rpeterson

It was at rocky mountain raceway. Utahbikeracing.com has all the crit series info if you want to check it out.

DocM

Ris van Bethel, 3/10/13
M45+: pack fodder.
3/4: flatted after one lap; no spare.

jsutkeepspining

the mjg race: i win cuz im the only one racing ! But seriously f everyone who gets to race while im stuck not racing.

mattm

when do you get to race?

plantrob

First race since August - and just a training race at that. Fogelsvile March Training Series, A and B races. 25 and 35 short laps points format with sprints every five laps. My sprint sucks, especially measured in a field packed with sprinters, so I was happy to just hang in there, occasionally doing some work to reel in a break. Got in a break myself in the first race, but predictably my sprint came up short to grab points in the break sprint - and we were caught not long after that. I'm pleased - last year, I was doing the Cat 5 races in this series, felt good to be in a large fast field this time around.

save10

finally got off my butt and raced

Red Kite #1

M3/4 - the usual shenanigans
M123 - a surprising and disappointing amount of shenanigans
results...skin intact.

rkwaki

That's a pretty funny post for those in the know...

jsutkeepspining

it was for the few who know me

grolby

Ah! Remember that feeling, then. Nothing you can do to yourself on the last lap of a crit is going to make your ride home any harder. Especially if you win.

misterwaterfall

Mason Lake round 2. 36 miles/3 laps of the lake. Cat 5

Cold(~40), rain, light wind. Typical for March in Washington

Once again they split the 5's. Odds/evens. Our group has 30-35 guys, with 5 or 6 from a local team. I have a couple friends in the field with no team mates, so I am expecting a lot of attacks. We get started with the first lap being somewhat steady. I spent most of the time surfing through the field chatting with people, and trying not to freeze. We got to the back stretch and the local team stretches out the field so I figure we're in for a quick race. This lasts for about 5 minutes and they ease up. Weird. Lap 2 has more of the same, a couple attacks that get no where, and more rain. By this point I can't feel my fingers.
Lap 3, last lap: The local team is still at the front, and going through a cycle of one man going off, getting about 50 meters on us, and hanging in the wind. This happens over and over, and I don't think they were trying to attack more likely that they just didn't really have a plan and we're doing what cat 5's do. I move up after seeing this to try to cover any serious attacks that go off, and to not get left behind if any gaps open up. For most of lap 3 I was 3-8th wheel, never pulling and never drifting too far back. As we get to the home stretch I am sitting 3rd wheel, and at 1 K to go a couple more people sprint up leaving me 5th or so on the inside of a double file pace line. Perfect, this will let me go left after we get the whole road at 200 meters and commence my sprint domination. The pace kicks up a bit and I am just hanging out. At about 300 m to go the guy on my right takes a hard left into me and hip checks me moving me about 2 feet to the left and about right on the center line. I put some weight into him and held my line as best as I could and saw him going right then swerving back my way. At this point I decided to launch which is longer than I had hoped but I didn't want to get taken down so it was the best option. I went as hard as I could, pulled on everyone, and spun as fast as I could. As I got to about 50m to go, one guy who was probably in my draft the whole time came around me for 2nd as my legs were burning up. I was kinda pissed as I was forced to go early, but not a bad result and I think I handled it about as well as possible. I then went as sat in the car with the heater on full blast for 30 minutes trying to regain feeling in my fingers.

TLDR: raced in the rain, got 2nd, am still frozen

jtwilson

Awesome. Well done!

I skipped out on Mason Lake today and rode around Tacoma instead.

gsteinb

I would have tossed you a CO2

shovelhd

We spoke afterwards. He now knows he can use my pit wheels anytime he wants.

carpediemracing 

+1. Well the front. I don't know if a 10s Campy works on your bike. I need to bring more wheels maybe.

Homebrew01

No, racers should bring their own wheels. You do more than enough already.

crapweasel

Were you odds or evens?

mattm

Red Kite Crit in Livermore, 2/3's. 13th (out of 70+), damn.

Kinda sketchy, but it was a good workout. Felt good the whole time but did too much work on the front/bridging. Some guy's hip was all up on my elbow in one of the corners with two to go, trying to push me into someone else on the other side. But I was having none of it and held my ground! F that.

I was kinda gassed at the end, plus boxed in. So it goes.

Red Kite Crit, 1/2's (10 mins later). 23rd, meh.

This was a lot smoother than the 2/3's, and more fun too. The slower parts were slower, and the faster parts were faster. Lower power avg than the 2/3's but faster pace overall.

Legs tired, good training all around! Next time I need more water when the races are that close together.

DocM

Thanks, CDR. If I had been thinking straight I would have brought Rebecca's wheels, but, as you know, that's hard to do when you're sleep-deprived from post-midnight feedings. I'm selling some old parts and will be getting some race wheels for the new rig soon.

carpediemracing 

I like how all the instructors from Bethel are harping on each other.

As it is my front wheel (in the pit) had no skewer - was on a teammate's bike during the race. Another was missing its backup skewer.

For me a much better day than last week. Last week I could only put down 139w and got shelled. This week was better, 155w, enough for 13th.

Jancouver

10,000th post. Congrats!

Homebrew01

I wasn't thinking about that .... sorry .... Just that I can't see how you could possibly add any more to your workload.

By the way, Shovel is a jerk

rkwaki

Time for the super duper mod to retire...

shovelhd

Why, thank you!

gsteinb

Bethel 45+
some blue and pink team kicked everyone's ass.

the fun part for me is listening to the conversation on FB about guys being 'close to me' in the sprint. Of course I'm throttling it back 50 meters from the line because it's over already.

Creatre

Brooks Race Weekend

TT - Cat 3 - 3rd/4
- First TT of the year. 7.3 miles, out and back. Pretty flat, some slight rollers. Tailwind out, headwind back. Haven't ridden at race intensity enough to know exactly what I can do with how much my power and fitness has increased. Started out conservative, I think too much so, but finished strong. Ended up with 305w and 8s off 2nd and 20s off the winner. I think with a little more refined pacing now that I have a baseline I could be up there. I also had a horrific turnaround. I never have bad turnarounds, not sure what the deal was, but I totally trashed it. Prob 5-10s right there.

Circuit - Cat 3 - Last?/~30?
- 45 minute circuit race. Laps were 15min long, so sorta road race-y. I was the breakaway man for the team. So, I attacked, and attacked, and attacked. I made the race pretty freaking hard. I got away with a TT1 Devo kid about 10 mins into the race and we had a legit gap and break going. We stayed away about 10 minutes. Apparently my teammate chased us down from what others were saying? Not sure what that was about, he may have just been setting false tempo and it looked like he was chasing us down. Anyways, I get back in the group and start attacking or following attacks again and trying to get something to stick. We get some moves off, but everyone was just too fresh with that short of a race and no one was willing to work much once we got a gap. Last lap we turned a corner with about 1.5 miles to go, I find a hole and I punch it, attack hard. I look bad, see and a solid gap. I say screw it, these guys may play with each other and I might have a chance. I go all in. Unfortunately, that last stretch before the final turn with 200m to go was a lot longer than I thought. I thought I was doing like a 1k or 1.5k, but it was more like a 1.5 mile. I set some new power records for the duration but they gobbled me up with 300-400m to go. I just sat up and rolled in at this point. Oh well, I tried.

Road Race - Cat 3 - 3rd/~40
- Three 17 Mile laps for about 50 miles on tap for today. Mostly flat course with some rollers. Solid amount of wind. My goal was to get in a break again. My team would help me out. Other racers are starting to realize I'm a breakaway rider and give me a chat during the first 5-10 mins so I make some friends to get an attempt going in a bit. About 10 miles into the a race, and pretty solid 5-6 man break gets off the front with a nice gap. I get a bit worried, so decide to bridge up. I'm about halfway across the gap and all of the sudden a police car pulls right in front of me. I'm like WTF, dodge him and look at the break who looks confused, and then look back to see the peloton turning. Oops, popo forgot to tell us to turn there. Great. So now instead of being OTF, I'm OTB. I start chasing back and do a solid 5min effort to latch back onto the group. Ugh. I regain composure and recover a bit, and start making my way back up towards the front. About 20 miles in, one of the TT1 Devo kids gets off the front again. My teammate thinks I should go for it so he attacks with me on his wheel and launches me. I make contact and start working with him and 2 guys that came with us. We cycle through at a hard pace for a while and a couple bridgers make it to our group. We get "organized" and a few more guys bridge up to us. Now we are sitting with about 11 guys and although we aren't working great together (big group), we are making our way away from the field. My teammates and the TT1 Devo teammates are blocking at the front. Only one or two teams weren't in the break so we pretty much had it locked up we'd stay away.

Our group never worked great together the whole breakaway. There were a lot of big guys that I would assume were sprinters that were trying to sit in on the back of the group and not do any work. Not sure if they were doing that to conserve energy or because they were maxed out. Either way it was really a core group of about 5 guys that were doing all of the work. I did probably the most work out of anyone in the whole break. I'm one of those guys that would rather be rotating and doing a fairly consistent pace then sitting on the back doing hard/soft/hard/soft. We weren't pushing the pace too much anyways, we knew we had a solid gap, so doing some 250w pulls was no biggie. I could tell the further we went into the race that I had a good shot. Everyone in the group looked to be wearing down considerably. I'm surprised we never popped anyone off the back, but the group wasn't working well enough together and there weren't any super tactical places to knock em off. I can't do the trick to try and pop em off because I simply am not punchy enough and I'll probably just end up blowing myself up.

Anyways, the last 5km is really the only important part here. We start playing around and no one is really wanting to work. I'm still doing some work, because I'd rather stay up near the front in case something goes, and I really don't want us to get caught (ie 1/10odds better than 1/40). One guy attacks and gets a decent gap, we are working together a bit again and he just kind of dangles off the front. I wasn't too too worried about him because I knew that last 2km or so was directly into a head wind. The TT1 Devo kid puts in a super hard attack and I get on a guy's wheel that got his wheel. Unfortunately we didn't get away and we all get back together. At this point we are all just soft pedaling with a bout 2km to go and that guy that was dangling off the front is getting a decent gap. The TT1 Devo kid launches again, but this time with too much kick and I couldn't hold his wheel, I let him go not wanting to blow up pulling the whole group with me to him. Unfortunately no one countered that I could latch onto, and I knew he was probably gone for good. We kind of mess around a bit, but again not really pulling or doing any work. Some guys up the pace with about 1k to and I'm up in the top 3 wheels. I was just on the wheel of a super strong sprinter I knew in the break, because I had a feeling I would get a decent result following him. Well, at about 300m to go he hadn't gone and didn't look like he was going to. I hope to get a jump on everyone so decided to go. I put everything into it and sprint hard. I keep expecting that sprinter guy or one of the others to go flying by me. I throw the bike across the line, look back, and have a huge gap. Go figure. Guess a 800w sprint still can win bunch sprints. Another solid breakaway and good result.

Gosh I type too much in these.