ShutUpLegs

Great advice Fudgy, I'll be sure to keep this in mind and work on this.

grolby

I'm prepared to say confidently that I have NEVER been in a race with 30 willing and able chasers. In one isolated incident, we were able to get a chase rotating with something around 10 riders. Boy did that gap close fast.

Ygduf

depending on teams around here it can get organized, and yes, if they organize they crush the solo rider. nothing to be done about it.

At Wente RR Specialized Masters burned their national champion TT guy while iron data burned their national TT champion to chase me down. I beat both the work horses at the end... clearly I'm very proud of this still.

mike868y

Longsjo day 1, Leominster: all types of meh. Great event, good course, but I haven't done a crit in a while and can't remember the last crit I did with 100 guys. Felt fine fitness wise, but never got comfortable with the course and couldn't move up for the life of me. Got caught behind a crash in turn 3 with 2.5 laps to go and just sat up at that point. Gotta get my head back in it for today. Grolby rode really well.

grolby

Longsjo Day 1 (Leominster), 3/4. I love this course. Don't love the antics of a bunch of coconut heads all coming into a corner from as many different angles as there are bodies in the race. Watts to silliness ratio just absurdly high. Still, I mostly had a good time. I said "I won't do anything for the first 15 minutes," after that I wanted to race for a break because I figured my odds in a bunch sprint weren't that great. I managed to restrain myself for almost 10 minutes, which was good for me. Found myself on the front of the pack after chasing an attack that didn't break the elastic, only a few laps in, and thought "WTF am I doing here??" Let my self slide back and recover for a while. Later, the tall skinny kid who won the Harvard RR made a break for it, and I was only five or six wheels back and felt I should cover it cause that dude is crazy-strong. I came to the front of the group and blazed through turn 4, got a gap cause most of these guys just didn't know how to ride this corner. Likewise Mr. Twizzler Legs, so I was able to get on his wheel. Though only just, because he was firing huge blasts out of his rear-mounted watt cannon. Just staying on his wheel was killing me, and then after a couple seconds he starts flicking his elbow at me. LOL sorry dude, can't do it. We got swallowed up soon after that.

More racing, a couple of stupid crashes, and then suddenly we were at 4 to go. I was maybe 25 or 30 wheels back, so I lit a match and moved up the side, just over the line and a move of strong guys detaches from the front of the pack. I see the composition and the situation (fast guys I've seen at the front plenty already, plus a couple GLV guys, and their guy on the front of the pack is soft pedaling), the gears buzz and whir and spit out an answer: GO GO GO. So I go screaming down the inside of turn 1, kick hysterically on the way out and somehow link up after turn 2. I am absolutely dying but this is my shot and I figure if this works even rolling in at the back of this break would be pretty sweet. It was hard enough just getting here, after all, I was almost too far back to make the bridge after dumping some watts to move up right before the move went. But the elastic never breaks and fast guys keep coming up and within a lap we're back. And now I don't know what I have for the finale. Not much. We hit 1 to go and there's one more stupid crash, the field pinches in toward the left, the guy on my left comes toward me, the guy to his right puts something into his wheel, there's a crack and then the sound of crashing, but I'm still clear. But then we hit turn 2, and 10th wheel is too far back with all the crazy lines coming into this turn. I get squeezed out of my spot by two guys on converging lines from either side of me, and suddenly I'm 20-25 dudes back with 2 turns left, my legs are tired and I think "F this." I had just lost my chance at contending for a top 10, so fighting it out with all the doofuses for a top 20 seemed unwise. I kept pedaling to hold my spot until we hit the finishing stretch, then sat up and let the dummies all sprinting for 30th and 40th place do their silly thing. 42nd, as it turned out. Too many stupid crashes, and a lot of pretty exasperating behavior, but still, I had a good race and good time. I also actually felt almost fast for the first time in a couple of seasons, like another 5% and I would've been right there at the end instead of letting myself get squeezed out of position. So a decent race for me, altogether. Two more for this weekend. Gotta love crit racing.

Edit: Oh yeah, numbers if anyone cares.

37:50
AP 227
NP 263
IF 1.10 (High, but... <40 minutes)
New 5" power, woo! 854.

Basically, I worked pretty hard. But I didn't feel totally wasted afterwards, which seems like a good sign.

gsteinb

Okemo hill climb

4th 40+

Tough day. Really needed another cog to go to. 55-60 rpms doesn't get it done when you get attacked. 7th last year though. I shaved minutes.

furiousferret

Good work @gsteinb, @grolby, @mike868y and good luck tomorrow as well!

ShutUpLegs

Brownstown RR Cat 2/3

Got to meet TheKillerPenguin today, great guy and definitely strong. Wish I could have stayed around to chat, but unfortunately got a flat on lap 3 (12 miles in) while trying to make the bridge to TheKillerPenguin and two others. I didn't bring my other wheels and really didn't want to stand around in 65 degree rain and wind weather. 2 races in a row with bad luck, hopefully things turn around tomorrow

shovelhd

That's a nice improvement that anyone should be proud of. DNuzz on the podium.

gsteinb

Yes. Plus considering I've been living on sausage I'm doubly proud.

TheKillerPenguin

Brownstown 2/3, 6th or 7th. Took Fudgy's advice, things happened, spent most of the race otf with 2 others. Caught with 5mi to go by 6 guys who tried to ride thru us, I just barely held on and recovered and attacked them a couple of times since I'm the antithesis of a sprinter. No dice though, and I popped my nose out into the wind wayyyy too early, and there being a headwind and me being all slowtwitch I had nothin. Felt pretty great, I thought we would stick it but my companions were fading. My np including a 15min warmup is over 300w, ap including warmup is about 270.

2 or 3 more points. That was a ****ing blast. Racing aggressively is awesome.

Also met shutuplegs. Cool dude. Sorry to hear about your bad luck, I was wondering why you were at the start/finish when we went through.

shovelhd

Nice.

Ygduf

+1

canuckbelle

Welp, I went and won the women's 19+ (combined with the 35+ and 45+ fields...I won the overall race) NC/SC combined state road championship. ^_^

Here's their video of the finish: https://www.facebook.com/20926695592...6090900908104/

I went from 600m out, right before the turn into the finish straight. I hadn't really 'planned' on this, but I didn't want to get boxed in, and I usually don't trust other people going around corners at speed (I hate it when they brake). So I popped off the front, went through the corner, saw that I had a 10m gap and thought f*** it! I'll go! I gave absolutely everything I had to hold on to the line, threw my bike at the line and won by maybe half a wheel.

Initial jump of 1182w until the corner, then peaked at 1300w and held 565w for the 50s or so the sprint took. The latter is a PR ^_^

Also, I met @topflightpro Thanks for introducing yourself!

TheKillerPenguin

Ladybro. Nice!

topflightpro

Congratulations. Did you get hit by the rain? It was pouring as I drove out.

bostongarden

Grolby, pretty cool, nice writeup!
GSteinb, sounds impressive.
TKP, sounds like there was more K than P.
CanuckBelle, woot!! Nice power. (I'm going to send you a PM about the Synapse.)

canuckbelle

It started raining 5min before we were to start (we were on the line). We were delayed an hour total, and they shortened our race to two laps from three. At one point the tent we were under was blown over because it was raining so hard and SO windy. Not at all pleasant. It was barely raining for the first 15min or so, but cleared up for the rest of the race, and the roads were nearly dry near the end. ...that's partly why I could take the final corner almost at full speed.

Shortening the race totally worked in my favor, though. It was a hard 90min: avg speed was 23.2mph.

mattm

@canuckbelle huge congrats!! looks like you pretty much shattered the field.
@grolby glad to see you got your groove back.

dz_nuzz

Sheet, didn't realize you were there aswell. That climb was quite torturous, I am really glad I nabbed an 11-32 for that thing and switched to a semi-compact this year.

grolby

Oof, it was a tougher day today in Worcester. Raced angry, and like a dumbass, neither of which I'm proud of. Totally missed the break, I think it was one of the counters after my initial foray off the front. Made another attempt later to join a bridge, didn't make it, sucked back in. I didn't feel quite as good as I did yesterday, but I guess I had something left in the tank, because after spending several laps groveling and recovering and struggling to move up, we hit 2 to go and I was suddenly gaining spots rapidly. The beginning of the bell lap I was around 20th and by midway through the lap I was around or just behind 10th. Then on the second to last corner, the guy in front me found himself half-wheeling the guy in front as he turned in, got crossed up and stuffed it. Nowhere for me to, so I duly hit him and went OTB. After a couple minutes of assessing my injuries, I climbed back on and finished 75th. Not the last rider placed, but legit DFL on course, everyone behind me on the results sheet is a P&P. I'm not too badly hurt. My lower back really took the brunt and is pretty sore above my left hip. Otherwise just some minor scrapes.

One cool/interesting/scary thing that happened was that I managed to strike my pedal on one of the turns. I use Speedplays on 165mm cranks, so that's not an easy thing to do. It was a pretty mild strike so NBD but I was slightly more cautious after that.

Despite the crash and dumb decisions during the race, I'm still encouraged by those last two laps. I'm definitely on the way back up, stronger than I expected to be and there's a lot of headroom to get better.

mike868y

Frustrating day for me in Worcester as well. Crashed about 5 laps in, got back in the race, but never really got back into the game. Last lap a guy flatted and pushed me off the course when he went straight instead of turning right. Course was awesome besides the incredibly rough pavement, but my cornering is so bad right now it's embarrasing. I used to pride myself on my cornering but the lack of technical crits I've done the past two years has really hurt me.

dz_nuzz

Ohhh! Sorry to hear that dude. I suspect you will have ALL THE LUCK TOMORROW (I just jinxed you). Also the course in Fitchburg may suit you pretty well if you are still feeling good.

Oh yeah: @canuckbelle SICK WIN!

grolby

@mike868y Bummer man, I didn't know you crashed, too! That course is something else. Definitely the gnarliest road conditions I've ever raced on. That final stretch between turns 5 and 6 was just insane. So much body English dodging wheel-swallowing holes.

grolby

Thanks, and lest I forget I will echo the congrats for @canuckbelle!