Anyone else from BF up this neck of the woods yesterday?

Sunday, Feb 5 - Mothball Crit in Santa Barbara area?
Was a fun day, good racing and mostly packed fields with what seemed a good representation from the Southland. It was great to slice and dice again, with all the old coots in 55+; but I swear, some of these guyz have fake IDs

Yep. I did three races out there for a total of 82 miles of crit. Echelon does a great job putting on that race. It's always on time, prizes are decent, and the course is fast.

Where was it? Research Park? I was busy drinking at a SB party... When's the next one?

Yes, Research park
next one? not sure about any at Research Pk, but there were handouts for a Crit in Isla Vista, Mar 4 ???, I think it was.
Sounded like the course was to be .5 mile around the top of Embarcaderos (del Mar - Del Norte) around the park and across that 1st street that goes past all the shops and such. Should be quite the 'scene'.

Like OTB says, the Mothball is/has been a great ride, and for many years, remember it when it was run by Coastline and now by Echelon. Course has been 'upgraded' on the front side (newly paved), but the back side is a bit 'Bagdad', but not soz you counldn;t avoid the real bomb craters.

Good on you, OTB, for maxin out the crit fun. I would have prolly tried one more group cept that my age group was the last to go before the Pro/1/2. Wasn't sure what to expect after my 8 yr hiatus from racing, but hindsight now is that I should have jumped into the 40+ field, which looked an easier ride than the 50+. I remember things being a lot faster.
I did try 4 attempts, 1/2 to 3/4 lappers, at forming a break group, but only a few guys stuck their heads outta the pack to have a look around. Course I'm not affiliated yet, soz I had my 'kook' handlebar jersey on , which prolly didn't inspire much confidence. Otherwise it was very up and down in speed, as these group affairs go. Did learn a ton about where I am at the moment, need to work on more near AT conditioning soz I can work longer at the 26-27 mph it'll need to make a break in this group.
Also need to pay better attention at the finish Was well placed at the bell lap, but ended up behind a guy who lagged badly on the backstretch. By the time I made it around, I was easily 30 yds behind the leaders at the turn. Not a great showing, but still in the top 15, according to prelim picking. Which, considering I have zero sprint at the moment, isn't awful for a field of 40ish and re-entry. Still it woulda been nice to be in the charge... forgot how just a second's hesitation can put you off the money.. next time...
OTB, which classes did you ride? how'd it go for you? what club/team are you riding with?

If anyone is interested, I have the 'flyer' for the Mar 4 Crit in IV, I can scan and post it here... lemme know
Course shape will be 'D' , meaning 2 - 90 degree croners and a long semicircle.
My guess is it will be a HUGE IV partay and some hairball racin - sounds like fun, even for olde kooks

Yes, please post the flyer on the IV crit. Sucks really because I'm already scheduled to be at Willow Springs that day to play with a Minardi...

Not so sure about that... Top 5 in 40+ was Gibby Hatton, Mark Scott, Dave Lettieri, Mark Fennell, and Butch Stinton.


40+, 30+, & p/1/2. 82 miles of crit racing in just over 3 hrs. Avg speeds were 26.1 mph, 26.6 mph, and 27.0 mph. Great training. Made a slight profit on the day. That is, until I figure in time, equipment, food,...


No need to scan and post... find it here https://www.socalcycling.com/ along with all the other SoCal races.

Anybody have any experience with the IV crit? My wife and I were talking about going to SoCal that weekend for a show she wants to see. Good comprimise, she gets to see her show and I get to race

Anybody going to do it?

I haven't done that course in a crit, but I've ridden around there quite often. I've been very critical of course-layouts ever since my buddy Barrett died in a crit put on by SB City College 12-years ago. Just changing the direction of a course makes a huge difference in safety. I put on the UCSB race for 5-years in a row back in '89-93 when it was two blocks to the east on the campus (13 corners in 1.1 miles with a U-turn ). We also had road-race, ITT and TTT. I do have a couple of concerns with this new one.

The IV course is a U-shape, two 90-degree right-turns with a long sweeping curve at the bottom. There's a couple of manhole-covers with surrounding depression around the drug-store coming out of the bottom of the U, but that may be fixed by now. You'll definitely want to be on the outside of the U so you can move up the pack, those caught on the inside will be stuck against the kerb and behind the riders in front. The attacks will definitely be up the outside on the left.



The two 90-degree corners have a deep rain-gutter cutting across in the middle of the corner (painted crosswalks in photo). Not that bad when riding across them at 90-degrees on a beach-cruiser when going to class, but hitting those rain-gutters at 45-degrees while at full-lean going 30mph may be a test of your bike-handling skills. The connecting street across the top is actually wider than the two straight legs of the U. On the first 90-degree right-turn this will be fine because the corner will open into a wider street.

However, the 2nd 90-degree right-turn back onto the U will be difficult because it goes from a wide street and turns into a narrower street. The kerb on the inside also protrudes into the road to provide a parking spots for an ATM, making this corner tighter than the other 90-degree turn. You can see the congestion in the photo above.

Personally I would feel much better running this course in counter-clockwise direction. This would allow the tighter 90-degree corner to open up into a wider street for safety. Then the 2nd 90-degree turn back onto the U will still turn into a tighter street, but it won't be as tight as going in the clockwise direction. I'm not sure where the start-finish will be, but you can take advantage of the tight corners. My personal strategy will be to sprint at the last minute into the corners so that you pass the front of the pack just before entering the corner. That way they will not have a chance to accelerate before going into the corner. You'll coast around the corner at 5-10mph faster than the pack and open up a 30-40m lead. Then just hold that all the way across the finish. If the finish is on the U somewhere, then it'll have to be you and the leadout guy that's first into the corner. Better to start too early and risk carrying one or two guys with you into the corner than start too late and get cut off by the pack going into the corner.

WOW, thanks for the diagram and course break down. Lot of paint in those corners , there better not be any moisture on the roads that day or I'll just be making a $25 donation to the cause.

I'm with yeah there, sprinting ahead for the corners helped me a lot in my last crit. Like you, the sport bike experience gives me a lot of confidence in the corners. While I agree with you somewhat about reversing the layout, who's really going to be on the inside of that second 90 anyway...nobody in the lead pack.

Are you going to skip the Streets of Willow Springs ride?

Do you happen to have any info/links to pre-registration? They mentioned it on the site flier by but couldn't find a page.

Thanks,
Steve

Being a volunteer-based organization, they're probably really busy getting permits, insurance and sponsorship lined up (in addition to going to classes, studying and partying). Registrations just trickles in and will be accepted up to race-day. You might want to contact these two guys about getting registered so you don't have to worry:

Barrett Ausman <speed_demon@umail.ucsb.edu> (805) 895-9829
Aaron Parrish <aparrish@umail.ucsb.edu> (408) 309-9050

Some info on their website: https://ucsbcycling.org/modules.php?p=ivclassic

I'm going for a ride and will stop by there to take some pictures to see what the course looks like today.

Danno, you're a pretty active contributer to this forum and I'm brand new, so I won't rip into you for the above comment and its implications, but... I was in that race with Barrett (in 1997 which is 9 years ago, not 12) and he died because of a tragic confluence of circumstances that had NOTHING to do with the course design. And, as you should know if you are (or were) in fact active in the local racing community, the race was put on by Santa Barbara Bicycle Club--Barrett's team.


Goleta Beach is to the east of campus. Don't you mean to the west (around San Raf dorms)?


Criteriums are supposed to test bike-handling skills. As far as I can tell, there is nothing wrong with the IV course.


If you'd like to help the UCSB team, send me a private message and I can put you in touch with the people organizing the race.

Sorry, I meant "at City College" and it seems like such a long time ago. I met Barrett when he first joined our UCSB team 12-years ago. One of the nicest guys ever on the team, quiet and unassuming without any egos or need to prove himself; his racing results was more than enough. I was there that day he died and I saw the course. Didn't think much of it then, but I realized later that the downhill two-into-one lane squeeze at 45mph made the course very dangerous. Running it in the reverse direction would've had the road open up one-into-two lanes in the uphill direction with a straight-shot on the downhill without any changes in lane-width. There's only so much a race-organizer can do, there's no way you can put haybales in front of every tree or concrete planter-box. And there's never any one single cause of anything, multiple independent events have to line up just right for a tragedy to occur. If any one of those multiple-factors were to shift ever so slighty, things would be different, but none of those individual events was really responsible. I'm not implying anything other than hindsight's 20/20; would've/should've/could've doesn't really matter.


Here's a map of the previous UCSB crit-course. It's only 2-blocks east of the new one, not quite as far east as Goleta Beach:




No not "wrong", nothing is that clear-cut in black & white, all-or-nothing terms, but rather shades of grey and levels of safety. I'm just saying that it'll be "safer" in the counter-clockwise direction, not that clockwise is "unsafe" or anything. Yeah, skill and tactics is required. There's enough risk in racing as provided by the racers' speed and pack-strategies already, we don't need to make the course any more difficult than necessary. Although when I put on the UCSB crit, I did toy with the idea of doing a figure-8 layout to have even numbers of left & right turns, but the criss-cross in the middle may have been a little too risky.


Thanks, I've been in contact with Karl about helping out on the race. He was a little concerned about the gutter too as they've repaved the road recently and that increased the drop through the gutter. They've actually got the connecting road moved up a couple blocks so that the transition isn't as harsh, I'll redraw my map. I'll see what else I can help them with. Sandra was always good at rallying the troops to come out and volunteer, I miss her. Hope to see all you guys out there.

Fair enough. It was a very sad day.


Sorry, my fault... I misread what you said.


We'll have to agree to disagree there. I think technical, challenging courses add a dimension that is important. California has a number of classic crits that could be labeled as dangerous... Nevada City, Santa Cruz, Giro d SF, Redlands to name three, but they are GREAT races and riders know what to expect when they sign up. If someone is not confident in his/her skills, there's no shortage of other "safer" races to do.

Now sometimes a course does go too far, e.g., the circuit race at Pomona Valley Stage Race a couple of years ago. The Pros refused to ride that day because it was so unsafe!


Good man!