carpediemracing 

That course really appeals to me, meaning it's something that I think I'd enjoy racing.

Looks like it's about 20 seconds from that sharp left turn to the finish. You can probably go just before the sharp left. Blast up the side, dive into the turn, use the long coast to help recover, then go go go. The corner will stabilize gaps/positions (meaning not many people are going to be moving up 10 spots at that moment). At that point, with the gaps visible after the turn, it's basically a huge drag race to the line.

This is especially true if you're not passing people in the sprint. If you passed, say, 10 people in the last 10 seconds (meaning the final straight) then okay, you can wait a bit, but it seems that the race is full on going into the tight left so there isn't someone out there that can go 5-8 mph faster in the sprint. If it were me I'd want to be blasting into that tight left in 1st or 2nd spot and I'd just launch out of the turn. I know I'd be dying 5 seconds from the line but I think that my initial jump would take all but maybe 4 or 5 guys out of the running. Hopefully they'd be better at things like climbing than sprinting

Doge

Stage 1/5 of the Junior Peace Race in Czechia. Junior was/is a bit off his game, so less racing and more travel, seeing the area. I just wanted to do something with the 2 hours of video I had.

Doge

Stage 2a - ITT
.be

spectastic

i recommend a handlebar mount. the helmet mount looks pretty derp. there are also people who mount them on the seat post, but I never really understood the point of that.

when buying a mount, find one that's made of aluminum, not plastic, and has only one hinge that holds the camera. the garmin/gopro dual mount is nice, but are $30. you can find a separate handlebar mount from china for like $5 shipped.

spectastic

yep the strategy you suggest have been done before, and is usually effective for gaining 2-3 spots on bell lap, and kind of dangerous because others are thinking the same thing, especially when it's <30 mph. you can see how nobody held their line into the turn. but i suppose youre either the hammer or the nail, and it pays to take some risks when it counts.

carpediemracing 

Looking at the clip the first two guys were up front by the left turn. The first guy (did he win?) was at the front for a while. The second guy moved up hard just before the left. That first guy was doing what was necessary to try and keep the surge from happening, based on your high HR it was working pretty well. However he probably went a bit early as the blue guy could still move up pretty easily (big difference/delta in speed). I think it's just the way the course works out.

mike868y

i don't use a go pro, but i use a barfly garmin/go pro mount to mount my headlight. i like it. seems plenty sturdy.

spdntrxi

I'm using a raceware (mainly because I have Canyon H11 bars) tried metal one's from a few different companies that I could find, keep breaking bolts in the bars and got tired of slotting them with a dermel and removing... not many in the Canyon bar world and the raceware is solid. Mine hold on both side of the bar and has a beefy section that hold my Garmin 1000 and Virb or Fly12. I did not like raceware version that only holds one side of the bars.

spectastic

how do you like the bars? does it offer you a noticeable performance gain?

spdntrxi

like them plenty.. hides wires pretty well... hides my di2 junction box too. Stiffer then previous enve compact/enve stem combo by a fair bit on feel to me. I don't know the negative angle on them, but if I had to guess probably -10/-12ish. As mentioned didn't have luck using there drilled hole spots for mounts.. maybe the garmin 1000 is to heavy and the stiffness of the bar and road vibe.. just got tired of the bolt issue.

gsteinb

interestingly enough, my peak power sunday was leaving the start line and my hardest five minutes was the first five.

mattm

Red Kite 35+ from Sunday, in which I lose to the reigning 45-49 national crit champ.

Vid has one of my breakaway attempt (out of three total), and the final lap.


No data, but the leadout to the final sprint was about 38 mph.

I know b/c I wanted to jump the leadout train, looked down and saw that speed, and though twice about it.. probably would've been better if I hadn't look at the speed and just went anyway!

carpediemracing 

That is hard core.

And you should have gone

hack

well done ... a bit of a challenge to come around Dean's wheel in a tailwind sprint.

how are you liking the 35+ racing? seems you're getting into a few more of those this year.

mattm

Ha tell me about it. Next time!

Thanks.

I don't like Masters racing to be honest - teams act weird; "we have two guys in the break - WE NEED TWO MORE", which results in everyone chasing everything down... I need @Ygduf out there to make breaks stick.

What I really don't like though is being tired for the p1/2 race.

But it's good training!

So I've been sacrificing some p1/2 races by doing 35+ and p12 on the same day.

hack

Yeah ... there seems to be a small number of 35+ teams that can stack a field and want to stack the breaks heavily in their favor. I've done a lot more of the 35+ races than P12 (only 2 of these so far), so it will be interesting to see how the dynamics change between the fields. I just assumed the racing was pretty similar, but apparently not.

mattm

It also heavily depends on the race.

Red Kite p12 is way different than say Cat's Hill p12, San Rafael p12, or some other big race. (as in the big teams don't show up in numbers to the smaller races)

And on the flip side maybe 35+ is different at the big races, I dunno.

wktmeow

Hey, I did the Red Kite too, but in the E4's

Goals were to get to the front within the first 2 laps (after being stuck at the back for Cat's hill and suffering real bad for it, figured I'd want to work on that), and just to have fun as I've been having a lot of negative self-talk lately and am trying t be a bit more positive and enjoy the experience more.


Sorry, it's the full video. I'll edit the next one down, promise! Last lap starts at 36:40. I was feeling really good and fresh the whole race, but at the last lap I somehow got really nervous about the finish and made the fear-based decision to try to lead my teammate out instead of just trusting myself and waiting out the sprint. Felt kinda bad afterwards about throwing away my chances there, but it definitely highlights the problem I need to work on if I want to start winning things.

P.S. Matt, I was the guy chatting with you at the Spectrum after the Cañada sprint, hi!

carpediemracing 

You looked really, really strong in the last couple laps. Putting aside the nervous factor, if you'd slotted in after you moved up I think you'd have been in great position for the last lap and change.

Nervousness. Sometimes I'll bail in the last lap for whatever reason. I'll get a bad feeling and I'll just sit up or not contest or something. I don't remember anything happening after I've bailed (meaning I got a bad feeling and then no one crashed or anything). Still, though, if I get wigged out I'll ease or sit up or whatever. It hasn't happened in a while, and it doesn't happen a lot, so when I get wiggy I sit up. I figure someone's trying to tell me something.

Leadout - you had way too much left in the tank after you pulled off - if you could break 200w after pulling off you had too much left. To do a jump, even momentarily, of almost 1000w, after you pulled off... that energy should have been part of the leadout. You want to ideally lead out so fast that riders can't do much except sit on wheels. I don't know which rider was your teammate but if your teammate wasn't on your wheel you want to pull off a bit early, working with his sprint style (is he a jumpy sprinter or one that drag races for 300m to the line). If he's on your wheel and he has any kind of a jump you want to launch him at some ridiculously short distance to the line, like 150m to go. If you'd gotten around the last turn that would have set up a teammate on your wheel about as well as possible. The idea is to stack the deck in his favor.

Leading out slower, like at 28-32 mph, is fine for your sprinter maintaining position, but it allows at least 15-20 racers to stay in the game, and, for a while, actually allows riders to move up from anywhere in the field. In a rain race one year I felt really uncomfortable on my tires (they were pretty hard when I bought them new just a few months prior, acceptable in training, but in the rain just sketchy as heck). Therefore I decided I had to move up between the 2nd last turn and the last turn on the last lap, and I'd sit at the back until then. Luckily there was a very slow organized leadout (that team historically gets very organized but leads out very slowly, which plays perfectly to my game), setting up the field perfectly for me to just roll right past everyone in about 100 meters. If the leadout had been faster, basically the speed I was going to move up, then I'd have been totally out of contention. I've had many races where I was planning on doing a similar late move (not quite as late as 1 turn to go) but a team went to the front and held 33-35 mph and I couldn't do more than move up about 10-20 spots, blowing myself up in the process.

On slight downhills it's even more critical to maintain high speeds (and a good reason for big gears, aka standard size chainrings). On a Gimbels ride one year I was on the wheel of a Cat 1 or pro (Ray Diaz) approaching the mid-way Route 120 sprint. There's a slight downhill for a bit so the approach speeds are high. I got his wheel but he was meaning to leadout his teammate, who ended up on my wheel. Diaz is a fast, fast rider, but he wasn't going fast enough to keep us from getting swarmed, about 39 mph transitioning from the slight downhill approach into the slight uphill sprint. I jumped really early to keep the sprint between just me and his sprinter. I knew I had the better of the sprinter so I sat up pretty far from the line and the sprinter just passed me at the line (which was fine by me). Diaz later came up to me and asked me why I jumped so early, if I'd jumped later I'd have "won" the sprint. I told him (with a big grin) that he was going too slow. He said he was going 39 mph. I said, yes, that was too slow! He laughed. The sprint was just between me and his sprinter, no one else was left on our wheels, so although I thought he was going slow the jump gapped everyone off. (Another reason I sat up was I didn't want to do a 100% sprint because the slight upgrade immediately after the sprint usually got me shelled and I didn't want to get shelled. I eased long before I went into the red. I didn't get shelled. At the time I ran a 54x11 big gear so I was pedaling slower than him or his sprinter teammate on the downhill/fast approach to the sprint and that helped save my legs a bit.)

A faster leadout (basically the leadout rider does a race ending sprint where you blow up at 150-200m to go) might reduce the field of potential competitors to maybe one other rider (so your sprinter and one rider left on his wheel). This is sort of like @mattm clip, where the Nat Champ has no one contesting the sprint, just mattm following his wheel to the line. I've done a few leadouts where I've reduced the competition to one or none; others where I felt I screwed up there were 5-6 riders left. The last race I did I led out a teammate. The only guy left on my wheel was my teammate, and we'd gapped off the rest of the field. In fact he had problems just staying on my wheel and, had I gone 20-30 meters later, I don't think he'd have won the sprint. In that race, in some strong wind, my max leadout speeds were in the 32-33 mph range. The rider leading at the bell was only going 26 mph so when he pulled off I ramped it up to 33 mph to try and string things out. It was early so I stayed seated, upright, on the tops, trying to give a draft to my teammate. I gauged my speed based on my teammate's distance from my back wheel, meaning I kept turning around and adjusting speed a bit.

Look at some sprints with Robbie McEwen with Gert Steegmans leading him out. They had their system pretty dialed in, it was like an exercise each time they did a sprint, very methodical. This is one here (12:15 for last km). Steegmans goes at 400m, drops off Robbie at 200m. Steegmans raises his hands long before the line as he watches McEwen win, and I think he still gets 9th in the stage. Even though Steegmans appeared way out of position with 500m to go he knew he had to wait until 400m to go. He just made sure he had a lane where he could mov up. In that Tour there was one stage where Steegmans went at 450m to go instead of 400m. It was 50m too early and when he blew, 200m later, McEwen knew he couldn't go. McEwen didn't win. I think the link above was the stage after that one.

Another good example is Cav and Renshaw. Although Renshaw is the final leadout man, Hincapie is the one that puts in a huge effort starting at the 1 km red flag. Although he's not "sprinting" he's just about sprinting, getting out of the saddle repeatedly, so going much harder than he could just sitting. The idea in a leadout is to go so fast that the sprinter really has to just pedal a bit to win.

In more local racing there was a Canadian team in a P12 race (Hartford Crit, not sure of year). They had I think 9 guys lined up for the last 10 or so laps. They were going fast but not super fast, because you can't go 100% for 10 miles. They had to reuse riders so the speed wasn't fast. In the last half lap Adam Myerson, with just one leadout man, moved up with half a lap to go. His leadout man basically started doing a 100% sprint with about 500m to go. He blew at about 200m but by then it was Myerson's race to lose. If the Canadian team had started closer and done a full on, 100% effort, I think they could have one. 8 leadout men so maybe 3 laps to go, balls out for half a lap for 5 of them, then 200-300m each for the last two leadout men, with the sprinter basically soft pedaling to the line. Myerson repeated this at a few races (that I saw). He'd let larger teams pull the field along, call up his leadout man really late, they'd hit the front at light speed, and Myerson would win.

Finally in this clip I follow a teammate who leads me out for the sprint. He holds about 35 mph in the slight downhill but headwind backstretch. I wanted him to wait as long as possible so that when he hit the front there would be no chance of anyone coming around (instead of going longer and slower). Therefore I waited for the inevitable swarm, and when I saw the swarm I told him to go. Although you can't tell I'm soft pedaling while he's doing this, and my HR is dropping a total of 5 bpm. This recovery allows me to go a bit earlier and still do a good sprint. My leadout man absolutely blew up. Another teammate's clip here shows him crossing the line 27 seconds after I did (left side of screen, green bike), and I passed him (while he was still going fast) at a little less than 200m to go. I didn't win the race but I won the field sprint, catching 4 of the 5 break riders in the process.

Not that you're going to lead out all the time. However knowing how to work a leadout really helps whether you're leading out or sprinting. And you can take advantage of other teams' poor leadouts as well.

Ygduf

I've really not seen teams chase their own except tmb when they have the wrong guys in the break and their break riders are sabotaging it anyway.

anyway, a year ago I felt successful. Trying to have (1) a baby, decent job, nice modest house in the bay area, better-than-average bike racer.

today my wife was like "I think they are just getting to the age where they don't sleep as much" and I can't do anything but sigh.

mattm

Oh hey!

Creakyknees

Things not to do: pile directly into a fallen rider when you have escape routes both left and right.

Dallas, Fair Park Thursday nighter, 18 May 2016, video by a buddy who is physically ok but snapped his fork (you can see his front wheel get picked up)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1nwWtHmOgo

spectastic

nice job. how was the p12? what was your 10s avg in the final meters?

wktmeow

Appreciate the tips as always cdr. I pulled off because the field was starting to pass on the right and I didn't have enough to accelerate any harder at that point, I was sitting at my 1 minute power for just about a minute . I recover pretty quickly though, so I was able to give another small kick after. Yea, it would have been better if I started the leadout later and harder. I was acting more like the 2nd to last rider in a proper train than the last, I think. Leading out wasn't part of the plan, though, and my brain had already shut off I really need to work on my nervousness, as this happens in crits for me more often than not. It's either I do something like this and throw away my own chances, or I just get really passive and give up spots. I think its the combination of taking the last corner at 5+ mph faster than we had before, combined with just the general tension in the field. I've been doing a noon crit twice a week, and a big race-like group ride on Saturdays, but somehow I don't get as nervous for those as I do in a real race. Maybe I just trust the seasoned racers there a little more than my fellow cat 4's.

carpediemracing 

An idea for the midweek crit - do a full on attack at some point, blast through whatever turn/s as fast as possible, work on your "attacking cornering". In my first race ever I was so timid in the corners. My teammate, dropped with me, yelled at me "Just try to fall over in the turns". Obviously my self preservation instinct kept me upright but within about 5-7 laps I was leaving my teammate behind in the turns (I got pulled before the 15 lap race was over and I was off the back after the second turn in the race). Try to leave yourself some time to recover from your effort. Training races are for trying new things out, and it would be an ideal time to do stuff like that.

The other thing is do a full on leadout in the training race. In fact, if you're friends with a more experienced rider, you could lead a "better" rider out. Usually the sprinter will instruct the leadout rider. If you pair up with an experienced sprinter you could learn a bunch in just a sprint or two. The experienced sprinter would appreciate someone willing to work for them.

Training races don't give me any kind of a nervousness in terms of expectations/etc. I've shown up completely unfit and unprepared and launched a massive attack at the gun. I did over 30 mph for a lap, then 23 mph, then 18 mph, and then got caught/shelled by the field. End of my race. It was probably a less efficient way to spend $15 but I wanted to support the promoters and we went out for dinner after so it was all good.

Of course one Tuesday I showed up with zero expectations and my teammates told me that they wanted to work for me. That put a lot of pressure on me because I didn't want to let them down.

For weekend races I feel more pressure to do well. If I double up races (Cat 3, M45 typically) then one race I treat like a training race. Again, like that training race, I've attacked at the gun and been out of the race in 2 laps. Difference was that in the first race I did that day I placed.