botto 

not yet. expect something like august 4th to the 25th, maybe longer.

ridethecliche

The push was to help me.

I'm racing tomorrow after 2 days off the bike. I'm a little nervous about it. I should probably go out and spin today, but I think I might be better served by just not riding.

Skip wells and come to naugatuck!

This I wanna see!

gsteinb

I leave on the 7th, and then return around the 18th. Have a GS cup race on the 22nd in Medford NJ.

waterrockets 

Very cool. Still itching to lap a field. A 2.5km lapping, twice, is a lot. That's like 7 minutes up the road

gsteinb

After winning the second prime with a 41 mph sprint I had two teammates push me up the hill so I didn't come off the back of the field.

botto 

for team work.

carpediemracing 

+1

ridethecliche

Awesome.

substructure

Asheville Cat 3 road race. Point to point race:
Still feeling a bit off with the whole heart thing again. But I went and tried to do what I could.
Stayed with the lead group up the first major climb. Half the field was shelled. Then we got to the second major climb. The climb to the finish. I just tried to find a rhythm so I would blow up. I did and finished top 20.

The temps were perfect. The area was beautiful. The 8 mile downhill ride to the start was chilly.

Maybe going to do the crit tomorrow.

bostongarden

Given your prep and concerns, sounds good to me...nice pushing on the 2nd climb

bostongarden

Yowzer!!!

JaRow

I was there too. Got worked though. Finished somewhere in the 30s after passing a few guys on the climbs. Congrats on the finish.

Naister

First race ever- Bloomington Downtown Crit (also State Championship I guess)
haha hung with the "pursuit group" got lapped once and then once again with 5 minutes left and our group got yanked. It was a great time and I'm gonna have to keep racing!

crispy010

I did the 4 race, what a course!

I had trouble finding a rhythm on the first climb and got shelled off the lead group. It took me a while to remember how to ride up mountains... I don't do it often. Second climb went much better - gained a couple of places for a mid-pack finish.

I loved that ride back to the town. I think I hit around 50 mph or so coming off the mountain.

waterrockets 

Did a "kids and family tri" today. Won the 5 mile bike leg, in spite of some confusion with a course marshall, having me stop and turn around to chat. Funny how many $2k wheelsets there were out there under slow guys. I was a little self-conscious brining the Ritchey out there with the FastForward seatpost, but ugly and fast is ok.

Kids both had a tough time this year -- our oldest is now going against kids who are on swim teams, and our youngest just hasn't ever been inside a dark pain cave before. They liked the Yellow Mushroom pizza afterwards though

My wife did great out there, and she was coming out of the bike/run transition as I was starting my 2nd run lap, so I ran with her for a while. That's fun stuff.

Oh, only 5th overall, because I can't swim and I don't run. It's still great to fly by tri-geeks in full slug-mode on the bike though.

king-tony

French Broad TT (Asheville NC) Cat4.
W 26:57 for the 20k.

RudeSiggy

Giro di Coppi in Maryland...

W.



I hope the ultimate category has room for one more. :-)

(And yes, that is a Fausto Coppi bobblehead trophy.)

Race report here.

waterrockets 

congrats!

Duke of Kent

Lost 20min to Chris Sheppard over a 3h20min XC race today. THE Chris Sheppard, who just won the BC Bike Race. I'll take it. For now.

Ended up winning the Cat1 race, though. Small field, only 4 in my age group, but still a decent result given the guys who were there, as all of the Pro and Cat 1 guys start together and do the same course. Some fool attacked from the gun (started out with a 4 or 5mi road climb, then epic singletrack, from 4,000ft to 7,000ft...up and down the entire day), and I was the only non-pro in the lead group. I dropped my chain going from big to little ring (26t/40t double) and by the time I looked up, they were all gone. I rode alone until the last 4 miles, when I got caught from behind by a guy who races DH in addition to XC and road.

I ended up catching him again with a mile and a half to go, and put a minute into him before the finish. In case it wasn't obvious, the last 3mi or so was all uphill.

With some solid riding this winter, getting my pro license on the MTB is definitely looking doable.

ahpook

[ cross post from nor cal regional forum, hi i'm a long-time-lurker-first-time-poster ]

Rode my first sanctioned cat5 race today: the Watsonville crit race. It was nice and cool on that side of the hill, perfect weather.

We got there a bit early and I was able to ride the course for almost half an hour to warm up. It was a tight .75 mile loop in a nice residential neighborhood. The turns were a little choppy with a hairpin left in the middle so I was glad for the preview. We lined up just before noon and got briefed on the rules, inspected for improperly pinned numbers (one 13 year old in street clothes thankfully got pulled for "not having a number"), and then the whistle blew.

Right out the gate I was working harder than I'd expected to. I guess because of the short distance people went out hard at the beginning. I worked pretty well for the first four or five laps but I was redlining unsustainably to stay up. There was a short hill on each lap which seemed to hurt more and more each time up it and I started to move back. I was able to close gaps until the seventh lap when the distance between the main pack and my back group started opening up on the upwind leg. By the eighth (this is fifteen minutes in, mind you) I knew I wouldn't catch back on, especially since a smaller group has to work harder and the bunch was receding in the distance. Other people off the back were dropping out, including the strong looking joker in a mullet wig and daisy dukes and the Fox guys I'd warmed up wtih, but I wanted to finish. I ended up being part of a good group of four guys and we worked together to keep things moving. We got lapped on the 14th, which is an experience I am used to from the SJBC crits so I hollered to keep right and neutralize as the main pack rode past. The last two laps I rode with a few guys who were off the back of the main pack but not lapped and cruised in at 29 minutes. Thanked the race organizers and talked to Todd Manley who was racing 3's and we went on to the beach at Carmel for some fun in the fog.

It was a very intense 30 minutes. I am disappointed in my performance but not terribly surprised. Gotta ride harder, that's all.

substructure

If I would have pushed just a little harder I may have been able to get into the top 10. But was still worried about myself.

Some of us were doing 55+ going back to the start in our group. I hit about 53.

I spoke with a gentleman from Florida in your group. Not sure who it was. But I'm glad this race pulled people from all over to come to it. I really hope to do it again next year. But we need about 20 more miles and one more good climb. Then we're talking serious pain.

Thank you. I'm feeling better. But still concerned considering what happened to me last year.

bostongarden

Warning: I just discovered the "multi-quote" box [prior to this post, I would have 2 windows open for multi-quote posts, copying and pasting a quote from the "2nd" window into the "1st"/"posting" window...

Very cool...the swimming tends to be the shocker I bet...my son did his first tri up at Cedar Park about 2 months or so ago and while he was middle of the pack on the bike (first time on a road bike..it had DT-shifters...poor kid was afraid to take his hand off the bars to shift, so, he stayed in one gear the whole way) and among the top group in the run, he was 4 minutes behind the top swimmer (n.b., there was a "sighting" as his daughters were in the race too)...

Nicely done!!

Congrats!!

Congrats!!

Well done, stick with it, it gets much better, no need to be disappointed!!!!

bostongarden

Not sure what to make of today in the 1/2/3/4 32-mile crit at Wells Ave:

- 9th place in the sprint...but, again, folks drifting right and shutting me down along the curb...twice!! Is there something I don't know about sprinting etiquette? Should I expect that when someone is out of juice that they will float right? I see a gap to go around and then they float right to the curb and end up blocking me. Next time, I'm setting up left and drilling it from there. Or, maybe, I move up a touch more and just take more wind in the sprint.

- stats were way down from last week (213w, 25.7 mph, 72 cadence vs. 220w, 26.9 mph, 85 cadence last week), yet, I felt a little bit tired after today's race whereas last week I felt ready to ride some more. I did feel slightly less energetic today going into the race than I did last week, but, the stats and feeling compared to last week are significantly different in my mind.

- pain in the lower back on each side after the race (it's now coming up on 3 hours post race and it has dissipated reasonably well)...I haven't felt something like this in a long time! After last week's mishap with the (USE Alien Carbon) seatpost, I bought a new one (Thomson setback). I did not have my precise saddle settings recorded, but, I think I got it pretty close with the new post. Also, felt a very very very slight twinge of numbness, which I had not felt on this saddle at all until today. Hopefully some saddle refinement will take care of this...

- at about the 8-10 mile point, some rider shouts at me to stop letting so many gaps open up. I'm prepared to be schooled here, but, the pattern I saw at certain locations on the course was folks speeding up and then coasting, speeding up, coasting...and any space that opened, I was right back with my steady pedaling and energy conservation...at no point did I feel concerned about a "real" gap opening (aside from the group of 3-5 that broke away and caught the field -- but, I was not up front when this happened)...I thought I was riding smart...I rode my race the way I saw best...btw, the racer who shouted at me was somewhere behind me for almost all of the remainder of the race and he was nowhere near me in the sprint...I was thinking to myself -- decided not to say it -- but, dude, if you think I am allowing gaps, then get in front of me and stay in front of me...you're better than me, right? So, git in front of me! I still went up to him after the race, introduced myself and explained to him what I saw and what I was doing. Should I have been riding differently? I saw no concern of any real gap happening.

pinky

BG, the drift right is normal at Wells - guys are smart enough to try to get out of the way when they blow, plan accordingly. Also, get used to the yelling, it rarely means anything and responding to it merely highlights your insecurity

bostongarden

Thanks for that Pinky...I'm gonna set up middle to left and look to the left for gaps and opportunities in the sprint...thanks for the comments on the yelling...at least once, I'm happy to go up to someone post race and clear the air a bit...