The Race Report Thread 2009-2012

[bayareawheeler]

Menlo Park Grand Prix 123

Toed the line and just shook my head as I spotted Jackson Stewart and Ben Jacques-Maynes not to mention plenty of local bad asses.

First 30min was brutal. I hung on (barely) in single file near the back as we went round and round. People were popping off and a few just threw in the towel and sat up. Tough to bridge up in these instances so I decided to try and get up near the middle of the pack.

Course had the most fantastic long straight aways that ended up being very fast. Last 30min, either the pace slowed or I got faster (pace haha) and I recovered and moved up in the pack. Found my team-mate and started trying to figure out if I could get him a leadout or not. Bell lap and I was sitting back third of the pack. Made up a few spots but maintained position for the most part. Last turn to the finish and I hopped on a buddies wheel and started to ramp up the speed...when I hear the unmistakable sound of carbon and bodies hitting the pavement. Someone let out a piercing shriek as they were dragged down the pavement and I jammed both brakes and veered hard right. By the time I got the legs going again all i was able to do is close the gap that opened because of the crash.

Jackson Stewart won the sprint going head to head with a Strawberry Giant rider (from what I was told ) and I finished 48th\100

[cmh]

My race today was cancelled due to the weather. Bummer.

[dan.lavelle]

Crassic and Ridethecliche I'm sorry I missed you guys! Here is my report:

Rutgers ECCC Weekend

Men's A Time Trial: "Oh crap, time to race!"
- So first things first, the freaking holder dropped me about five seconds before my start, luckily I know how to trackstand. He wasn't paying attention at all and just let me go to the left, but the official yelled go and thats exactly what I did! I yelled some profanity, clipped my foot back in and settled into my rhythm asap...I was going for negative splits and did just that, ended up with a 6:15. No doubt in my mind I could have done 6:05 if I didn't lose 4 seconds on the start and another 6-7 seconds on the botched turn-arounds...oh well, hindsight is always 20/20!

Men's A Criterium: "Hello, legs? Wake up!"
- So my plan was to ride as hard as possible (duh!) while avoiding all the macho-ness that is inherent with the first race of the season. My legs felt like absolute crap the first five laps, and we were hauling some serious ass for those laps. I just sat in the pack and let my legs come around which they did by the last five minutes of the race, and I knew this would bode well for Sunday's circuit race. Being that I was at the back of the pack, I got to see everyone getting shelled go flying by me on their way out...that is always a good feeling, especially when you're spinning nice and easy. Conserve, conserve, conserve....32nd

Men's A Circuit: "Hold on, here we go"
-I knew when I woke up that my legs felt great, and decided I would be much more aggressive trying to get off the front. Unfortunately when you have UVM and Columbia ten strong at the front of the field, you don't get off the front unless you're accompanied by one of their guys. Needless to say the four of five good attacks I put in were in vain, and moving up for the sprint is hardddddd. I was trying to slide and slip into position with 3k to go and just couldn't hold it, too early in the season still for that top end. We ended up averaging 28mph for the 75 mins of racing, the course was FASTTTT. Finished 23rd out of 50 odd starters.

Dan

[botto]

My race today was cancelled due to the weather. Bummer.

i applaud your succinct reply.

[Apus^2]

Broke a spoke at River Falls and dnf'd.

[kudude]

MC Island view collegiate crit -- watched some kid from santa clara get squirrely and take out a couple of ucsb riders. it was like pinball until he finally knocked the 2nd set of guys over. The first set was 5 feet in front of me, so that probably made my race better -- staying up and all. Was 6th going into the last lap (short laps, only 2 turns), but my train wasn't populated by motivated leadout men. We got swarmed and I rolled in with the pack, lacking insufficient skills to find a decent wheel in a sprint.

Island View 4s -- these guys corner much better than the MC field, which was a nice change of pace. It was an easy race to sit in on, and that's what I pretty much did. Moved around a bit, and just sort of rolled in with the mid-end of the field. Who knows -- 40-50th/60-70 if I had to guess

UCSB collegiate RR MC. There's one climb on the 10 mile loop, which our pack took at a speed that didn't drop me, so it wasn't fast enough. After the 3rd time (it was only a 32 mile race) the pack had not been selected out and we had something like 35 guys for the fast, downhill leadout into the slight uphill sprint. The road was relatively narrow, no shoulder, and no way to move up. Let's be honest -- if you wanted to contest the sprint you shouldn't have been at the back of the field on the climb. A couple of guys decided to shoot up by violating the centerline rule. Then they realized the officials could see them. Then they cut in without having anywhere to go. People got pinched, freaked out and I think a pedal or something went into a spoke. Thank god I was on the right side of the pack, I saw a blue lemond/trek fly up in the air about 10 feet away from me and land about 2 feet from my front wheel. 2 broken collarbones and one seriously trashed wheel emerged from that fiasco. I sort of sprinted up the hill and around for 12th? place. Eh, at least I didn't have to go to the hospital.

[ZeCanon]

I totally missed this thread before creating a new one, my bad.

The short version, for posterity:
Saturday: 7th, won the field sprint in the Men's A collegiate. 2nd out of a break in the Pro/1/2 later in the afternoon
Sunday: Flatted in my TT.

[SushiJoe]

No races in my state yet.

[Frunkin]

Depauw collegiate crit. Mens A
-Strongest wind ever. The race started really hard for about the first 4 laps. The entire field was strung out in the gutter. I had pretty good position so I was ahead of most of the major gaps. Eventually the field blows up and I'm in a small group in front of the field. My legs die and I slide back. The field gets lapped by the break on the last turn, so I sit up and roll in for a pack finish. Not too bad because more than half the field was pulled about 15 minutes in.

[merlinextraligh]

Island View 4s -- these guys corner much better than the MC field, which was a nice change of pace. .

This is a really scary comment on collegiate racing.

[Fat Boy]

Masters 40+ 1/2/3: Thurlow was drilling it at the front and I was gagging at the back. Got dropped 35 min into a 60 min race. DNF.

I saw just a short bit of that. Dude was riding like he was possessed.

[kudude]

This is a really scary comment on collegiate racing.

collegiate racing: by definition no job to go to on Monday and very few of us are married, so.........

[SaddleBags]

Sat. Race: Cullops Imports Crit.

4/5 field. 150ish degree turn. rough pavement. 3 crashes. clipped a pedal for the first time. stayed upright. pack finish. maybe top 20 out of 50.

Sun. Race: Snowball Crit #2

5/Wm/Jr field. all sweeping turns. still three crashes. one took a guy out on a stretcher. i was behind that one. no escape route. locked up the rear wheel. fishtailed a bit. managed to stay upright. never got back to the pack. disappointing.

3 crashes at Snowball in the 5 race? I was warming up for the 3/4 race and saw the guy - who was carted off (actually got up and walked into the ambulance) - laying down face first on the pavement and didn't move for awhile. I heard the pack just sat up into the headwind and wheels touched. Where were the other 2?

[merckx89]

So here's the report for Tucson Bicycle Classic


TT:
The course was a 3 mile "uphill" TT. It was rolling downhill for the first two miles and then kicked up for one 3-5% grade that was only about 2oo yards long and then the final climb which was about 6% for 500ish yards. I almost caught my 30 second man. We rolled around for about an hour afterwords to cool down and by the time we got back the results had already been taken down, so we had to wait until the next morning to see how we did.

RR:
I was 12th in the TT, about 10 seconds back from a top 5 and about 40 from 1st.
It was a decent 20 mile loop with a climb through the feed zone in the first 5 miles that went up 700 feet and then a few rollers and then the long downhill and flat section to the finish. It didn't look like a great course for a break and from what I heard from others it really wasn't, but what other choice did I have sitting in 12th. I noticed that one team had one guy in 2nd and two others sitting 9th and 10th and was a little worried about what they would be doing today.

There was a little confusion getting things started and we ended up rolling out about 2 minutes behind the cat 2s field who we quickly passed as we started to ramp it up. There were a lot of attacks going, but nothing was looking that strong, and I would only join in the breaks when aggres, the team who had 3 in the top 10, put a man in it, because if they didn't they would shut everything else down. There was one point about 3/4 of the way around that 2 of us got a nice gap on the field and we were going strong, but the other guy didn't want to stay away for the next 45 miles with just the two of us.

Finally going into the second lap two guys got a slight gap slightly before the feed zone, and one aggres guy started to bridge. I immediately jumped on his wheel and we worked our way up to the break with one guy chasing us. At the top of the feed zone we had about 20 seconds or so on the field and a group of 5 so we started working. We eventually got a good tight paceline going and soon the field was out of sight. We were working well, with about 3 of us doing the majority of the work. The two others were skipping pulls and sitting on the back, but looked like they were doing what they could. Soon after we went through the s/f for our last lap, the cat 2s passed us again and we kept a pretty steady distance behind them. Our field got into sight once, but we picked it up again, and according to the official had about 1:30 on them.

Going into the last climb of the feed zone our break was starting to fall apart and I wasn't sure whether or not we would make it. One of the guys who was working well double flatted on a pothole (why you should never ride clinchers) and the other two were barely hanging on, so it was up to two of us to do most of the work with one of the other guys pulling through every now and then.

Coming into the last 10 or so miles I told the two guys sitting on that we would pull them in as long as they didn't contest the sprint, with which they had no problem so it was really now down to two of us. We eventually caught back up to the 2s field with about 2 miles to go and as we were passing them a helens rider went down right in front of us and thankfully we were crossing an intersection and could move over, but it really scared us and we picked it up even more going into the finish. Coming out of the last corner I jumped with about 500 meters to go and no one responded and I rolled through about 5 seconds ahead. That in combination with the 15 second time bonus for the stage moved me into first overall, but not by much, I only had 9 seconds on second and no teammates. Second had his teammate in 4th. I knew that sunday was not going to be easy.

Circuit:
The course was much harder than it looked on paper. There was about 300 feet of climbing per lap, but 200 of it was in a one mile section slightly after the feed zone followed by a few rollers and a long downhill section into the long flat straightaway for the final corner to the finish.

From the gun one guy jumped and no one really went with him. He was sitting about 20 back on GC so I wasn't worried and 3 others quickly bridged up, the highest placed of whom was sitting 10th, about 1:50 back from me. This also helped me because I no longer had to worry about the second place guy taking the time bonuses. The 4 of us who were in the break the day before ended up on the front keeping the break in check for most of the race, but none of us really wanted to bring it back in and we just let them dangle out front at about 20-30 seconds with the 4 of us doing the majority of the work again. Every now and then someone a little higher up on GC would jump and a few guys would come up and help us bring them back in, but the we were back on the front again.

What I did notice was that going up the feed zone climb there was a group of about 3-4 of us who consistently had a 20-30 yard gap over the top and I almost wish I hadn't been in the yellow at that point because we could have made another break work right there I think.

Going into the final lap the field was trashed, but we started picking it up and brought the break back to about 10 seconds. A few guys tried to jump across the gap in the last mile or so and the field really split. I got in a chase group and just sat on and rolled in for a top 20 finish to hold onto 1st overall. The break ended up staying about 5 seconds ahead of us and went 1, 2, 3, taking all the time bonuses as well which also worked great for me.

That makes another 15 points for me, which means I now have 30, enough to upgrade. The twos at san dimas filled up so I'm going to stay a 3 until after that, then upgrade.

[esammuli]

This is a really scary comment on collegiate racing.

Not so surprising when you realize that C's are an approximation of a cat 5 race. In the WCCC you have to start as a D, then after 5 races you can do C's, then 5 more to upgrade to B's. B's are 3/4, and A's are 1/2/3.

[dmb2786]

3 crashes at Snowball in the 5 race? I was warming up for the 3/4 race and saw the guy - who was carted off (actually got up and walked into the ambulance) - laying down face first on the pavement and didn't move for awhile. I heard the pack just sat up into the headwind and wheels touched. Where were the other 2?

The first crash was in turn 2? the turn toward the sportsplex entrance. guy touched a wheel and went down. I dont remember if anyone was involved. The second one I didn't see, but i heard it pretty close behind me on the backside straightaway. The third was that ambulance thing.

that was a pretty exciting finish to the 3/4 race. what team are you on?

[umd]

That makes another 15 points for me, which means I now have 30, enough to upgrade. The twos at san dimas filled up so I'm going to stay a 3 until after that, then upgrade.

Good job! Nice report.

[PhillyRoadie]

I finally got to race this past weekend at the Rutgers/Princeton ECCC season opener. Here's the description/race report I wrote on how I won the men's C circuit race in a really entertaining fashion (it's somewhat long, sorry. Botto you might just want to skip the whole thing).

I'd won the crit the day before on a long solo break, so I was conserving energy and sitting towards the front, trying to stay clear of crashes and aiming to win the field sprint.

I'm cutting and pasting:

The sun never made an appearance, and that left some morning drizzle on the course, which one rider (maybe Vermont U?) found out on lap 1, when he slid out of a fast, off camber corner and skidded across the entire road on his right hip, mercifully missing the rest of us. Ouch. This really affirmed the "don't crash" part of the plan

Race afterwards was pretty calm generally, speeds were just high enough (24mph avg. by the end) on gently rolling terrain that nobody could quite get away, though some tried. We seemed destined for a pack finish, and I was biding my time about 5-6 wheels back, making up ground in corners and generally following a teammate's wheel.

Another crash with (I think) 2 to go, and this one did some damage: two riders touch wheels at the front, and brake, I touch wheels with them, feel the guy behind me bounce off my back wheel, the sound of more panicked breaking, shouts, and then general mayhem.

1 to go, the pack turns on the gas a bit, and halfway through the final lap whoever's pulling decides to take us right through the worst/roughest section of road on the whole course. Bang bang bang, wheels in potholes, and apparently at this point my back wheel starts to go way out of true, but I don't notice yet. A couple corners later, the bike starts to feel funny, but we're starting to wind up over the 2nd to last corner, cresting the gradual uphill, and going too fast to really worry about it. A Temple U rider attacks hard, and I figure it's the wining move, and am right up on his wheel around the last turn. Stand to sprint on the long, downhill drag, come around him, and get about 10 feet of separation. It looks like I'm in for the win, but holy crap...

My back wheel fires off two "pings" in quick succession, and I suddenly realize what that "funny" feeling was, then the back wheel more or less seizes up against he brake pad, pedaling becomes almost impossible, and my bike basically turns into a sled at 35 mph. By some miracle of timing and momentum, this happens maybe 10m before the line, and me and my dangling spokes go sliding across the line in first place.

[ridethecliche]

I win crits in a full solo break!

Dude, you really need to start racing the B's. You dominated that crit. I saw you leave the entire group behind and put over a minute on the field in a 30 minute crit.

I was screaming at you before the hill and calling you a carrot.

This only applies if you're the princeton rider. You could have been in a different C race.

Regardless, if you slid to victory at the circuit race, post some pictures!

Merckx89, awesome job!

[MDcatV]

merckx89 - very nicely done!

[ridethecliche]

This is a really scary comment on collegiate racing.

I've raced 2 collegiate races and they were more sketchy than any 5 or 4/5 races I've been in. I love the collegiate racing atmosphere, but people are wayyy too aggressive and sketchy when there's very little on the line...

[PhillyRoadie]

Dude, you really need to start racing the B's. You dominated that crit. I saw you leave the entire group behind and put over a minute on the field in a 30 minute crit.

I was screaming at you before the hill and calling you a carrot.

This only applies if you're the princeton rider. You could have been in a different C race.

Regardless, if you slid to victory at the circuit race, post some pictures!

Merckx89, awesome job!

No, I was in the C1 field, not the C2 field (I ride for Penn). I would love to race Bs, but the powers that be aren't going to grant my upgrade quite yet

[Flatballer]

William and Mary collegiate racing last weekend - ACCC

Men's C both days.

ITT went horribly on Saturday (I didn't ride Friday, drove all day, I think it hurt me). 37/39 with an avg of about 20.9 mph for 20k.

RR on Sunday I felt really good. It was 3 laps of 9 miles, so only about 27 miles (short even for Cs). One short really steep climb, immediately followed by about 500 meter still steep climb. Felt good for the first lap. Moved up towards the front before the climb, just sat and spun up the climb, a little off the pace but I finished the climb mid pack. Teammate dropped a chain (trying to shift under power, brilliant) and almost took some people out, including me.

Couple other wrecks on the second lap, I moved up to the front, took a couple pulls, mostly just sat in towards the front. Got shuffled towards the back, then moved back up to about mid-pack before the climb. Made it up the climb with the pack, but towards the back, not where I wanted to be. I was hurting, but still ok. Couple guys in front of me blew up, I waited too long to go around, and got dropped. Worked with another rider and we got within about 15 seconds of the pack, but then the attacks started and we lost them again. Finished feeling pretty good, a couple minutes off the pack.

One of the riders broke a truck mirror with their shoulder going through a turn (they went wide and the truck that was stopped got hit). They said it was our team, but none of us did it. Not sure who ended up paying for it. Teammate tacoed a rear wheel when someone chopped his rear wheel in a straightaway and he wrecked hard. There was a lot of carnage.

My recovery ride today I felt really strong, so I'm thinking I'm starting to see improvements. This weekend I'm taking off and just training(no collegiate races scheduled), and getting prepared for West Virginia (ITT, crit, and RR).

[KendallF]

Albany Stage Race, Albany, Georgia:

Short version: 7th in the opening time trial, crashed out and broke my frame in the crit. Borrowed a bike and won the road race the next day.

You can read the long version in my training log here.

[Hida Yanra]

Wow - you guys are tearing it up out there!
Mad props to Phillyroadie, merckx89, KendallF, umd, Zecannon, and all the rest of you animals and animalettes...

I'm jealous... I really hope I get to race sometime... next year maybe?