Road Bike Racing - Too much luck

Or lack thereof. Despite having the legs to do well this weekend (I think..) I was thwarted in both races. Such is road racing, I suppose.

This is half race report, half me complaining. Ignore whichever half you find displeasing.

Saturday Bad Luck - I spent the first 15 minutes of the Collegiate A crit at Colorado College covering the flurry of attacks coming from the massive Fort Lewis team (16 riders) and always annoying CU. Nothing went anywhere. Then, after getting into 4 failed breaks, I sit in the middle of the field for 2 laps to recover, and the field SPLITS on the small climb with about 12 guys up the road, and I'm behind it. We have 2 guys in the front group, so the rest of us just have to sit there. Then our two guys up front crash each other *see photo below*, coach yells to chase for 2 laps (yay, we get to do something!), and then they get a free lap so we have to go back to sitting in. Ended up half-ass sprinting for like 12th or something. It was pretty painful knowing I was in the top 5-10 riders the whole first 15 minutes, then I go back for just a short while and get caught out. Bad luck, stupidity, whatever it was it sucked.

Crashing each other:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y7/BHSnordic/IMG_5519.jpg

Me either blowing my nose or about to shake my fist angrily. Both happened numerous times: http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y7/BHSnordic/IMG_5598.jpg

Sunday, same deal at the start. Me and two other teammates are in charge of getting into any break that goes, so we spend the first 8 miles or so jumping into breaks, all of which fail. Once again, I sit in the pack for 2 minutes and... yep, a break gets up the road. It has the right mix, all big teams represented, so the pack just shuts down. I can't try to bridge because there are two dangerous riders still in the pack with me and we are watching each other, there is no way I would get across without pulling at least these two (and if they went, probably the whole field) with me.
We go so slow that the p/1/2/3 field passes us. They then slow down in front of us, and we catch them again. The official won't let us go around, so we stop for a piss break. Meanwhile, the break is gaining more and more time. The official says he's going to stop us all at the top of the hill and re-set all the gaps. Cool, but we're still almost 5 minutes down on the lead group of 5, 2 minutes down on a middle group of 3 (none of which were strong riders, which is why they could get up the road).

So we stop. They send the leaders off, we sit around for a while, and they send us off. CU and a couple others form a little pact, they want to catch the break. So, now on the 3rd lap of 5, it finally feels like a race. As we hit the long climb the field splits, splinters, and then explodes. I'm in the front group still.

Now for the Sunday Bad Luck - I flat out of the lead chase. Rear puncture. I put my hand up, pull off... no wheel car, no follow car... nothing. I start walking, resigned to my race being over.
I have stans mtb sealant in my rear tubular because it has flatted once before, so when a Jeep pulls up and asks for a ride I ask him if he has a pump. If I can get the thing inflated again, it will hold. Stans is the *****.
So, I pump up my tire. Now I'm at least 10 minutes behind any decent sort of group. The B race has just gone by and is about 1/4 mile up the road, so I race up to catch them. Their follow car seems to think I'm a B getting dropped, and won't let me draft him at all. He swerves all over the road. I finally get around him and tack onto the back of the B group. Hang out with my lone B teammate for a while (and yell at him for not drafting). It was kind of fun to watch the B race unfold in front of me, attacks going off, the group splitting up, etc. I was trying not to get involved so I just rode over to the side and watched. Spent some time looking around wondering if BF member VosBike was in this group (you race B's for CC, right?). Come through the start finish and pull off, sit down, and eat a bag of chex mix waiting for the races to finish.
The group I was in ended up catching the break. I don't know if I could have held on, but maybe I could have. Would have been a top 5, which would have been cool. I have only 1 so far this collegiate season.

Luck sucks. I want to go back to mountain bike racing, where the winner is the strongest dude 99% of the time. Then at least I know if I lose, it was me and only me that caused it.

Or lack thereof. Despite having the legs to do well this weekend (I think..) I was thwarted in both races. Such is road racing, I suppose.

I want to go back to mountain bike racing, where the winner is the strongest dude 99% of the time. Then at least I know if I lose, it was me and only me that caused it.

as they say, that's racin', and your last statements are exactly why I love road racing, strategy, team work, and tactics can give a less physically gifted guy a fighting chance. from your posts, you've got the chops, your time will come.

Sounds like you did what you could, and with good power though. Frigging dice rolls. Ugh.

Saturday Bad Luck - I spent the first 15 minutes of the Collegiate A crit at Colorado College covering the flurry of attacks coming from the massive Fort Lewis team (16 riders) and always annoying CU. Nothing went anywhere. Then, after getting into 4 failed breaks, I sit in the middle of the field for 2 laps to recover, and the field SPLITS on the small climb with about 12 guys up the road, and I'm behind it.

Hardly sounds like bad luck to me. You made the choice to follow pointless breaks so when the real move went you weren't prepared. Rather than blame chance, ask yourself what you can do to better identify meaningful attacks from pointless ones. If you read pro race reports and diaries, you'll see certain riders have the reputation for knowing which attacks have a good chance of working and which ones don't. That isn't a matter of luck.

Hardly sounds like bad luck to me. You made the choice to follow pointless breaks so when the real move went you weren't prepared. Rather than blame chance, ask yourself what you can do to better identify meaningful attacks from pointless ones. If you read pro race reports and diaries, you'll see certain riders have the reputation for knowing which attacks have a good chance of working and which ones don't. That isn't a matter of luck.

I had a job at the start, and I did it. If I hadn't been in those breaks, FLC and CU would have shut the pack down and they would have gone clear, forcing us to burn more collective matches bringing them back. The bad luck was the SPLIT (not break) happening during the only 2 laps of the race where I took some time to recover, and me not being allowed to even try to bridge.

Yeah, both A races this weekend played out very strangely. At least a teammate benefited from it on Sunday.

Yeah, I was in the B's race on sun, way way off the front of the main pack though. Who was the guy on your team that made up like 3 minutes on the leaders solo in one lap, then went on to attack again? I was with the two FLC guys off the front from the first time up the big hill.

I broke a spoke and flatted on the last lap, but didn't have the legs to beat the FLC guys or your teammate, so 4th would have been the best I could have hoped for.

How'd you like the crit course? I hope we can get the swtichback hill next year and make it a little more exciting.

That's Dan. He was a strong B last year and we all thought he would race A's this year, but they wouldn't give him his upgrade and he actually hadn't done too well before yesterday. Kicked ass on that course though.

Good job sunday, even if you had some bad luck yourself :) You must have been the guy with Stalker and his crony.

I really liked the crit course, you guys put together a stellar race. I would have liked to run it in the opposite direction I think, and put the finish on the other side of the street so there was a loooong drag strip before the finish. That would be fun :)
Plus then we could have left our numbers on the same side for the whole weekend. I suck at pinning.