canuckbelle

Great jobs!

Ygduf

To be clear, I took my traditional 4th place in the race. I viewed it as Aaron's team of 4, mean-guys team of 3, and then I was happy to let @mattm or our friend John win so we had our little team of 3.

John was the guy who went and got it started with 3 or 4 to go. Mean-guys team seem to want me to chase everything down and I was happy to not do that, especially as Matt made it across. When the group of 4 accelerated at about 600m, maybe even 750m, finally got a reaction the MGT, 2 of whom are stronger than I am. But they waited too long and even the semi-pro who made it across to Matt lost to Matt, so it was 1&4 for us, 2&3 for MGT, and 5&6 for Aaron's group which is pretty good considering they are racing with mostly 3s and only losing to cat 1s and random pros.

Old guy on the MGT liked to give waaay too much advice about how to race. I would have been happy with 10th if it meant making them not-win, so huge ups to Matt for coming back around and taking the win. Made my day.

Hermes

@Ygduf Good job and nice read of the race. Is Mean Guys Team a Fudgyism or is that a real team?

Ygduf

it's my joke name for them. 1 is a guy I ride with like every day who doesn't talk to me and usually sits in and beats me at the end of the noon ride. The other was/is a coach of usac jr team that gave me plenty of racing advice yesterday (be boring, don't try hard, wait for a sprint) so we argued a little. Then their friend who Matt beat.

hack

I wish the P123 race wasn't at 330 on Sunday way down in Fremont.

Ygduf

^^ me too

Psimet2001 

2 5ths (2/5) of the women's singlespeed national championships...or do my results not count?

Ygduf

was the field more than 5?

bostongarden

Pretty exciting to read about racing. It's getting closer to that time here in the northeast. Although, if the weather cooperates, and I get some technique down, I may enter a nordic skate race :-)

Psimet2001 

Fair question. Looks like 37 starters. Nicole Mertz Takes the Women's Singlespeed National Championship Title?Updated: Photo Gallery, Full Results and Video - Cyclocross Magazine - Cyclocross News, Races, Bikes, Photos, Videos

I had wheels on Jessica Cutler (2nd) and Emily Kachorek (4th). Jessica got second last year to Mo Bruno Roy - who I was supposed to dress up as this year for Halloween but she didn't get the skinsuit over to me. Meghan Korol was a local here growing up then raced on Bobs Redmill for years. Got married to Dave Thomas of Industry Nine and now they're local Asheville and she's racing for Don Walker (North American Handmade Bike Show)- she took the holeshot. I drove Ellen Sherrill (6th) to Jingle Cross last year from Chicago. Super nice and awesome racer. Perennial second place at SSWC for something like 5 years running until this year. Been meaning to make a wheel deal with her but timing always seems to be off and she travels for months at a time.

Becca Blatt (8th) - I've pitted fer her a ton at different races. She's marrying a young man from the team I used to sponsor in Colorado. Rides Van Dessel. I'm sponsoring their (Bill Elliston's) road team this season with road disc tubulars. Nicole Duke in 11th - who doesn't know Nicole....

Dorothy Wong in 27th. I don't know her apart from online but she is the promoter for a lot of UCI level stuff. I believe CXLA is hers.

Nicole Mertz won racing for IS Corp. She was on Tibco before IIRC. Ran with IS Corp with the Schneider Sisters. I think she was in the points running for Prairie State Cycling Series this year. Not a big fan but she races well from time to time.

Ygduf

don't get me wrong, most of my top-5s come from fields of 5 or smaller.

Hermes

I like this a lot but I have it beat because most of my podiums come from fields of 3 or smaller.

Psimet2001 

I have 2 podium medals. Both times I was also in last place.

globecanvas

I'm trying to think of the smallest field I've ever raced in. I think about 15?

gsteinb

I raced against one other guy last year on a rainy day in the Dacks.

hack

I won a district (state ?) championship in a team time trial with a field of one team. We were given the opportunity to buy a championship jersey. I think we all passed on that.

Hermes

One cannot control who shows up or elects to do which event. Sattley, has always been a crap shoot on who shows up and with the team and individual events on the same day, many decide to race the individual event versus the TTT.

Many figure that they are not district championship material and take a pass. IMO, most of the results turn out about right.

Track is worse vis a vis field size meaning smaller fields and I mean zero participants in some age groups.

The tandem racing is more fun to game at district TTs because there are a lot of choices - mixed men and women by age and men and women only by age. So you and I could race my tandem and we could chose any number of fields depending on how we viewed the field size and competition. If we chose mixed, you wear the lipstick.

hack

Can I just hang out on the back and not pedal? I'd offer a word of encouragement or two during the race.

Hermes

That is a great idea for yet another tandem race...stoker not pedaling. Unfortunately, you would not be selected as big engine guys would use jockeys as stokers.

aaronmcd

That was a bad idea to attempt a small field, windy, 1/2/3 crit right after a 50 mile road race.

Road Race (training race), handicap.
Group 1 goes, 10 minutes later group 2, then us last 8 minutes after that. 3x 16 mile laps. Watching Greg, who likes to win things a lot. Everyone rotating for lap 1 to try and bring the time down to the other groups, then Greg takes off near the start of lap 2. Todd and 2 others go with him. It's early, but our group was only 13 and they are strong so I want across. We stay close, I go hard at the next Hill and get closer, but the pack catches up so I pull off. No one continues the chase, maybe thinking we are close enough. But the break pulls away steadily. I work hard through lap 2 trying to either get a rotation going or get off the front with a small dedicated group but neither happens.

Lap 3, people finally start working but too little too late. I end up sprinting for 2nd of the main pack.

2 hours and 200 TSS.

Drove to the crit, cuz the wife didn't need the car. Only 10 guys and a gal. Attacks started right away, and there was no pack to drift back to. I did "no" work, but still got dropped and quit after 11 minutes at 106%. Shortly after, 3 others got dropped and left course as well. Then more got dropped and kept chasing, as one guy went up the road and held it solo. By the end everyone was scattered over the course time trialling in.

rideaz

I raced a crit (actually 3 races)
Masters Women: 1st place. I got away on 3rd lap after a prime and stayed away, rest of the race was solo until I lapped the field with about 7 laps to go. One rider jumped on my wheel and we worked together to finish. I won.
The women's races were back to back! I had about 15 minutes between races.
Women P12: 3rd place. Two riders got away, one team was controlling the race because they had a rider up there. They didn't get caught. I lucked out because there was a headwind into the finish so I went early and was able to take 3rd.

I stayed around to spectate then decided to try the last race of the day.
Mens 3/4: pack finish. Fast and fun!

Great time at the first race of the season!

Ygduf

Great job, Sally!


I raced the 4th Early-Bird crit out here with Aaron, Matt and about 35 others. A small break of 3 went up the road at minute 15 as I was still hanging out in the middle. I wasn't worried as it was windy and guys still seemed motivated to chase. I slowly moved up and then realized that the guys otf were legit and we might have borked this. I did some hard turns, but the gap went from 20-25-40.. fml. Took 10 minutes off in the group and then got into a couple little chase-group moves from the pack.

The successful one came as I was about to go solo and @mattm took off right ahead of me. We got clear with 1 other who quickly fell off. With about 4 laps to go Matt sat up and waved me on. I figured I was already toast so I just kept pushing, remembering how disorganized the pack had been when the first break rolled clear. I was solo for about 2 laps then I saw one other clear of the pack trying to come across. I eased just a tiny bit, but made him work. We worked together for the final 3 laps, well clear of the pack.

Coming into the final straight he took off and tried to drop me. I was gapped but the headwind and length of the sprint got him. I got his wheel, took about 2 breaths and went past. My effort to get past him and to the line was 15 seconds. It's a long long long ways from the corner and if he hadn't misjudged it he would have beat me but he did so he didn't. I was 3rd, as one of the guys in the original break had fallen off it without me realizing it.

Matt took the field for 5th.

Whole race was 57:30, AP 330 NP 350. My chase-break with Matt and then the other guy was 21:00 AP 355 NP 360.

Power is coming back after being injured and sick. Zwift workout paying off.


note: @aaronmcd has a jr on his team with BO so bad the team needs to have an intervention. I hope he made it home, whoever was driving probably passed out multiple times.

aaronmcd

I missed the break again. Probably couldn't have hung on though. It was early and too many guys and I lost track of Gavin (strong guy that won solo last week). I made both field splits though. When Fudgy went, we had him on a short leash for a while, but then the pace dropped when guys started waiting for the sprint, and he stayed away as well.

Field sprint, I led out my teammate, but Matt got the jump from behind and won the sprint. Hit 33.5 mph in the headwind leadout.

YMCA

First race of 2016

RR on Jan 23 --geezers 50+, 2nd place, in 3-man break for last 50 of the 52 miles (howling winds, rolling hills), lost by inches due to being impeded by big truck in road and cop car 100m meters before finish. Had to restart sprint. 2nd placed rider and cop both apologized for robbing me. Cest la vie

Crit (super technical and bricky) -- geezers 50+ felt heavy, watched one of my Sat break mates roll off solo and lap us, sprinted for 6th or 7th, didn't bother to check.

2nd crit of day -- 35+ felt opened up and ready, tried bridging to the two riders that eventually lapped us, but got outgunned, raced well with big attacks, sprinted for minor placings

Will do ~ 8 weekends of racing this spring, then masters nationals in NC. Maybe see some of you there!

Ygduf

short leash! I take offense. One guy got across because I let him.

Good to see some race reports in here.