shovelhd

Nice!!

AzTallRider

Cleave, you should have given Ex a little nudge with your car to knock some sense back into him.

Hermes

Cleave, Thanks to your club for promoting and organizing the race. It was a lot of fun and it was great seeing you and the gang. We are doing the Santiago Canyon TT and LAVRA in November.

Colonelmom

My second weekend of CX, I officiated all day yesterday, mainly because of the hill, but today I toed the line with the Ws 4, a 30 minute suffer fest... The course was FAST and not very technical. I still have problems with the dismount, re mount... BUT managed to hang on and snatch a 3rd place finish... Myself and two other gals were trading back and forth for most of the race... but as the leader (male junior 15 -18) lapped us I gunned the last bit and finished ahead of the other gals... I guess all those races of being OTB, I know all too well your race is finished on the leaders lap... it would have proven to be an interesting last lap had we done it.. I was tiring.. but was riding the course better than the other gals.. just those dang barriers..

IBOHUNT

Went to the Deep Blue TT in Delaware on Saturday where I raced in CAT5. My 3rd TT since being taken out by a truck back in June.

It was *interesting* coming out of New Castle. Many corners to negotiate while being concerned with traffic - yeah, I am still very(!) nervous when it comes to ridding where there are vehicles.
Once out of town there are some cross roads that had traffic at them but the marshals and police did a great job in keeping the vehicles away from the riders.

The only problem I had was when making the left onto River road to get to Delaware city and again the left turn at Clinton street for the run to the finish . The police had traffic stopped in the direction I was traveling so I had to go to the left of the vehicles to make a left hand turn which meant taking a tighter turn that would be optimum if given the entire lane.

I placed 4th; 1.84 seconds out of a podium...

Hermes

Colonelmom and IBOhunt. Great racing and results.

BKSams

I raced my first TT there Saturday also, I was in the masters 45+ division. My race sucked, I was in Delaware City when my start time was 5 minutes away. I talked to some of the officials and they pushed my start time back to 11:57 from 11:11. I was told if I can get there in 30 minutes they would let me race, long story short, I got there in 25 minutes and had 2 minutes of rest in between. The winning time was 22 minutes and some change my official time was 38 minutes. Heck if I'd had paid attention I could have been in the top 5 instead of dead last.

revchuck 

A TT with no warmup, ouch! At least you got there, and now have a baseline.

Cleave

Missing your TT start or any race start is a big no-no. Of course, this year I did both for the first time. I missed my start for a 50+ crit earlier this year. I completed the 55+ race, put on my 50+ race number and was rolling around the parking lot near the start line with a friend. I don't know how both of us missed the call to the line but we did. Both of us ended up doing the 45+ race as our second race for the day.

A couple of weeks later at the California Senior Games everything was going well with my pre-race routine. Got to the start line about 5 min before my start time and realized I'd forgotten my timing chip. (This is the only race of the year that I do that has a timing chip.) I went back to my car and, of course, I couldn't find it quickly. Got back to the start line after my start time and asked the official for permission to start. Amazingly, they gave me a new start time! Usually, you miss your start time, you wait for permission to start, and you eat the time that you were late. I was very lucky and ended up 2nd to AzTR by a couple of seconds.

Hint for new racers, get to any race at least one hour before the race starts. One and one-half hours is even better.

BKSams

I tried to send you a PM but I don't have enough posts. I'm in Dorchester county on the Eastern Shore not far from Ocean City MD. I train on the Eagleman course which is one of the races in the Ironman trialthlon series, the course is very flat, in most spots it's at or below sea level. It's a fast but windy course, thanks for the invite but the logistics would murder on my wallet. My job takes me out there a few times a year picking up inmates at the jail and going to the courts.

BKSams

As Revchuck indicated about my baseline, now I know what I have to do this fall and winter. Cleave you are so right, it was ALL my fault for not asking enough questions about what to do and where to go. I was lucky that they let me race at all, it was a very exhausting lesson well learned.

gsteinb

I nearly missed a race start. I was dilly dallying warming up, had the start time in my head wrong by 10 minutes and rolled up with my wheels just as they were about to go off. Dropped wheels, slid into the front line, and off we went. Rolled my eyes at my wife as I passed her standing on the side lines. Went on to win the race. Glad I didn't miss it.

sarals 

Gary, nice!!! Sounds like you should be late to the line more often

AzTallRider

Nah... he already wins enough.

sarals 

caloso

El Dorado Hills CX. Single speed B's: 9th. Given my very little riding lately, I'll take it and be well pleased with it.

Lucas did his first race as a junior. His 10th B-day is in March, but because the CX race schedule goes beyond the New Year, his CX race age is 10. Anyway, he finished 6th out of 6. I pointed out that we both had top 10s and he said "Yeah but I finished higher than you, Dad."

God, I love that kid.

Hermes

Congrats to your son. Juniors are the best!

Hermes

We did not compete in the Low Key Hill Climbs this weekend because we do not do partial dirt roads 3.8 miles 9.3% grade. One had to dismount and jump over a barrier and then proceed another 1/2 mile on dirt at a 9% grade to the finish - NOT.



Our team moved into 2nd place as a result of two new male members we recruited from the Diablo Challenge - smoking fast men.

We opted to climb Kings Mountain on a beautiful Saturday day. It was horse day in Woodside and there were a lot of people riding horses along the road and crossing roads. We rode very slowly when we were next to the horses. Sometimes the noise of the gears can spook or startle the horses so it is better to be conservative. There was a lot of dust in the air due to the horse traffic. One only wonders what it would have been like to be in Dodge City or Wichita when the dominate form of travel was by horseback - dust and manure.

Cleave

@caloso, Sounds like great fun with your son. Sounds like he's also on the road to trash talking with dad. My youngest would regularly tell me he could beat me in a bike race even though he hadn't ridden a bike in years.
@Hermes, I'm with you re: racing road bikes on dirt roads. Maybe if I was getting paid to do it or if I got free bikes from a sponsor...

sarals 

Agreed, both counts!

VanceMac

Far West Championships at Encino. Considering the time of year, decent turnout for most categories... except for the two categories I wanted to do. No other Cat 3s showed up, so they couldn't run that race. And only 3 of us in 50+. Just as well, as I'm now definitely out of no man's land and into off-season mode.

Dalai

Since returning from the States I've ridden the club hill climb championships, State CX titles and started the Summer track season. I've started racing twice a week on the velodrome (could race nearly every day here either track or crits if Iwanted to) to try and get some snap back in the legs...

Last night raced the last round of the Winter Track series. Handicapper placed me in B graded (I normally race A grade on the track) and the organisers limited all competitors max gear to 48*14 which is smaller than I normally race indoors.

First three races definitely didn't suit. Two lap heart starter, 1000m handicap and 750m handicap. First race somewhere at the back, second noticed front wheel going soft on the first lap so was able to carefully let the backmarkers past before successfully pulling off (metal shaving probably from last years roof repairs) and third towards the back as I didn't feel like bumping shoulders 8 wide across the track.

Final race was a 50 lap points race. First sprint let the young guys fight for the first points (I was the oldest in the A-B grade combined race). Hit 3 laps out from the second sprint and had one then two bridge across. Pulled half lap turns and a few more bridged over the next 10 laps to make our group now 6 strong. Got involved in the subsequent sprints getting a couple of seconds and a couple of thirds and rolled the final sprint in 5th. Not sure where I ended placing as the results aren't up yet and I'm not too fussed, just happy that my speed is returning so I can start instigating rather than following.

Focus is the National Track Masters still 5 months away, so plenty of time to get my speed back.

Cleave

There was a race and I was there. I was on the start line for the 45+ men and I started rolling when the starter said go. I even tried to race for the first half or so of the 17.3 mile event. After that it wasn't even a ride. It was survival.

2013 Mt Charleston Hill Climb

I finished, even though I stopped twice for leg cramps. Being fat and out of shape is still not an excuse for my pitiful time. A domestic pro on a unicycle with a 36" wheel passed me before my first cramp. My official time was about 30 minutes slower than his. After cramping I rode the last 4 miles at about 5.5 mph. I did manage 3rd in a field of 4 so I escaped DFL.

Overall I liked the race and if you're going to set the bar for a 17.3 mile hill climb with 5,300 ft of elevation gain that finishes at 8,600 ft, you may as well set it low. I might have done better if I'd started slower but I was actually pretty encouraged by my pace for the first half. Wheels falling off the cart is a mild way to describe my second half. Blowing a hole through the side of the block with pieces of shrapnel trailing on the road behind me is more apt.

Next race is Santiago Canyon TT. Velo Diva gets to embarrass me again at that one. Might do Piru TT in December for my last race of the year.

Hermes

I did the Paterson Pass Low Key Hill Climb on Saturday - 4.79 miles 4.88% average grade. Patterson Pass is one of the routes on the Tour of California and some of the riders posted faster times on the climb than the best ToC racers. This HC was organized into small groups 1-6 based upon previous scores. The LKHC series has a scoring system where each participant gets a percentage of the fastest riders score. The top finishers score is based upon the time to completion and the difficulty of the climb. I was in group 6 and we had about 12 riders.



Patterson Pass Road goes through a wind farm and wind farms are sited in the areas that have the higher and most consistent wind speed. One would expect there to be a lot of wind. None of the wind machines were rotating and whatever wind we had was typically at our back on the climb.

The climb starts out relatively flat and then pitches up. I knew the pace would be fast from the start so I used a programatic warmup on the trainer and got to the line hot. My power profile from the first three minutes looked like a crit with several power spikes. I was third wheel. Another rider comes around and I get on his wheel. I stay on his wheel for the rest of the climb. He was riding in the drops and had a good pace. My power was still variable but typically at threshold on his wheel so I thought I will ride this horse as long as possible. Another rider passes us and my lead horse picks up the pace.

There is a 12% grade finish to the top. I hung with guy until I blew myself up about 300 meters from the finish. I should have measured the effort better and let him go versus trying to hang on on a steep grade.

sarals 

Great job, Hermes!!! Way to hang tough. Great photos, too.