Originally Posted by waterrockets

This is an improvement. Good work. Much better following wheels through corners and staying in the draft (mostly). Your sphere is considerably smaller now, which is important.

Notes: at san rafael :35, you came out to move up. If you'd have gone left instead, you could have done 85% of that same gain inside the pack with MUCH less power lost. You ended up spending 28 seconds in the wind, going faster than the pack, but you weren't doing it to get away. Just to improve position. Work on picking through the pack. You should set aside a race for this practice sometime (soon). Start at the very back of the pack. Work through the pack to the front, and don't allow yourself to move up if you're outside the pack. Once you get to the front, pull out and go to the back, and move back up again through the pack.

still getting gapped a bit coming out of the corners, even when you're in the top 10. Don't brake unless you really have to. Make sure you're in a good gear to come out of the corner, and put in the effort to hold that wheel in front of you.

In the sprint, you should have been on the white jersey going up the left. Don't go on your own if you can avoid it. You should probably have anticipated the swarm going into that last corner to latch onto them better. In the corner, you can't accelerate as responsively (which is why you should consider attacking just before a corner in crits).

menlo park last lap: when it's that slow (wide pack) in the last lap, a swarm is coming -- don't be in the middle. You lost a metric assload of position in the last 40 seconds, then went through the last two corners unprotected, taking wind on your own. You've got to take advantage of the work being done by others whenever possible.

Keep working on it -- this was much better.

Originally Posted by jsutkeepspining

To umney,

The main issue i see with you is that you're too complacent in the field. You are fine just sitting still and letting people fly by you. Also your comfort zone is really really small, almost every corner you overreact and let a monster sized gap go. While this can work in the lower cats, as you move up you'll realize that being efficient is important. If you have to make a 1200+ watt jump every corner you're going to fade, but if you can get within inches of the rider in front of you, and stay close you might only need 500-600 watts and you can even stay seated and just spin up your gear.


edit: Also, you seem to be too interest in sitting close to the front early on. top 10 5 laps in doesn't matter as much as top 5 with one lap left (also in the first video you get majorly swarmed, then don't react at all. You should hear a group that sized coming, and instantly start sprinting and take your place near the front, as opposed to 15 guys back. You'll learn as you race more.