mdnbike

He is an ass however the CCNS guys do need a lesson in cornering one took me out last week.

ridethecliche

Bummer. They're good guys, and Aidan's really chill.

One of the CCNS guys I raced with fell on a corner at plainville in the 4/5 race. I think he just went in too hot and slid out from either too much lean or from pedal strike. I forget which.

carpediemracing 

Palomar mountain (it's 16 miles to the bottom but I turn off just before it). Around here in CT there's nothing like that, it's hard to find a climb longer than a mile or so. Descents shorter than 5-10 minutes don't tax my neck etc like 30 minutes of descending. I realized that if I was a racer who did actual road races I'd probably have a longer but higher position. I got extremely fatigued in the drops after 20-25 minutes of switchbacks, sprinting, braking, cornering.

cdr

92degrees

Those pics are interesting. That's E Hartford? I'm a lowly 4 that tries to learn every chance I get. I race there. My experience is that the course is very small...barely .5mi with three 90º turns and one soft turn to the start finish. The fields can be fairly large. It can be very challenging (at least for me) to be among the riders on the "good line" there. If you commit to taking the best line through every corner, that leaves very, very little time between corners to move up. Just my experience (and I don't know much!).

ridethecliche

Oh!
In the 4/5 plainville races, I've had people say "coming on the inside". I rarely ever move when someone does this. If you're trying to move up, I'm not going to sacrifice my safety by making room for you to come up around the inside...

92degrees

Of course not. My point is that it seems pretty common in crits to come into a corner in the pack and some people have a great line and sometimes you get stuck a little further to the inside or outside and you have to make it work. The final corner before the finish at Plainville is like that...or the first corner at Bethel. Maybe it's just me and my (lack of) skill, but there are times when you are stuck on the inside and have to make the best of it. Again, maybe it's just poor riding on my part.

The rest of that guy's rant about the E Hartford stuff makes me think less of him in general. I ride the B's there and having the A's mixed in is usually more of a curse than a blessing. My experience is that it can be great when they are riding hard and you can follow their lines, but just as often they are mid-pack, "race" for half a lap, then back off and leave a gap that needs to be closed (hey, it's not their race...) and i end up shelled for it eventually. I'd rather everyone in the B race be racing. The whole race.

justinb

Lots of descents/ascents that long once you get west of Rio Grande.

ridethecliche

I agree with the statement about the last turn at plainville, but bethel not so much. The turn is really nice and wide at bethel and there's a lot of room.

92degrees

There is a lot of room. Plainville is very wide too. My point at Bethel, at least in the Cat 4 race I did there, is that on some laps the field stayed far to the right on the hill, and if you chose the right side to go up, it was very possible to find yourself trapped and squeezed coming around that corner. Not a huge deal, but based on the blog/pictures posted above it would look like some guys "don't know how to take a corner." I'm very sensitive about cornering skills. I used to think mine were weak, and now only think they are adequate, so it's something I go out and drill. Every week. Still, I don't think the line I find myself on is ideal in every circumstance...maybe this points to a weakness in pack skills and positioning....

merlin55

VERY IMPORTANT: when cornering, the bike goes where you look, so look at the line you want to take (or even a little tighter) not the edge of the rode or the guardrail, or whatever it is you don't want to hit. At higher speeds, you must look much further down the road to pick the best line. Many people just can't or won't do this, and ride the corners at slowly and scared.

I've noticed that when these riders get passed on descents they see you go by and tend to move toward the left a foot or so (the side you passed on). If you are the lead rider in the passing group, no problem, since you are past them before they move to the left... but riders behind the leader need to watch out for this. We did a fun ride in the Rockies with 3000 riders, but started about 30 minutes late, and passed several hundred riders riding 25 mph down the passes and we were riding 40 to 50 mph ....

I've ridden down Mt Palomar on sport motorcycles and bicycles, and at 50 mph you are looking way down the road while cornering. In essence you are scaning the road for cars/etc, then picking your line, and then your brain stores the information for use a second or two later when you are now at that point of the corner. A good example is riding between 2 poles for a bike lane (to keep out cars), you should focus on the poles from a distance, but as you actually ride between them you are still looking into the distance, not at the poles because you should know where they are without looking.

Geoff326

yea he needs to stop whining. I agree with the rider not taking a good line but I don't agree with his "leaning too much" criticism. Leaning your bike and not so much your body so that your bike is leaning more than ur body, is how you will corner sharper which is what the rider had to do since he took a bad line.


https://youtube.com/watch?v=ik5EdAd7zlQ

EventServices

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zmt_sB8VeI

Classic.

ridethecliche

Pedal strike?

brians647

OUCH!

chipcom 

This is what depressed me racing a Cat5 crit...too many riders trying to dive from the outside to the inside, rather than holding their line through the turn. Made it extra important to protect my front wheel.

Bobby Lex

Looks to me like the rider's rear wheel starts to fishtail (slippery white line?) and she overcorrects.

Bob

merlinextraligh

^ yep. If you knew it was going to end like, just letting it slide out would have been highly preferable. Sometimes the over reaction cause the biggest problem. but of course hindsight is 20-20.

carpediemracing 

Rochester, MI. I wonder if that's one of the old Tour de Michigan races.

It appears to me that her front wheel starts to slide, recovers, and that's that. It turns in significantly within a foot or so after it slides just a touch. Rear wheel stays normal. I think the first rider in the clip had a slight wiggle on the same spot.

I've never seen such a dramatic high side off a bike before.

merlin - Re: Palomar, I only go up/down the western side (the wiggly side) because it's closer to home base out there (Vista). What is the other road like, the longer more drawn out one?

btw that guy with the cornering lines thing placed third at Elite Nationals one year. Quite a ride, he bridged to a break of 4, pulled them about 5-8 miles to the finish after the one "pro" Brice Jones told him to work since he'd just bridged, led out the sprint, and got third. Brice Jones had a great write up about that race, referring to the unknown guy as "number 56". I can't find it anymore but it was on cyclingnews. To be fair Brice pulled out of his shoe in the sprint.

cdr

grolby

I hate that crap. One of these idiots called "outside!" to me (I was already on the outside), and then proceeded to yell at me when he nearly rode himself into the curb trying to get around me. I informed him that it was his job to watch his own damn line, not instruct me to make room when there wasn't any. So, watch out for the people who think that announcing their intention to slip up the inside or outside of your line on a turn gives them the right to force you out of the way. Worry about your own race. These guys pose a much greater danger to themselves and the people behind the you than they do to you. My inclination when I hear "on your inside," or "on your outside," in a corner is, if that door is even still open, to make sure I close it. I have low tolerance for that nonsense.