Beaker

Yeah - I learned that riding over rolling tumbleweeds wasn't a big deal, but that being blasted by blown sand each lap is less amusing. On top of that we had a loose dog on lap 3 just at the end of the badly paved 2km section. I hear lots of shouts of "mmmomph" around me, vowel sounds didn't sound like anything I'd been accustomed to hearing on group rides or races, then realized it was "Dog".

Having said all that, the tailwind we got on Los Cerritos Rd was friggin' epic.

mazdatech10

yes the wind was worse in the afternoon,we were the last group to go, got blown across the road once. wish the tail wind was longer!

merlinextraligh

Just gave the worst time trial effort of my life, and one of the worst in the history of the sport.

Albany race weekend, 2.35 mile Tt on a MUP.

There wer thunderstorms right before the start and a tornado warning siren going off when I was going to warm up.

Ended up riding it with 5 minutes warm up.

Didn't look at the course before. It was a MUP designed with turns to keep speeds low. With rain and standing puddles, the TT bike as a poor choice.

And I let all that get to me, and mailed in a piss poor effort.

merlinextraligh

Crit was better, although we raced in a heavy rain. Finished 4th in a small field.

grwoolf

Lago Vista, TX Road Race - 35+ 4/5's (3rd)

The course was a 6 mile loop with a long drag up and then steepish descent/rollers to a short uphill finish. Plan was to sit in mostly on the climbing and flats and try to stay at the front for the decents and near the finish (as much about safety at 50+ mph as anything). I didn't want to descend in a pack at the end, so I figured we needed to go hard into that section on the last lap. On the last lap, I think most of the field was pretty shot by the climbing, but I had good legs. I stayed near the front and finished 3rd in a very strung out field. I was actually 2nd in the field, a single man break won from 20+ miles out.

I think I've discovered a type of road course that fits me well. Both last week (pace bend) and this week, there were some hills to soften the field and then a fast run-in to the finish. I'm not always staying right with the strongest climbers when they take the pace up, but I'm able to stay close enough, recover quick, and really power onto the flats. Both weeks, the field is so strung out at the end that there is no mass to the field sprint. That's good for me as a lousey sprinter.

After zero results last year, my goals for 2012 was to get some top 10's and at least one podium. I've got a 6th, 4th, and 3rd in my last 3 weekends of racing, so I'm uppping my goals to a win. There are only 1-2 more RR's planned for this year (not counting the weekly crit series), so we'll see what happens.

mike868y

Kind of a frustrating day. A break of 5 went, I had a teammate in it so I didn't chase. ****head got dropped from the break so I spent 10-15 miles chasing with 2 or 3 other guys (all of the strong/big teams were represented in the break). We simply weren't making ground up and I was bodying myself so I dropped back to recover. About 5 mi from the finish I attacked with a WM kid but we didn't ride smooth enough to maintain a gap. There was a huge crash at the finish in the Cs so our race got neutralized 2mi from the finish. We made an agreement to just roll through the finish to avoid a cluster**** of a sprint.

kleinboogie

At least you were out there. First of the year? I have my 20K ITT tomorrow at Fiesta Island. Cheers

RedLeg

Spring Fling#2

CAT4/5 Crit:
Alot of wind, guttering and negative riding. I had no teammates. Won a prime by attacking at the bell and soloing to the line. Should have saved that move for the last lap. Back of the pack finish.

CAT 3/4:
Off the back.

echappist

ECCC collegiate opening weekend, Cat B.

Did the TT this morning, and that was just a ****show as I didn't properly warm up and didn't really care that much about it. Rolled in somewhere middle of the pack.

Road race was interesting. 4 x 13mile laps on narrow roads with a 1.2 mile long climb 1.5 miles from the start finish, some narrow roads on the back side, a long descent, and a flat run in to the finish. The first lap was a royal cluster**** as the pace was really slow, and I had a bad feeling that there's gonna be a crash as we had 50+ people bunched up in a single lane. Sure enough, some kid (in the front 10, no less) swerved to avoid rough pavement and took down a few riders. I avoided it but had to chase to get back on. I wasn't at the front for most of the first two laps, and apparently a MIT rider broke away during this time to solo for the victory, something I didn't realize until after the race.


The climb really didn't do damage until the 3rd and 4th laps, during which the field got cut to ~25 people and then 15 people. A kid from Dartmouth threw in a dig on the back stretch, and I tried to bridge up to him but couldn't. He stayed out for a while but was reeled in the final time up the climb. During the climb, I made sure to stay at the front to be able to respond to attacks, but no one did and only a fast tempo was set. I personally wasn't sure about my legs so i sat on the third wheel. A few kids threw in attacks and i went, but we were quickly brought back. In the final run in, a gap was formed with 4 riders up the road. I tried to sprint and bridge up, but instead just dragged everyone back together (effing FAIL). The 15-man field settled for a sprint, and i'd guess i came in 11th or 12th overall.


I'm happy with where my fitness is, but it's glaringly obvious that I need to pack a better sprint or grow a pair and attack early. Not feeling so well leading into the race probably clouded my judgments about my abilities. This is rather similar to how the last hammer ride ended during which i made the selections but got left behind in the sprint.


No more racing for a while, but i'll be going on hammer rides to build confidence on attacking from long range. As of now, i'm really just a frigging triathlete with some bike handling skills and an occasional moment of tactical clarity.

notwist

do you know how the Mens A race went? i know some dudes from Princeton who did it.

echappist

check velocity results (just google it). the itt results are up.

did you race Rutgers today?

notwist

nope - i'm just a Rutgers alum

valygrl

First race report, my first race.
(tldr: first race, SW4, windy TT, not DFL, yay.)

Let me preface by saying, I've been (mostly) lurking here a ton, and have learned a lot, especially from studying the TT sticky thread to prep for this race. So thanks for all the useful info here.

Frostbite Time Trial near Ft. Collins CO, SW4 (I could ride 45+ but chose 4 for this race). Annoyingly, I don't know my results as the timing crew was gone by the time I finished cooling down, and they didn't post the results for those of us in the later races. Still waiting for them to post on the ACA/USCF sites.

Anyway, it was 11.4 miles, gently rolling terrain (nearly flat), out in the plains up near the CO/WY border. The wind was scary, I came really close to bailing about a hundred times, starting when I woke up at 4:17am (for a 9:30 departure, race nerves, doh!) all the way to the very minute I toed the start line. The wind was blowing 27 mph with 36mph gusts at my start time, cross wind with a tail component on the way out and head/cross on the way back. I weigh about 110# so I use that as my excuse for why I'm such a kitty about riding in the wind.

I managed to navigate my way through my pre-race full-blown panic attack, with the help of my friend/team mate, who talked me through the pre race prep, and who passed along her coach's advice to HTFU and ride till your eyeballs bleed. I had about 5 female teamies and 4 other non-teammate guy friends in the race, the guys stuck around after their race to be supportive at the start, and that was a huge morale booster.

They started us in 30 second intervals. I passed 3 gals during my approx 40 minutes on the bike, one of whom (1 minute girl) re-passed me and then I re-re-passed her, and another of whom looked like she had given up racing and was just trying to survive. I was passed by one gal, who was wearing a skinsuit and riding a TT bike. (A lot of the SW4's were riding road bikes).

As I was approaching the turnaround, I was also catching my 1 minute girl, and since I can't turn left (working on it, but not enough obviously), I slowed with her as she slowed too early for the turn, because I didn't want to pass and then block her in the turn. As expected, I completely dorked up the turnaround, to the point of putting a foot down and being in the wrong gear when I restarted. Anyway, 1 minute girl turned much better, so I had to work to catch up to her again.

I was riding my road bike with clip-on aero bars and an aero helmet, per the advice on the TT thread. I was in my bars most of the outbound (fast, downwind-ish) leg, but barely at all on the return, as the front/side gusts were so severe I was afraid to use them. I think I mostly stayed in the drops, though, a bonus of using a road bike.

Anyway, I used a power-based pacing strategy I picked up in the TT thread, and I felt like it did work OK. It was really hard to pace evenly in the wind, and I overcooked it for a bit on the way back into the wind, and paid the price for a few minutes after, trying to recover (this is where 1 minute girl re-passed me). I feel like I still had just a little in the tank at the end, so I think maybe a slightly more even output would be better, but for a first try, I'm really happy with it.

Thanks for reading!

Racer Ex 

It's a big learning curve that never really stops. Congrats on sticking it out.

jaredcasper

Stanford Road Race - Mens D (10th)

My second road race ever, first I didn't flat on. Course was ~37 miles total out and back on narrow roads rolling uphill on the way out, with a more significant (but still pretty mild) climb up to the turn around. Tail wind out and head wind back. Only thing of note on the way out was the number of crashes. Presumably a combination of an exceedingly high number of squirrels in the pack, narrow roads, and a slow pace led to at least four crashes near me within the first 10-15 miles. At one point near the beginning I was moving up along the outside, some rider next to me yells something (I think "passing!" or something?) then attempts to sprint out in front me. I stop pedaling just in time for him to pull out of his pedal and brush my front tire as he nearly falls into the oncoming lane. Ah Mens D.

Twice I felt riders rub my back wheel then go down. Both times I immediately took note of what I was doing and both times I was going in a straight line, the same speed or faster than those around me, and not touching the brakes. It still made me a little paranoid that I was one of the squirrels and caused those two crashes. We were all pretty vocal about calling out the bad riders after a few crashes and nobody yelled at me, and my more experienced teammates have assured me I can hold a line, but that still weirded me out. Maybe I just think I'm going straight? I could just picture some dufus yelling at everyone to hold their line while swerving all over the road and hoped that wasn't me.

One guy attacked at the bottom of the climb up to the turn around. We decided he wouldn't be able to stay off into the head wind coming back and never saw him again.

We climbed at a brisk pace, but not really pushing very hard. One of my two teammates flatted on the climb. Bummer. The descent went surprisingly smooth. Many of the squirrels had fallen off the back and the higher speeds strung things out, making it much safer. A few attempts were made to organize a chase to bring the flyer back on the rollers, but not enough people were interested and nothing really got going, so we just kind of mosied along.

My remaining teammate and I knew we didn't have the power to make a breakaway work, and he was pretty confident with his sprint since he had won the street sprints a couple weeks ago against much of our field (he's a much stronger sprinter than I am). So the plan was for me to do everything I could to keep the field together and then get him as close to the finish as I could. I chased down a couple of last minute attacks. At one point a guy on a team with more than double the numbers of anyone else left (our "rivals") attacked up the side yelling at his teammates as he passed to counter attack as soon as he was caught. I laughed when I caught him and nobody attacked. He looked frustrated. I was happy.

Unfortunately I didn't have the legs to give my teammate much of a leadout, but I did manage to keep us in the top four or five until about half a k to go. The sprint picked up and he was forced to leave me behind. Too bad our third flatted on the climb, we could have used him. My guy got a bit of a gap out front but had gone too early and two others nabbed him at the line. He got 4th, I got 10th. Fun race, but I've got a lot to learn and a lot of fitness to gain. In the end I was just happy I kept the rubber side down.

Strava link

waterrockets 

Nice. I have done that TT. It's a grind in the wind. Kudos.

merlinextraligh

Good work valygrl

valygrl

Thanks guys. Results in: 11 of 18

jwible

Aw crap. Had 7 paragraphs written and accidentally tapped the page back button.

Cat 5 -- 2nd and 5th.
Cat IV -- 2nd, 10th, 16th (me). Major traction issues for me. Post race exam shows 5 inch strip of my Evo CX tubular delaminating along the center line. Oops. Fitness is where I want it. Time to try to score points.
Cat III -- 6th in a field sprint.
P12 -- Second to a young guy. Two man break. Our rider led the winner for the last three laps and the guy didn't pull through once.

Carnage report.

In the P12 the lead two almost lapped the main field. There was another group of 5-7 10 seconds behind the lead two, so at the finish all eyes were watching the sprint when the field went through turn 1. We wait for the group to see how our guy does in field sprint. And we don't see him. Then we see the ambulance roll, and our teammate who gets 2nd rolls back and said our rider is down and hurt bad.

Going into turn 1 he was moving up on the outside and a guy moved from inside to outside. Our guy said he was screaming for room and leaning on the other rider's body but for whatever reason he ended up getting taken into the barrier at speed. This is a turn that everyone could easily pedal through and didn't require the full road even in the rain. I don't know what was happening to the inside of that rider though.

Our guy goes face first into the barriers. Cuts he head, breaks his bars, various bruises all over his arms and legs. He didn't black out but he did bend a barrier pretty good. Nice blood spray on the barrier he hit. Ambulance ride and 7 hours in the ER. He's my main training partner and a very good friend. I got him home at 2:30AM and me home around 3:00. His 5 month pregnant wife met us at the door.

Long night.

sarals 

Great work, young lady! Especially considering that wind!!!

Beaker

Best wishes to your team mate for a full recovery, glad to hear he's back home.

kleinboogie

TT. Eh, could be better. New position, saddle, bike and had a big power drop on laps 2 and 3. Need to work on my fit. Cheers

Jancouver

Man, you are just like me ... I was always blaming everything on this and that ... well, at one point I just realized that I'm fat & slow and suck at this big time ...

kleinboogie

Numbers say I'm more aero but loss some average power. Free fit follow-up, going back to my favorite saddle and more training are the plan. Cheers

EDIT: Results just came out, I always forget that they measure the center of the road so they clocked me at 24.57 mph. Definite improvement from 23.91 from the last TT I did last year. Onward and upward. Cheers

badhat

valleygirl

frostbite yesterday was easily the most insane crosswind i've ever TTd in. i know a ton of folks who raced for the first time yesterday and lemme tell you that was a trial by fire.

i will write a longer report later but to give you an idea i'm a lot fitter than last year and was about 3 minutes slower, and still got the same place (3rd in 35+3) as last year and my time woulda won cat3 this year.

totally insane day.

congrats on surviving.