acorn_user

I had missed that. That will make women's B fields much bigger, and women's A fields smaller. It will also make it difficult to upgrade riders to bad the spare women's A points for nats. I.e. the team with the best women's A riders will probably win the conference. It would be great to run three women's categories, but I just don't think that there are enough riders at this point

The road Ericcox is thinking of is probably 53 (goes up from 20 to Monticello and then onwards).

Do you think that a road race near Charlottesville later in the year would work?

ericcox

Yes -- my brain fried this afternoon. I just looked up a quick map to get my bearings back on the area.

aicabsolut

Isn't it on a Sunday? I think it is. We usually have the uphill TT on the Saturday before it at Wintergreen, so some of the collegiate kids show up to Jeff Cup with destroyed legs.

It's not at all a technical course. The climbs aren't out of control. There are a couple sort of fun fast parts. My nemesis is the false flat, so I like to ride the other parts--like I do all the hills in the area--to get stronger and quicker on the rollers.

The course is a small part of some great training roads (like 53 on the one side and the long hill--Old Lynchburg--or the steep hill--Red Hill from Dudley Mtn Rd--up to the top of Red Hill Rd on the other side of the Walton School staging area). So, you can get in some nice rides around there and take a peek at the course while you're at it if it fits into your schedule, but you do not need to preview it. It's a big triangle. 2 turns.

Ericcox, I've had an interesting experience on that descent on 53 too coming in a little hot at the twisty part. With mountain and oncoming traffic on one side, guardrail and then a lot of nothing on the other, I learned I can lean farther than I thought I could and keep the rubber side down.

Acorn_user, I think Ruth said that we're supposed to have these training clinics at ALL the races this year for men's D and women's B. So unless they'd want to do a separate clinic later in the year, I don't think it'd matter. I think we need 25 races (with a certain number of top 10s or pack finishes, though I don't think we've got enough people to make pack finishes count) to cat-up to 3, so that still hurts. Really, though, I don't care that much about not racing As. I'm not in shape enough to think about it now anyway. I'm just pissed that they're treating all B's as if we're really C's. Either they need to create a C category in our conference or run the clinics separately for new racers and any other B racer who wants to attend. I'm open to learning from the more experienced. I just don't want to start my race, get the intro presentation, then stop, then restart and go race for real.

Robobo1

I want to be there but will have moved to Minneapolis! Damn.

NomadVW 

If I can hold my strength from the off-season, and still make 75kg by then, I should be right around 4.7-4.8. I'm actually hoping to make some gains in FTP still just in case I lose some with the weight loss. It's so hard to do both.

acorn_user

Soooo, are we all excited now? 4 days to go.

Lithuania

when i found out this race was on a sunday I was mad at myself for not getting signed up. Thankfully the reopened reg a few days ago and I was able to get in. I dont have high expectations though.

MDcatV

ha, expectations. I'll be in the P123 and I'm putting my over/under at 35.7 miles before I get dropped. I cant figure out why the dope that promotes this race never gets the fields right. MABRA has a separate scoring for Cat 3 than for Cat 1/2, there are certainly enough 3s to have a separate race, but she has insisted the past 2 years on combining 3s with P12. Goofy. I'm going to propose it to the MABRA board next year to get Jeff Cup off the MABRA scoring calender.

Lithuania

It is an odd race schedule for sure.

p123
cat 4
jr 4/5
40+

acorn_user

Well, it is the traditional start to the Mabra calendar.

Look at how many races are going on. I'm going to be a Marshal most of the day. As well as the regular races, you have a complete collegiate field too, since Jeff cup is the ACCC race for UVA, That means mens A, B, C and D (all separate), and womens A and B too. That's a lot of fields!

NomadVW 

Best I can find is a min of 118 meters, and max of 211 meters. I thought it was supposed to be a "hilly" race. Are there any sustained climbs in it or is it pretty much grinders?

ericcox

No realy sustained climbs -- maybe a little more than rollers as I recall, but no selective climbs.

MDcatV

it's like riding around mont county, md - never flat, lots of rollers.

Lithuania

sweet that means i will get dropped right away

NomadVW 

Sat morning 10am style?

kukusz

Goon ride.

edit: Nomad, is this your first non-training race this season?

*new*guy

hahaha. keep dreaming. there's one longish big ring uphill but everything else is pretty short. just warmup on the road that runs in front of the HS... if you go to the right there's a nice bit of "climbing" and the neutral start is pretty long, too.

good luck.

Lithuania

dont try to get my expectations up!

NomadVW 

I raced Strasburg and Sonny Hutchinson. They counted in my books, even though I suckaged. I'm feeling loads better going into this weekend though than I did for either of those, so should be fun.

MDcatV

something like that. although it's been a couple of years since I've done jeff cup and am a little foggy on the course at the moment other than it's rolling with the kind asphalt that feels like quicksand (i.e. not smooth).

I'm kind of geeked for this race, but my with my current form I'll be basically taking a knife to a gun fight.

kukusz

Hmm... reminded me of this thread.

https://bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=359972

zimbo

My feeling is that if there's even a little hill near the end of the race it's enough to force a selection.

--Steve

acorn_user

Big ring?! Oh my... I hope you are not in my race