gsteinb

Did you race?

YMCA

I "raced" Gimbels.
Too many other plans. Including a dinner with friends in Caldwell, Joysey
I do look forward to the day I race often in the NE.

gsteinb

from your mouth to god's ears

YMCA

I answer to no one

shovelhd

Except your lovely wife.

YMCA

correction!
you are correct.

any NE results this weekend?

mike868y

anyone planning on racing capital region rr in a few weeks? assuming my tendonitis continues to feel better, I might show up. wanted to race it last year but had family commitments.

globecanvas

I'm skipping it this year. It's a tough course. I didn't take it very seriously last year and cracked on the first lap.

carpediemracing 

Yes but nothing good for me

Got shelled at Ninigret (I think 2nd last was 5th in the 20k race but I haven't seen results and I didn't bother checking before I left).

Sat up at Berger, 14th in the race/sprint, I would have sworn I was 20+ places back when I sat up. When I reviewed my clip I saw that after I sat up I think I passed two or three people.

Found cracks in my Stinger 6 rear wheel, not serious, but I put the 9 rear on because now I had an excuse. The front 6 has a small cosmetic chip by the tire that I discovered in March (raced it at Ninigret). I guess those wheels are good for about 4 seasons of Cat 3 type racing.

mike868y

anyone else from the boston area (or really anywhere between bos and albany) planning on doing capital region? i really really want to buy can't justify that drive without someone to carpool with

shovelhd

I am thinking about it but I cannot commit right now.

globecanvas

Hunter Classic RR (NY state champs). Result: no idea!

Mixed 35+/45+ field, about 70 racers, lots of strong guys so my goal was to finish with the front group, which I did (2 guys were off the front). Maybe 20th place on the road, but scoring was a mickey mouse parade and by the time I left they had only scored the top 16, the 45+ bronze was not among them.

Maybe this is crazy talk, but if I promoted the NY state championship RR, I would hire a damn scorer! This is the 2nd scoring debacle in a row with this promoter (DD of course) and I am not feeling like giving him any more of my money.

mike868y

not sure if we'd be in the same wave but if so, let me know for sure.

shovelhd

I would be racing M55+ which I believe is earlier than yours so it could work out. Let me look into it.

shovelhd

Scoring is done by USAC not the promoter. It's up to the promoter to hire finish line services to enhance the manual scoring. USAC officials score by eye, usually five riders per official but it could be more. The more riders each official scores, the less accurate the results. The fact that this was a state championship really doesn't change any of that.

globecanvas

OK, that's good to know, but the fact remains that from a user perspective the scoring was totally broken, so somebody dropped the ball somewhere. There's effectively no protest period when there are no results within 3 hours of the race finish.

shovelhd

Agreed. You have a legitimate complaint.

tetonrider

vote with your money -- but perhaps give him a heads-up as to why you will be skipping future events. without feedback, it's hard for someone to improve (this assumes he wants to improve...obviously not everyone cares).

sounds like you would want the event to stick around, so it might be worth a shot.

YMCA

The NE and many parts of the country are still stuck in the 20th century when it comes to scoring.
Get your promoters and LA's to invest in chip timing and life becomes easy.
We score results within seconds and print them out almost immediately (since 2007?)
The few discrepancies are handled quickly and podium pics are quick.

BTW - officials have a scorer, but it's only as backup to what we already see. Otherwise they are taking care of rules on the road and staying out of our way.

shovelhd

Typically the top ten are scored by two officials and the rest are scored by video or slit. This changes from race to race but that's the general model around here. One promoter tried chip timing a few years ago for a popular pirate race. The issue with his system was that it only worked across one lane of the road so the sprint, which was closed, had to funnel through the gates. Not safe. A lot of guys went left of the gates and were not scored. I am sure that there are better systems available. This one must have been geared towards triathlons.

Grumpy McTrumpy

The chip timing system we hired for this years spring circuit race was so bad it took a week of unpaid labor by the Chief Judge to get it finally right.

carpediemracing 

My understanding with the chip systems is that they generally need a reader every so many feet, like every 8'. This means either something across the ground or over the road. The ground is fine for running - it's raised a little bit so a runner would be fine but I wouldn't want to hit it at 35-40 mph. The overhead thing typically requires extra approvals from the town, at least that's what I've been told. I haven't dealt with the overhead bit so I've only heard of approval things second hand, my info might be out of date now.

I do think that chip timing is extremely useful because it will vividly demonstrate if a rider sat out a lap or two, or, in especially confusing Cat 5 races, how many times a particular rider actually got lapped. Around here officials prefer not to pull lapped 5s so it gets a bit messy with results.

My ideal set up would be chip timing plus a camera for detail work, i.e. chip to verify the overall stuff (how many laps complete, approximate order, etc) and the camera to do fine tuning (bike throws etc). A local promoter who I speak with someone regularly spent something north of $20k to buy a chip timing set and he readily admits its shortcomings. I think he uses both a camera and the chip timing.

YMCA

What the heck chip timing are you guys talking of?
MyLaps is an international company with the best stuff going.
We have zero of these issues I see mentioned in the 33.
Camera's and judges are simply backup.

Aki, if you want to know more, I'll put you in contact with Tim down here. You guys shouldn't live in Neolithic times and keep trying to find reasons not to progress. Get the LA's on board and all of New England will be buying their chips.

Grumpy McTrumpy

Yellowjacket has been pretty reliable in the past few years. The only drawback is the price which can knock an event into a state of "impossible" to put on.

Grumpy McTrumpy

I should mention that, a few years ago, Yellowjacket had similar problems to the lower priced (possible) chip timing services. They eventually came up with a method of attaching the chips as low as possible (to the skewer or just above) which has minimized bad reads. There are still some, but not enough to warrant concern.

and the price goes up.