plantrob

Gotcha, thanks. My lack of US sports knowledge is painfully obvious

khill

[/QUOTE]. I went on a downhill right before a fast corner where I knew my MotoGP background would help create a bigger gap, and before an uphill twist where I knew I'd make more room.[/QUOTE]

You race MotoGP?

kensuf

Why do you think people refer to him as Rx? Ever hear of 'The Doctor'?

(lol, he's not Italian)

saratoga

Good Lord, I never would have made that connection (but I'm usually clueless to begin with).

Racer Ex 

Raced. Longgggg time ago. 250cc GP stuff. Also did some Superbike. Easier to get results in the GP class because you could pick up last year's factory bikes. Superbikes you hoped you had a good builder.

shovelhd

Thanks to whoever fixed the thread title.

waterrockets 

You are welcome. It was killing me.

shovelhd

That stuff bugs the crap outta me.

rkwaki

Kinda like the team was working on 'there' tactics?

carpediemracing 

Did you ever race with Chris D'Alusio? GP, not cycling, although he did/does that too.

khill

Very cool!

Racer Ex 

Yeah, I think a couple of times. Might be that I know the name though...

hammy56

I belive he raced after Ex...he raced 250's around the time i did. In the 90's. He may have been in there in the late 80's...? I continued until 08, but i dont think i saw D'Alusio after the 90's.

Obviously i could be wrong, but i think i remember ex telling me he raced until the early or mid 80's?

carpediemracing 

Some stories about D'Alusio. He worked for Cannondale forever, now Specialized.

- Apparently (and someone can correct me) he got 3rd overall for the season with a broken wrist in the last race in GP250s or something. They put him on his (motorcycle) and let him race the race. He also ran with a privateer team, beating the factory ones.
- Cannondale had this tapered stone wall next to a garage bay, kind of like the first piece of a Jersey barrier. Started about 1-2 layers of stone high, maybe 4-5", then up to about 5 feet. As part of the lunch ride guys waiting would roll down the hill and try and jump off a "higher" point than the others. Everyone (on road bikes) got to about a foot or so and would chicken out. D'Alusio would sail off the wall a few feet off the ground.
- He's a really strong rider, very compact, very powerful. I don't remember him in races; I raced with him, but I never raced with him. I was fodder; he was one of the ones at the front, killing it.

hammy56

Cool stuff cdr... A good friend of mine and former #5 plate, ama 250 rider, still owns an ama 600 team. Hes a good cyclist and at the races has ridden bicycles with a lot of pro and ex pro superbike guys. Scott Russell, Jake Zempke (who rode my friend perry's stuff last year at daytona onto the podium, and got the rolex for pole), Tommy Hayden, Josh Hayes, and a bunch of others...

Homebrew01

We were room mates back then. He had motorcycle parts all over the living room
A bunch of us were mountain biking back then and spent about 1/2 taking turns trying to jump this stone wall. I think he and 1 other guy finally did it. I gave up after faceplanting about 10 times.
He was definately strong on both types of bike. His older brother Doug was a strong cyclist too. His younger brother raced motos for a bit.
Some of Chris' results can be found with a simple search.

khill

Very cool, I work with Nick Ienatsch and Scott Russell now at the Yamaha Champions School.

Ken

hammy56

Nick was a real good 250 rider. I had a phone conversation with him once, back around 2002 or 2003 (?). He was interested in riding (renting) my RS250, not having his own at the time...seemed like a real nice guy.

ethman

OP- great post, something that I've been wondering about as well.

I've been zealous about sticking to my plan and making my Z2 rides, Z2 RIDES! I rarely stray from my wattage and will literally crawl up hills as slow as possible to stay in my zone. Of course this means that I'm training alone. Wanting not to be such an anti-social rider I recently joined some guys for a Sat morning ride and our endurance pace quickly gave way to threshold and supra threshold efforts (at least for me). It freakin hurt and by the end I either burned all my matches or just couldn't muster up the huevos to suffer anymore and was dropped shortly before the end of our ride. I don't plan to do this very often, but isn't there something to be said for getting out of your comfort zone and suffering a little? I for one have a hard time dialing in that killer instinct during training rides (with other riders) and sometimes during races. I just want the pain to stop. But I wonder if a wuss like me needs to suffer more in order to get better at accepting the pain so I can ride harder when it counts. Thoughts???

Debusama

I don't know if I could stand the monotony of doing zone-2 rides all the time, nor would I be able to get home as I live at the top of a hill. I tend to ride close to Lt heart rate in most every ride, solo, group ride, or race. I'm a group ride hero, I just don't have that extra level to which to to elevate myself for races. Somewhere between you and I, I'm sure, there is a happy medium. I probably always do couple intense rides per week, but I will also have to start leaving the Garmin and bike computer behind, because whenever I have a way to measure myself, I cant help but go all out, whether it's against a clock, or being the first to the top of the hills in the group rides. I've notice I do the same thing during winter training as well. I can put on a movie ans spin easy while I watch it for hours, but once I'm on a computrainer I feel compelled to set a world record. I think just need to stop wasting so much energy and emotion in rides that don't matter.

echappist

Unless you have 5 hours to train, i can't see how you are preventing burn outs. In addition, how do you know that your power output at LTHR is actually increasing? When you start over-reaching, it's quite easy for your HR to get jacked and stay there, all the while generating less power.

It's much better to be a race day hero than a group-ride hero. Personally, i put a throttle on my wattage output this time of the year, and I do that mostly by riding alone. On my long Z2 rides, I don't go above 90% FTP for extended periods of time on training rides, and I've been passed by all sorts of riders: some much stronger than I, some of them so spent that on the immediate downhill, I easily gap them.

Listening to music/pod casts helps with boredom, and so does the concentration needed when you need to maintain power (try to avg 75% FTP for 4 hours, it's freaking hard the first few times you do it).

edit: come to think of it, on those 4hr long rides, my HR actually averages about 90% LTHR despite putting out power at top of Z2.

agoodale

Another thing to think about is this: Now that you have proven to everyone that you're the group ride hero, what's the point of continuing to do it? You should be cruising in the back and smiling to yourself every time someone attacks. You know you can kick that guy's ass. Cheer him on and continue chillin' in z2/z3. If someone who doesn't know you decides to get cocky you're legs will be plenty rested to show him his place. (Just be careful he's not some out of town Master who's f'n with you).

Building base during the off season reminds me of this joke:
There are 2 bulls on a hill overlooking a pasture full of cows. The young bull (you) eagerly says to the old bull "Hey, let's run down there and f*ck one of those cows!". The old bull smiles and calmly replies "Let's walk down there and f*ck them all."

veloboy971

That's great!!!

shovelhd

ethman, you need to find a group ride that's predominantly elite riders going out for a base ride. It's hours of Z2/Z3 with maybe some sprints thrown in for fun and lots of good conversation. You'll know you're riding above Z2 when they either let you ride away or they yell at you.

bostongarden

Bingo.