umd

I don't know... it seems like he would have been good at it, it turned out to be a climbers race for sure. Or maybe it was stacked with enough big names he thought his chances would be lower. He seems to pick the races with the highest likelyhood of payout.... I mean, he has to eat.

redal

Yeah, I've had this discussion with Marco Fanelli. I just figured since it was sponsored by your guys' team he would do it. I could tell from the flyer it would favor the climbers. I would think there has to be a cost benefit too. He drove 2.5 hours each way to make $100.

umd

All I could think of is that he didn't want to go up against Floyd and the OUCH squad, but it seems only one showed up. Of course when I left the race him and Neil Shirley had a few minutes on the field. Gary and Seth finished solidly behind it seems. When I left there was a chase of 3 and the largest "pack" was about 10 guys with them in it. Gary finished 8th and Seth was 9th in the GC so he must have finished well up there as well. I'm sure Walker would have slotted right around there somewhere as well.

redal

I doubt it. You saw Punchbowl. Walker was constantly off the front and Floyd was with us in the group, until he dropped out. Your other guy Seth just rode smart and conservative in the group since Walker was constantly up the road.

umd

That's a good point... I'll ask him when I see him.

vladav

Ahhhhhhh, got my fix - thanks!

spinwax

Read my Ventura race report in the race report thread. I am not a happy camper. Oh, well that is racing.

ijunes

one of your friends must be e-rock

wow that crit course was something. Team chicken ranch owned the 5s. looking at the crit course on a map was the biggest mistake. The unofficial results placed me 22nd overall with 11:08 behind the leader, though on the crit course, a couple of riders i lapped got better times than me. my only goal was to make it past the halfway mark to get a time for the next day. which didn't help much neither.

i got dropped on the hill the very first lap, caught up on the descent, and got dropped again, second time around, i caught the lead group again on the descent but by this time i had gone too hard too early.

umd

Pictures are up on my blog. Not very complete since I was racing and kuf was away. Most were taken with my little P&S camera except for the tail end of the P/1/2 and women's circuit. I gave my camera to a teammate's father to take while I was racing...

Prologue

Crit

P/1/2 circuit

Women 1/2 circuit

Cat 3/masters circuit + some extras

couchweight

Awesome pics! Are you racing state tt this weekend?

umd

I don't tt unless I have to

spinwax

Did you race the 5s? I was the lone guy with the tats in the blue and white kit. It was a great course and boy you are right; it got broken up and lots of Team Chicken Ranch guys. I was pretty upset about my terrible screw up in the RR missing the turn. I went into the RR wiht the KOM, Sprinters and Leaders Jersey but lost them all because of the volunteer course marker not telling us to take a right. I have been pretty depressed, but that is racing.

How did you do?

umd

pretty sure that there were only two chickens in the 5s. They are both pretty strong mountain bikers. They both with another guy who is now a 4 pretty much swept the 5s at pine flat and cantua creek in feb, but they haven't raced road since then.

A friend of mine was in the fives in the front with you guys, in gray on a cervelo. I watched the whole cat 5 grit mostly from the top corner and you guys shredded the field pretty quickly and established the lead group in the first few laps.

spinwax

I thought there were a few! Yeah, it fell apart pretty fast! It was suprising, that by the second lap there were already people way off the back but that is how the 5s are. The refs, etc struggled to keep up with who was getting lapped etc. It was an awesome course and fit me perfectly. They actually cut us about 4-5 min short because it was such a mess! LOL.

How did you do?

umd

Keeping in mind that my race was a bit longer... I got involved in a crash early in the race and used the free lap to get back in. I survived all of the "selections" that cut the field in less than half but started to cramp with 4 to go (the KOM lap) and got gapped a few bike lengths to the top. It was pretty much over at that point... but I dropped a chain with 3 to go and at 2 to go the field was getting close to me but I managed to hold them off and started my last lap watching the sprint behind me. Good thing I missed it though because there was a nasty crash in the sprint that broke the collarbone of a friend of mine.

Regarding the time of the race though, crits almost never run as long as on the flyer. It's pretty typical to be 5 minutes or so short because of the way they calculate when to start counting laps.