Originally Posted by
waterrockets
Cool that you got to experience that. Must have been a blast.
In retrospect it was; and I was very happy that my two boys were with me (wife and daughter were Boston bound as my daughter had to get to camp). The stars aligned for me geographically to do this (extended family vacation in Ohio that ended the day before the race, was only 5.5 hours away from Louisville). Like the AustinTri ride which let's me know where I stand in Austin, I now know where I stand among elite riders of my age range in the US -- oh, my relative standing, if you can call it that, is similar
We had a great great dinner downtown after the race at Jack Fry's. It is a little bit like Ranch 616, but, if you can believe it, better (my oldest, a budding foodie, says 92/100 vs 85/100). [During the car ride today -- just outside Cleveland now -- my oldest said, "Dad, enough of this racing against higher category riders; go do a 3 or 3/4 and win already." Ya know, while I am licking my wounds a bit, I do feel, for the first time, that I could win a 3 or 3/4 crit.]
Originally Posted by
carpediemracing
Thurlow Roger's team is pretty insane. Most of his teammates have National Championship stripes on their sleeves. Rogers has World Championship ones. I went to a race where they showed up (Red Trolley Crit, San Diego). My friend pointed out the stripes phenomena - and remarked that the guy without any stripes (only one of the teammates) must be the domestique.
umd or someone posted a clip of the Masters race. It's like they're on motorcycles. Rogers won although he was "sick". He started another race but we left at that point.
Motorcycles is a good way to describe it. Lap after lap after lap after lap, they just crank it; and when needed, they cranked it some more. It was fun to see someone launch an attack after the break, or Thurlow gun to the front of the chase group to manage it. I was averaging just under 27mph when I was dropped and I had many moments in the 30-33mph range as a normal course of business. Now, each course (and weather conditions) is different, so, mph is a tricky barometer (and I've averaged 27+mph in some races of 60+ minutes); but, for this course, I thought that was really fast to sustain.