scheibo

Ouch. After watching that I'm less convinced its a good idea. It was demoralizing watching them come by you on the finishing rise. As for the tight corners - I just assume everyone is pretty much equally bad at the tight corners, and that it can only be easier to do the corner when youre out in front than trying to negotiate it with people around you. If anything, I think the tight corner worked to my advantage because there's less time I can lose than if it were a corner good riders could take at high speeds.

wktmeow

Eh, I always lose a bike length or so compared to the other guys. I was in a break @ Burlingame and pretty sure my sloppy cornering cost me a potential podium.

Looking back at the video, I wonder if it would have been better to maybe just do ~300w down the fast part of the hill to save some legs for the other side. Also, sometimes with those late attacks you get lucky and no one wants to bring it back. Worked for me at 4th of July crit and Dash for Cash, everyone just looks at each other while you ride away because being the first chaser is usually throwing away your shot at a result. Probably won't work as well in more team driven fields though, since they'll have someone willing to sacrifice.

echappist

good thing that both of you dodged that awful crash that's making the rounds on the internet

TMonk

There were crashes at corner three in nearly every race. The one in our race was at corner 2, but still.

This sport is too dangerous and stresses me out sometimes. Eventually I see myself shying away from road as a racing discpline, and focusing on track, mtb, cx, heck even TT's. Training on the road is still as dangerous as ever, but for short rides (<2 hrs) I see myself sticking to Fiesta Island indefinetely, and potentially indoors in the event I move away. Long rides I'll still do out on the open road.

echappist

That is definitely wise, and enjoy Fiesta Island while you have it within reach as a closed loop like that is a luxury that you don't find in the suburbs (nor quite a few cities, for that matter)

TMonk

Yeah I'm a bit spoiled with Fiesta. It's a 20 min z1 spin from my apt, perfect.

Ygduf

I agree. I somehow got to cat 1 and have had a pretty good go of it all things relative, but I still can't ride in the middle of the pack or really handle the close quarters.

I wish I had a good TT route near here, too. I'm envious.

scheibo

You live right next to Cañada... maybe I don't ride it enough (and when I do its often on 'Bicycle Sundays'), but its a pretty decent TT route with little traffic, no?

Ygduf

it's not flat enough.

grolby

I mean, I'm with you, but so far my broken bone tally from cyclocross is 3, and from road is 0. You can hurt yourself pretty bad off-road, too.

TMonk

Good point - nothing is completely safe I guess. Still, I feel like the potential for catastrophic injury (broken bones included) is higher in road. Maybe not???

Track is generally safe, but then there was the time that someone died (Jackie Dunn, RIP) in a track crash that happened right behind me.


added in edit: I guess it's just the frequency of crashes in road that freaks me out, and the fact that it's on pavement, not dirt or grass like XC mtb or CX. Track and TT are on pavement of course but are infinitely safer IMO.

echappist

as alluded to above, finding a place to train for TT is a whole 'nother matter. There are many roads where i'd be more than comfortable on the road bike that i wouldn't be comfortable on the TT bike.

I've grown cautious enough that I now ride with cameras, avoid rush hours, avoid riding westward during sunset, etc.

TMonk

we're getting older and wiser, aren't we!

I've been practicing a lot of IAB lately on my new venge tacked out with all the aero bits, and plan on riding at ~15 mi. TT with it this weekend (VoS). I'm riding the full SR to support teammates, experience the race and have fun, and don't expect to be competitive vs. guys with full on TT setups. Still, I've been practicing because I want to do the best that I can personally, and it will be neat if I can not come in last place and beat even 1 guy with a TT bike .

Having said that, there are many roads in the surroudning area where I've thought about trying IAB for a few minutes, but crappy pavement and imperfections have prevented me from doing so. Hopefully the roads are good at VoS...

grolby

I do think the odds of really hurting yourself are probably higher in road, simply because there are many opportunities to travel at much higher speeds. I've probably just been unlucky off-road, or just lucky on the road, or both. The point was to not take for granted that you won't injure yourself in MTB or CX racing. And, in those disciplines, there are more cases where you can end up falling from high up thanks to a descent or a jump or something. Two out of those three broken bones are from going OTB from above ground level (the other one was just spectacularly bad luck on a pretty innocuous crash). Basically I need to stop going over the handlebars, and I'll be fine!

Doge

There were 95 17-18 juniors in the VOS TT today. The other kid, Camden, trained by my son's former trainer, Kalman won.

gerundium

first training race of the season. An overcast day with nearly no wind but not super warm. Big group at the A category as the season is really getting close now. Due to the conditions the race wasn't very hard overall and shelter was abundant in the large group. A lot of attacks went that went nowhere, to get the mojo back i made it a point to race in the front of the group all the time, and that worked out perfectly. Fitness for that was ok but when seeing wind i knew i wasn't quite there to make it at the pointy end. Tried jumping with a few groups but after a lap (~2km) or 2 i would feel gassed and ended up drifting back.

After 20 or so minutes a group of 6 went clear, and a few laps later they were joined by another group of maybe 10 guys so a big break went. That was race over basically because a lot of horsepower was in the front group. We kept a decent rotation / stop and go during the race so the break didnt completely crush us. They had 50 something seconds at some point but the inevitable happened when the lap cards came out for 5 to go. They start looking at each other in the front and the gap start dropping. Due to the hard pace in the front group it had whittled down to 6 or so in the front.

Teammate of mine went from the main pack at 3 to go and so i tried to cover for him but with a lot of fresh riders still in the group the pace kicked up and he was caught in the last lap. When it was clear he would be caught i attempted to go early with ~800 meters to go from somewhat back in the group but blew up spectacularly. I was a little too far back when i jumped so i already lost most momentum when i actually passed the head of the pack. Got a a max gap of maybe 30 meters and couldnt hold it long. Rolled in halfway of the group after that through the last corner and straight maybe for a top 40 spot. The break that went due to them looking at each other actually only held 5 or so seconds at the line so it was a huge surge from the pack in the end and we almost caught them.

nice season opener and it shows the base is there but i need to work on the really intense bits and recovery from efforts for the important races.

happybday29475

I think that one can conclude that this was an unsafe corner and course.

Similarly, it shouldn't have taken a near-fatality to notice that the SBRR finish was dangerous; somebody with some expertise in course safety should have examined the course before any races took place on it.

If USAC was worth a damn, this would not happen, and if it did, it would be corrected. IMHO it is simply negligent of USAC to not give a hoot about race course safety.

grolby

Okay, seriously: with what budget will USAC enforce course safety? With the exception of obviously unsafe course features, how does USAC determine ahead of time that a corner will be a crash magnet (not that I'm convinced that people crashing at certain corner in every race renders it too unsafe for use)? Of course I welcome input on officials with respect to course safety, but ultimately the liability lies with the promoter, and I think that's perfectly reasonable. Should USAC be inspecting courses before awarding a permit? If the officials arrive on-site on race day and think the finish line is in a dangerous location but that's only place the municipality has allowed them to place it, what do they do? Cancel the race? Do other national governing bodies enforce course safety? To what extent? It's hard to be sure if this is USAC not being worth a damn, or USAC performing a typical level of oversight on course safety. And of course, no USAC rules or guidelines should be necessary to determine that holding your race finish on a bridge 30 feet over a ravine is an outrageously irresponsible thing to do. In any event, there are a lot of obvious reasons why governing body oversight of course safety is extremely difficult, and potentially problematic as well.

FWIW, USAC officials do sometimes give input on cyclocross courses. At a race I helped set up a couple of autumns back, they changed the line on a descent because they were concerned that the fall line was sending racers directly into a tree trunk. And they also removed some logs because they didn't think they were adequately secured against moving. Could be this happens for road courses to some extent as well, but checking every inch of a race course is, realistically, impractical in many cases. You kind of have to rely on promoters being reasonably concerned about racer safety on their own. When we were setting up the Greenfield criterium last year, we sweated bullets over one of the corners. We basically had an island appearing in the middle of the road just before the turn. Because normal people don't want some over-excited Cat 2 to smash into a curb at 35 mph and decapitate themselves on a "Keep Right" sign, we gave a lot of thought to how to handle it. I would hope that most other promoters would devote similar attention to cases like that.

aaronmcd

Cantua Creek Road Race, P12

Next year I should just stay home, or get a bike with more rear tire clearance.

Last year I flatted, and my teammates wheel didn't fit cuz he had 25s. This year, there was one spot almost covered in mud except for 2 tire tracks where it was mostly packed down and semi-dry. Still managed to get a big chunk of mud stuck between my tire and rim 30 miles in and instantly went backwards. Stopped to scrape it out but somehow it had dried into a brick already and I had to find a rock and scrape scrape scrape. The race was long gone. Soloed for 40 miles losing another 5 to 10 minutes to various groups. Caught 2 guys who had been dropped about 200 m from the line so I managed to not get last! And at least the sun was out down there. The headwind was brutal on the home stretch though.

3:15, 242 TSS (I didn't start a new ride after stopping for the mud though, so prob more like 241.7 TSS)

mattm

Seems like a bit much...

mattm

Well that's no fun! Nice chasing, amazing you didn't get last after all that!

Doge

White Mountain Road Group - VOS puts on a great event as always. The weather was less than to be desired, although I rather enjoy needing a coat in Phoenix.
P1 was controlled by Elevate / KHS. I'll get video up of crit and RR and thinking they will be long as there is too much editing to do.
Junior got a KOM lap time in crit today (and prime $50), also a 2nd or 3rd on the RR segment yesterday. Final results were fine for what we wanted which was a visit with our kid and seeing he's still moving along in cycling. I was hoping to meet a forum poster but it didn't happen.

happybday29475

You mean I've overestimated them?

Heathpack 

How about the "Ride Clean" budget?

happybday29475

Well...

If I think about the most important attributes of what USAC or a BRAC might provide in a race experience, it comes down to a good and fun experience. While that may mean different things to different people, possibly including an interesting course, fair officiating, and racing against peers, I think a fundamental prerequisite to a good experience is an experience wherein a reasonable amount of thought has been given to making it as reasonably safe as possible.

This is different than a challenging experience; safe does not mean without challenge. For example, I am not lobbying for the removal of technical high-speed turns, rather just ensuring that said turn does not feature a light post on the outside edge of the turn exit.

For the record, I think that racing is dangerous. There is risk from the equipment, from one's own mistakes and/or misjudgment, from others' mistakes and judgement, and simply from riding at speed in close quarters. I'm not suggesting that racing is or ought to be risk free.

Needless course risks that exist out of inattentiveness or ignorance, however, should neither happen nor be tolerated.

I think there's a huge opportunity here for USAC to mitigate "course risk". Imagine if you were confident that a course was safe whenever it was USAC sanctioned, ie you were confident that the finish wasn't immediately following a narrow section of road on top of a high bridge (!), didn't have potholes in the final corner, didn't have narrowing, decreasing-radius turns with limited visibility, didn't have bollards in the the middle of the course (!), etc. etc. I think then that a USAC-sanctioned race would be increasingly sought after; there is a huge opportunity to build the value of the USAC brand.

Instead, we've got BF race enthusiasts - are there any greater devotees? - avoiding races because of perceived danger. Do you suppose this is widespread? I sure do; I've seen it deter both current and potential racers. (I think this related to declining racer days all across USAC land.)

How to reduce course risk, you ask? The way forward as I see it is two-fold: a) have USAC train officials in course hazards, and best practices, and make sure the promoter gets the course signed off by the USAC official as part of the permitting process; and b) keep statistics on crashes, eg 3 crashes per day in turn 4 in race xxx, so that USAC can start to quantify risk and identify risky courses/turns/features.

I don't think this will happen overnight. But, other sports do it, and I see no reason why cycling can't; it's not rocket science.

Needlessly having a sprint finish on a high bridge simply suggests that there's nobody at the helm. It's damaging to our sport and the USAC brand.