Hida Yanra

I've been waiting for a shot of my old CPU winning races- I'm sure it has enjoyed showing watts into 4 digits

bostongarden

Funny cbip...If the same crew is gonna do the 35+ I'm in, else, I'll stick with the 3/4...yeah, I know, do both...I'm not that good yet

bostongarden

TX State Age-Based Crit Championship, 35+ 4/5 race: It was a little toasty when this 45 minute race went off at 3pm, maybe 96-98F with a lovely sun burning down...I was hanging about 3/4s back...by the 10 minute mark I was feeling hot and wondering if I was going to finish...15 minutes in, still there, same spot...I felt like I wanted to drop out, but, not gonna do it...ah, 23 minutes/half-way, hot as heck, but, somehow, still sitting about 3/4 back...had a little "incident" (picture Dr. Evil) with someone not holding their line in an s-curve...I might have counter leaned a bit into the dude while focusing on staying up, but, I was determined to stay up in this race...funny, although still feeling super hot and wondering how much more I could take, I decided to use some juice and move up to minimize the likelihood of something like this happening again...

5 laps to go, I can't believe I'm still riding...3 laps to go, time to try and get in a good position...I move up to top 10-12...2 laps to go...my thought was that I must get in a good spot...I move up to top 5-7...bell lap...move up to top 3-4...a breakaway with 1/2 lap to go was not going to work as I was a touch drained and hot...took the wide sweep turn at the bottom...came out of that turn 3rd heading for the climb...the dude in 1st took off...I followed...I had no energy...not sure how I was following...decided that this was my shot to win because I was burning up and did not see too much left for a sprint...

stood up and charged by him and took the lead just before the climb...up over the climb in first with a small gap...250 yards to go...still in first, but, I hear machines churning and I could sense a crowd of loving, caring, brothers of the velo...one goes by, then another...I'm tired, but still turning the cranks in a manner that felt hard (but, it clearly was not)...then another and, I think you get the picture...2.774 seconds off the front, 17th place...oh, I guess I could have pushed a bit more and gotten top 8-10, but, my gambit was for the win...not this time...but, I'm satisfied with my progress and I'm looking forward to the next race and the next state championship....

I made a lovely black & white milkshake (or frappe as we say in Boston) with Blue Bell ice cream to celebrate...(my kids and I call it sploosh with inspiration from the book Holes by Sachar)...peace, out.

bostongarden

sorry, good show gutting out the miles, get well soon...

txvintage

Awesome BG! Off the front with the line in sight is not bad at all. It's all building blocks, and your's are stacking up!

I'm waiting on the other guys to post about their day.

EDIT: Blue Bell RAWKS

ridethecliche

Bg.

The first (and only) race I've placed in happened something like that. I took a flyer on the last lap and managed to hold off the field till the base of the hill. One guy came up next to me said something like "lets go" and took off, then another guy nipped me at the line.

I got 3rd.

I'm racing the same course tomorrow, and hoping to do the same if not better

waterrockets 

Very nice. You raced with intention even in the pain cave. You never know just what's going to happen right after you get up that corkscrew, so nice show.

kudude

ICCC E4 crit. Meh. course was fine, a bit windy and a little lip on turn 1 that had people freaked. The group wasn't fast, didn't string it out and it was SKETCHY in the corneres (at least from my perspective). I didn't contest any primes, and there was a pileup on the last lap (shocker). I went around, caught the field and rolled in for something like ~25 of 78.

again, meh.

mattm

Ballard Twilight 4/5 Crit: four-corner 1km course, bumpy roads with a few long sections of bricks, on the side of a slight hill.

78 starters, 29 finishers. 13th place. Pretty happy with that - and lucky I wasn't caught up in any of the four crashes. I think at least half of the DNFs were from crashes..

I could only see three of the spills, and in one a guy was sliding backwards on his chest towards the curb, with another rider about plow into him.. ouch. Another one took out about 10-15 people in the middle of the pack on the straight-away, I barely got around a rider rolling towards the side of the road. Crazy ****, but I guess the norm for crits eh?

The race before it spit 49 people out. I'm somewhere in the middle.



It was lots of fun, shame this one is only annual..

Red Rider

Congrats, WR! Well done!

bravo106

It's confirmed; I suck at crits.

That is all.

Flatballer

78 is a pretty huge field for a 4/5 crit. That probably caused most of the crashes.

queerpunk

saturday's Watermelon crit at Rutgers... my plan was to work on positioning for a field sprint, my teammate's plan was to attack and attack and attack.

He did well, spending a lot of time solo off the front, reeled in with one to go. I did okay, getting 5th in a field sprint. A pedal striking rider two in front of me in the last corner forced me wide, I lost my wheel, and had to sprint in the wind from 300m out. Not bad considering.

It was kind of boring, and a crash in turn 1 of the first lap set the tone for some knuckleheaded bike handling throughout the field, which provided entertainment and concern.

Next time, I'll work AND work on my positioning. Being a sit-in sprinter type ain't no fun at all.

Racer Ex 

Texas State Crit Championship (age based) report:

Still smiling from WR's win two nights ago, still questioning my legs which returned enough to annoy the heck out of everybody during that race, we hit Saturday with 3 teammates that were pretty compromised by vacations (no riding) and illness (no sleep for EDR). 60+ rider field that had all the Cat 1 names and a bunch of oversized Texas crit monsters from two age groups (of course one of them younger than mine).

So off we went. Attacks started right away, there was a lot of jostling, counters, and bridging. Realized my legs had mostly shown up which was nice. Also realized one team was countering everything so I figured I'd cool it a bit and let some of the other strong teams chase stuff down when they didn't have representation.

After all, when faced with obstacles to success, humans act in their interest and develop solutions. This was a race, the goal was to win.

Simple.

So when a 45+ and 40+ monster headed up the road together in a two man I figured it was a matter of moments before one of the other teams would chase. I mean, this was like one of those horror movies where you can predict the outcome.

So I waited. And waited.

After a while it hit me that Chevrolet’s answer to the fuel crises was the Vega. Ford developed the Pinto. And so on. Humans develop solutions. That doesn't mean they would be GOOD solutions.

So I slapped myself in the head a few times (I shoulda known better) and me and another two guys did most of the chasing. This wouldn’t have been nearly as annoying if some teams weren’t sitting back there with three and four riders looking like the were preserving themselves.

Which made me proud to be in our kit. It’s cool to be with a group that will do the kamikaze thing for their teammates. Unfortunately, the pace knocked the carp outta the rest of our already weakened crew, though they gave it their best shot. This might have been the same for the other teams, though a couple of them seemed pretty frisky in the last 4 laps.

We got the gap down but once the 40+ guy detached from the 45+ motor and returned to the much thinned herd a bunch of the 40+ guys started moving up to try to position for the finish, breaking up any chase, and knocking the pace down, so that was that.

Again, I shoulda known better and taken the risk of a counter when the move went in the first place.

Well earned solo win for EB, I ended up second in the 45’s, taking the wheel rubbing, elbow tossing field sprint in our age group, a really tiny silver medal, and a check. Oh well. And we also grabbed a 7th mostly on savvy.

The Noah was flawless BTW. Just confidence inspiring.

Thanks to EDR for putting me up and putting up with me for two days and congrats again to WR.

Hey, anybody know where he can get a faked birth certificate?

bostongarden

Congrats, and the human nature analogy is precious (for more than a decade I did a fair bit of research for and consulting to GM and I feel for them...ugh, those cars that they produced in the 70s were baaaaaaaaaaaad.)

Thanks...I too am looking forward to reading other reports...

Good luck...race report coming soon??


Thanks..."pain cave," I love learning cool new terms!!!

bostongarden

And, so, back at it again next week?

waterrockets 

RX, it's pretty amazing that all those other big teams just sat on it with EB off the front.

Grumpy McTrumpy

nice job bg! way to go for it!

bravo106

There must've been a serious crash towards the end of your race at turn 3. Somebody got carted off on a stretcher. Delayed the start of the subsequent races, including the 45+ I was in, by almost 40 mins.

I heard a few guys chatting after the 4/5, and one of them complimented the other on an impressive bunny-hop over a crash pile-up.

umd

Didn't have wnough yesterday so I went back for more today. Sir, can I please have seconds? Same course, 2 laps again, 62 miles. First lap was fairly tame, there was a guy off the front for most of it but nobody seemed to want to chace. I figured Shane would launch an attack on the second climb and sure enough I saw his get towed up to the front on the PAA train shortly before the base and hopped on the back. Sure enough, he attacked but was marked and everyone chased. We hit the climb much harder that time and I was feeling ok but about halfway up suddenly the lights went out and I had nothing. Everyone streamed by and I was OTB. After a minute I regained some power and started catching others that had also popped. Probably caught 10 guys and crested the top in sight of a small group. I thought if I really pushed the descent I could get in with them but they had the same idea for the group ahead of them and I wasn't making any ground. At the bottom I could see a small group a little ways behind me so I waited for them and worked with them to the finish. Not sure how many riders started, but I came in a fairly depressing 39th. There were only about 15 in the lead group.

pinky

Connecticut Coast Crit, 3/4. Won it after jumping on a solo move, then attacking with half a lap. Solo across the line.

Won a $50 prime in the 123 right afterwards. A very profitable day.

queerpunk

Yes. Apparently six or seven people went down. That corner proved troublesome for the 4/5 field throughout the race - the rutted pavement made some people forget how to corner; some people rode off the road, and the race ended with that serious pileup.

bostongarden

Why thank you Grumpy...


Pretty cool that you got right back on the horse...the good thing is that depression can be fleeting!


...I sense a pattern

bravo106

duh!

Red Rider

Dunlap Time Trial, 18 miles, ~41 feet of climbing. Ag fields all around. Winds 20 mph sustained w/ gusts to 29 mph. 50:50, good enough for 5th of 7 tandem teams. Intensity is the name of the game.