shovelhd

Nice job jsk.

echappist

well done, cheers

mattm

congrats on the win @jsk!

globecanvas

The NY metro upgrade guy counts Augusta results for 4->3 upgrades but I've been assuming he wouldn't count them for 3->2 (or 2->1 for that matter). It's not that they are easy races but they are somewhat informal. They report results to USAC but everyone after the top 10 gets DNP. This is probably probably one of those things where whatever the technical rule is doesn't matter so much as what the specific upgrade guy feels like doing.

mattm

Rode to the training crit on tired legs.

Wanted a field sprint and got it, but finish was at the top of a hill tonight and about 20m too far away for me.. 2nd.

On the way home riding through San Jose I saw a brawl of about 10 guys in front of a taco truck, featuring one dude picking up a chair about to throw it! It was like a movie or something. I didn't stop to find out how it ended.

Also tried to help some urban hiker dude who was trying to cross Highway 101 on foot, near the airport; walking here is a nightmare, I wonder if he made it.

hack

^Sounds like a night full of action.

dz_nuzz

Nice racing @jsk and @mattm

aaronmcd

Crits. Wrecked my legs in 2/3 race, teammate lapped the field again with 2 others and got 2nd. I got dropped from insanely strong chase group, but ended up 4th in field sprint and got 10th.

1/2 race was easier: early break stuck and 2 big teams shutting down all the moves in the pack. I even got some short lived attacks in. 14th of only 23 guys.

hack

Red Kite 35+ 123 w/ @Ygduf and a cameo by a solo riding @save10 . Squarish course, some wind, strong field.

Riding solo, so my plan was to not go with every move like I did last race. Chased after an early solo rider, but was covered by their teammate. Sat up, return to field, sit in for the next 40 minutes and wait.

8 laps to go, winning move off front with 15-20s. Start to bridge across solo, a few start to come with, I dug a bit harder to make it solo. My fitness apparently blows because the bridge effort killed me. Wasn't anything outrageous (5.5 for 3 minutes), but when I connected I was fried. Couldn't hang and retreated to the field. Should have waited for the couple other guys making in the bridge and worked with them. Oh well.

Recovered and came in with the field. @Ygduf and team were doing solid work.

mattm

Same crit as @hack & @aaronmcd, p/1/2.

5th, from the break. But... last in the break, ugh.

Some stronger guys than expected showed up. (dude won a stage at ToAD this year)

ToAD winner dude goes FROM THE GUN, and I'm like "damn really?" but I had no choice to go with, considering he probably could've held us off solo.

After 10 mins or so a teammate and one other bridged up, so then there were five of us; three isolated guys, me & teammate.

We didn't want to lap the field (which would give team mates to the other guys), so only rode hard for the first 30 mins or so. Never got time checks but couldn't see the field behind us, so figured we were safe.

Cat n mouse games started with ~4 to go - I attacked, got caught, others attacked, got caught, etc. With two to go the winner rode away while the rest of us stared at each other. (winner was not mr toad)

I lost contact with the break when I pulled off the front from chasing, and my team mate attacked hard, taking the other two with him, leaving me in the dust.. damn.

Soft-pedaled the last half-lap at ~15 mph cursing but still finished ahead of the pack, for 5th.

aaronmcd

I was surprised you guys didn't lap us. It was crazy easy in the pack, for a 1/2 race.

Ygduf

Total meh race for me and the team.

I was trying to beat one of the Stand guys to move up in the omnium. Stand had 5 guys marking me and Peets was doing the same, refusing to work with me as Metcalf was in striking distance of my omnium step. Really did feel like ~10/40 guys were there just to **** me over. Totally fair - I rode the exact same way last year to protect my spot in the omnium so I expect nothing less.

Somehow team did not get all the memos and ended up working with Metcalf in a break I was not in, giving him the points he needed to pass me, and I never got enough help to get separated from the Stand guy I needed to be ahead of, so I ended up losing to him as well.

Super frustrating race and looking forward to more of the same today.

mattm

Few things are easier than a p1/2 peloton once The Break goes.

hack

Bummer ... I was working in a bit of a bubble not knowing where anyone stood in the omnium (I think I did 2 red kites) and spent a lot of time just tucked away hiding.

Ygduf

Is alright.


Same course today, windier and only 11 guys in the 35-39 district championship crit. My teammate Ariel showed up, thank god, so I did what I can do which is pretty much go hard for an hour. 18 minutes of 450+ watts distributed over about 12 legit attacks, spend 15 minutes solo in the middle of the race. Gave a 600w/1min leadout and watched my teammate win by about 5 bike lengths over a bunch of guys who were tired as ****.

I do not have a sprint. I cannot climb with the elite climbers. I can't even really TT with the elite TT guys. I do, however, take a lot of joy from being a consummate teammate who can bend a race to the favor of our finishers.

mattm

SF Giro - flatted out with 5 to go, free laps over... =[

Up to that point I felt pretty good. Battled for position (physically, verbally) to stay up with the sprinters before that, but it was not to be. Oh well. Next year!!

With ~10 to go I'm hovering around some leadout trains sitting behind a team that was chasing, and in front of a team that wasn't chasing.

One of the non-chasers to me, after bumping me a few times: "Are you chasing?"

Me: "No."

Them: "Then get the **** out of the way"

Me: "LOL. Are you chasing?" (no)

Them: "You don't know how this works"

Me: "I guess I'll find out"

Them: "Haven't you watch a pro race? They don't do this"

Me: "Are you pro? You're not pro, this is an amateur race, stfu"

I didn't get a chance to hear what else he said in response, but oh well. The way I see it is was his job to yell at me, my job to push back. So it goes.

tetonrider

love that (other than the flatting out part).

aaronmcd

Sorry about flatting out
I've already been yelled at for being near the front and not chasing (Dunnigan). But usually guys realize we all have different strategies/agendas. (Mine is usually sit in, be near the front, miss break, watch Jack get in the break, try to be helpful when he laps the field).

mike868y

while an absolutely amazing weekend as always, GMSR was disappointing for me this year.

TT: Set power records from 9 minutes onwards (16:40 total) but only landed 36th/70. made a few errors in the second portion that cost me some time for sure. bittersweet.

Circuit: 3 laps, spent lap 1 patrolling the front as my teammate was OTF in a very strong move. They got brought back at the end of the lap. Lap 2 I end up OTF with one other, bury myself, grab the sprint points, but cracked over the KOM on lap 3 and we got brought back. absolutely perfect positioning in the last K but I had no sprint left. 13th. bittersweet, again.

Road race: no idea where I ended up but I was not going uphill well this weekend. popped on middlebury gap (mid point climb), chased back on in a group, then popped going up baby gap. app gap was a slog. really need to figure out what went wrong in my build up this year. I feel like I'm the strongest I've ever been but climbing was just not kind to me.

Crit: won the race to the race (yay!). felt really really good, had all the corners dialed and spent the entire race near the front. a break rolled. pissed at myself for not being more attentive when it went. our "sprinter" was feeling good so I did as much work at the front as possible to bring it back but I wasn't strong enough to really make a dent. our guy won the field sprint for 4th though.

one more crit (mayor's cup!) then it's all cx all the time for a few months.

TheKillerPenguin

Also GMSR.

Stage 1: missed the wattage I did for the same the amount of time ( ~15min ) a week prior, by ~25w. I was not happy. 2 teammates in top 10, one in top 15.

Stage 2: mostly sat in, did some work mid race to try and keep the day's breakaway in check but nobody would pull through with me and i had no info on time gaps or anything. So I went back to sitting in, and rolled in for a pack finish. Teammate maintained his second on GC.

Stage 3: ~95 miles, ends at the top of a gnarly mountain. I felt kinda meh but such is life. I spent the first 30min jockeying for position because there was a section of scarified pavement on a ~30-40mph descent and I wanted to be safe. Then I kinda chilled out until around mile 70 or so, at which point I started moving up. I had seen teammates trying to get a break rolling for like the last 10-15 miles but nothing was being allowed to go, so I am able to make my way to like second row and ask what the situation is, my teammate gives me the briefing, I hear thru the grapevine that there's actually been 2 guys OTF all damn day, and I take the initiative and go OTF to relieve the team of chasing duties and see if I can move up in GC. Yellow jersey's team sends a guy with me, we work well together and wind up with 2 minutes on the field with around 8 miles to go. The final 8 miles is mostly uphill, there is a ~15min climb, a shortish descent, and then a 3 mile steep climb to the finish. The guy I'm with popped at the very bottom of the first climb and I went solo from there. Over the first climb I got a time check and I had maintained the 2min gap, but I could tell my legs weren't going to cooperate much longer. I get to the 1k to go sign and I'm still solo and catching dudes from other fields at this point. I can't see anyone behind me but I know things will probably end badly because having been otf for a while I was having trouble pushing more than 300ish W and the last 500m was 15-20% gradient. 400m to go and I can see the finish line and hear the announcers and everything, I'm in the barriers, and what is left of the pack comes flying past me, and there is nothing I can do about it. I roll in about 30 seconds behind the stragglers from that group and finish 15th on the day. I've been playing shoulda coulda woulda with this one but I suspect the only thing that would've gotten me to the finish with the gap maintained is another winter of quality training, so this will fuel my motivation this off season.

Stage 4: Crit madness. I got pulled quite quickly, the pace itself wasn't bad but I made the mistake of not being aggressive enough about positioning and got caught at the tail end of the single file snake, and a dude sat up and still took the good line through a couple of critical corners. Before I knew what happened there was a gap, I chased for a couple of laps and was able to get back on but doing that blew me up and I wound up otb again.

GMSR is a fantastic race. Yay bikes!

topflightpro

This is about the only time I can survive a P/1/2/3 race. I usually root for the first break to go.

grolby

Instead of GMSR I did a tiny little local cyclocross race in Pittsfield, Mass. Of course, Jeremy Durrin and Scott Smith showed up along with some of the other usual suspects, so it was pretty quick. Each lap was, by time, about 50% fast, drifty fun and 50% leg press machine. I'm not good at operating leg press machines. All the pedaling + first race of a new season meant I wasn't really sure who should be in front of vs behind me, and there were some surprising characters making me suffer along with the expected ones.

Despite my best efforts I went out a bit too hard in the first two laps, and really suffered through the next three. I got caught by one of the unexpected people with 2 to go - I knew he could pedal hard, and there weren't too many opportunities for me to use the turns and technical bits to make up ground, so I thought he was gone for good. But at 1 to go, he was suddenly not that far in front of me. I slowly winched my way up to his wheel, and caught on right at the start of the draggy leg press section of the course. I knew if I could manage to hang on to the barriers, the rest of the course was fast and techy enough that I would have a chance. He knew it, too, and tried several times to drop me, but I can suffer a lot more on the last lap and hung on. We got to the barriers, I passed him on the barriers and he laughed. "I knew you would catch me here." I laughed too and then sprinted as hard as I could into the next section, pedaled really hard for the next two minutes and secured 11th by 9 seconds.

That was a hard-fought 11th. Elite CX is going to take some adapting. I have to develop the ability to pedal hard.

mattm

Don't we all!

Nice racing (even though it's cx). =]

Enthalpic

That's a classic sport psychology visualization.

"Imagine you just crossed the finish line, who do you see in front of you?" The correct answer is nobody.

grolby

Thanks @mattm.

Heh, fair enough but there were at least four people in this race who will be in front of me 100% of the time barring incident.