RR. I mean, in crits my only legit chance is a break, and I do that for me and it benefits the team as well. As long as I'm up there, they can conserve and save it for counters/sprint if I'm caught.

I was most happy with my solo flyer. Soooooo close. Needed 5 more seconds. Time trialing is paying off. Someone figure out my cDa

UmneyDurak

Thanks.

Thankfully there were not crashes in 4, I think. Yeah things get super hectic in the end with everyone rushing in. I got lucky Alto Velo were pushing pace in the front before blowing up. I'll post a video of last lap and a half, in Video thread.

aaronmcd

Red Kite Crit
E4 & E3/4

Flat square, just under a mile per lap. E4 race, 2nd to last lap a guy attacks and I follow, then hesitate. **** I'd have done better either way if I chose one or the other. Instead I wasted energy and didn't commit, the guy was caught and I had nothing. 32/40

E3/4, I was smarter. 3 otf, I attacked with another guy. I get a gap easy, and I can catch but I default to vo2 to bridge... which leads the field to chase harder. We were caught almost as soon as I connected. Sat in, moved up, second wheel going into final lap. Very aggressive positioning - I was near the back in half a lap. Moved out and sprinted way early to pass a bunch, recovered for like 4 seconds, then went all out for 21/53.

Felt like I did all I could in the second race but the difference between second wheel and back of pack is approximately one missed wheel.

mattm

Dude you were on fire in the 2/3's race! Holding off 67 antsy riders can't be easy.. I totally thought you had it. Who knows, maybe you would have if one of your guys didn't try to bridge(?) with a few laps to go.

Anyway that was an impressive set of first races as a 2 - and crits no less!

mattm

Red Kite 2/3's - 3rd out of 68.

Points, but dammit I wanted to win!! Came out of the last corner 3rd, as I was coming around the leadout guy he swung over on me and shut the door.. crossed the line with my arm in the air in complaint. Oh well though, that's racing - it was the right move for him to make (he later said he could tell I was closing on him fast), and hell I've done it myself. The solution would've been me coming out of that corner first.

Still first overall in the 2/3's omnium though.

In the p/1/2 race 10 minutes later I just sat in until the last few laps, but luckily our guy was in the break so I didn't really need to do anything. Break got caught on the last lap and he still won! Luckily he didn't really need my help lol, my legs were done at that point.

rideaz

Well done Matt, aaron and Fudgy!!

Gramercy

Bethel spring series, almost finished last but finished in front of a few people. I had a good strategy, I just went WAY too early. On a 15 lap course, I took off on the 4th lap as it started to drizzle and people sat up, I pulled out in front and got a 15 second gap. One person joined me and just pulled away from me even though he said he wanted to work together. He was just much stronger than I was. I had trouble staying on his wheel. So after riding 25mph for a mile by myself, I blew up and was caught by the group and struggled to hold on. Eventually got dropped.

Met shovelhd, gstein, CDR and youngbeginner. Of course as our race finished the skies cleared up and it was a beautiful day. Oh well. I probably should have saved that move with a few laps to go, but I tried to break up the field since the riders were stonger than I expected. Avg speed of this cat 5 race from the winner I talked to was 23.6mph, over 1mph faster than the previous Bethel cat 5's.

I need to learn to be more patient, but since I know I can hang with a pack in cat 5's I now try to see what kind of strategies I can employ. Turns out, none of them have worked so far.

gsteinb

Who are you again?

Gramercy

I have no idea what this means.

Congrats on the win, wish I could have stuck around all day and watched more races but I had to get back to the city.

save10

RedKite #3
35+ 3/4, 35+ 123 (fields 50+ in both)

35+ 3/4 - result: pack

Overly amped from just watching Paris Roubaix. Attacked on the first lap. One of my friends from another team went across with me. We stayed away for awhile...multiple laps...but i didnt keep track as i was trying focus on blocking out pain. Eventually we were caught and re-integrated into the pack. Would have been nice if 2 or 3 guys joined us we could have stayed away for a fair amount of the race. The whole thing was a little ambitious..but it was fun to do. monitored events events for the rest of the race....then with 4 laps to go a lull. we go from single file to 8 across. I attack again....a WRI interval...i look back nobody is there. If three guys had gone with me we could have ended the race. So I go until i get caught about a lap and a half. I'm now at the tail of the field with maybe 1/2 a match left. I see three of my teammates at the back. I tell them to get on my wheel and I'll tow them to the front. I get them to around top 15-ish before i have to swing out. I blew myself apart in that race.

For my belligerence i was (like Fudgy) awarded most aggressive and given a bottle of wine and hat. I'm not sure about that first lap attack, but that one with 4 to go I'll do every time especially as a non sprinter. It could have worked with the right people. Oh an a teammate won the race and other guys were prominent during the middle sections. So we had a good race.

NP 328
IF 1.157




35+ 123

I pretty much had nothing left to contribute to this race and after the first one. I sat in....but very comfortably....which is quite good because every other time I did a M123 as a second race i was desperately hanging on. but i couldnt do much more than sit in as any extra effort would have blown me out. I think we had a guy in the breakaway. but i'm not really sure because i was kind of at the back. Also there were a crash that required an ambulance call and a neutral restart with 5 laps to go.

NP 267 (including pedaling around during the neutral)
IF .967


*also through BF race reports and team FB posts, i've figured out that MattM and I are on the same team. Congrats man on your race. Also it took me 4 months to figure that out. Its good i'm not a detective.

*also the during the 3/4 race the announcer made an announcement about how great it was that there hadnt been any crashes unlike the previous red kite. Pretty much right after he said that the crash that took out the Jr from Hack's team happened. Also there was a strong girl who was doing the race as training and she went down in that and may have broke her coller bone

hack

Good racing. Not sure what was going on in the 3/4 groups yesterday, but there seemed to be a total unwillingness for cooperation in all the fields. Wonder if people are too reluctant to take the risk of going out in break, blowing up, and missing out on a sprint finish. One of our guys tried to get a break in the 3/4 and 35+ 3/4, but when they had 4-5 guys well clear of the field, no one would cooperate or work.

Bummer to hear about the possible collar bone. She's a strong rider and I'm always suprised to see her right in the mix. The announcer jinx is in the clear on this one though as we did have an earlier crash on turn 3. A guy in the upper mid pack clipped a pedal, got run over, and then kind of had to turtle in place to avoid getting hit by the rest of the field.

ShutUpLegs

Lower Providence Crit
Cat 4: 22/70

Came into this race feeling pretty confident, although it wasn't an A race for me and was more to see where I was fitness wise. Classic 4 turn crit in an old business park with wide open turns and pretty much flat. Since our race was earlier in the morning there was a slight wind, but not to bad. Plan was to just sit in the whole race, work on good position towards the last two laps and hope for a sprint. One of three were accomplished, the sprint. I don't know if it was because this was one of the first crits of the year or what, but this raced seemed very "nervous". Riders were all over the place and lots of shaky wheels. Things were fairly uneventful for the first half of the race as some people tried to attack, but never got more than a couple seconds before they were quickly brought back. Made my way to the front, but then quickly would find myself in the middle again due to the movement of the back. With it being such a wide open course, the race was never really strung out and we would typically enter the corners 5 wide so lateral movement made it tough to jump on people who were moving up which made keeping position very hard. This is something I need to work on more. I always question to I spend more energy to move up and up even if I can't find a free ride? Any way about halfway through a rider came up on my right and ran right into the side of me causing my rear shifter to cock in towards the handlebars and my right foot came out of my pedal. I stayed up and had to fix my shifter on the fly then noticed it caused my brake to partially lock due to pulling the cable and my rear derailluer was skipping all kinds of gears when I'd shift. Made due and continued on. Last lap and I was sitting middle of pack, not where I wanted to be. We come out of turn 2 and I rider I know well makes a move right beside me to move front. I knew the move was coming, but for some reason I hesitated and it was enough that I lost that opportunity. He entered turn 4 in 2nd or 3rd position and I was back in the middle and knew there was no way to sprint past all those. A little dissapointed, but chalked up as a learning experience. For some reason I felt like I never could get in a groove in that race, although fitness wise I know I am strong enough to hang with anyone.

Ygduf

Hat Twins? SC?

Andy STi

Nice job, wish I could have made it out there. Work keeps getting in the way of my cycling career!

hack

The general consensus amongst a few that I talked to after the 3/4 agreed that this 3/4 race was much more aggressive than most of the recent red kite 3/4s. It wasn't particularly fast, but there were alot of people still around to fight for position on that last lap.

rkwaki

They were available at the beer tent. I have one too...

save10

actually it was the wine kiosk

save10

I think that's the nature of 4's and 3/4s. Less risk takers. I'm sure if somebody made a similar move in Masters 1/2/3s or P12s, more opportunists would have tried to go with the moves. As for me I've raced for a few years and I know what can and can't do (sprint) and I have a power profile to prove it. So I try to attack alot and try to get into moves. Its fails most of the time.

It worked last week at a stage race and its what got me out of Cat 4 a few years ago. I think sometimes I'm a little too eager and a lot people I race with know my MO so i have to have a little more patience with it. I guess you could ask why not skip the 3/4 and just do it in M123 or 2/3 race....but the leap to be able to do that successfully is really big and i'm not there yet.

Can you dig it?

aaronmcd

That was probably close to the most aggressive fight for position I've seen - maybe 28 or 29 mph, but still just slow enough that guys could move around and get aggressive. I think only Snelling and Cantua Creek were worse. After the E4 race (and what you said about the winner) I realized I'd have to get really aggressive last lap - but then that was just insane. There were people moving into places I didn't even think about going for.

mattm

Ha, who knew!

revchuck 

Matt & save10 - Must be a huge team!

shovelhd

Team Clueless

Ygduf

Turns out I knew save10 all along too, but he never spoke up.