heppm01

I thought mimes were the reason the French get a bad name in the US.

Out-The-Back

Did a road trip...learned a few things..some good, some not so good, some I already knew and relearned...I think there's a saying about that...moving on

So the first stop in my trip was Boise Idaho for the Twilight Criterium. Raced 35+ 3,4,5 at 5:00pm. I definitely dig the later start times as I'm not much of a morning person. Anyway, we start out and I think the temp is pushing a 100, the course was an awesome 1k loop with full barriers on each side of the course and a few thousand spectators for our race. The pace seemed pretty slow to me and it was pretty clear everyone was going to save it for a finishline sprint. One guy went off the front for a few laps and we let him fry. Nobody wanted to work, given I didn't have any teamates, I was too chicken**** to chase him down and risk blowing up in front of family and friends that never see me race So I stayed near or at the front the entire race. Pulled more laps than I wold have liked, but kept my power output pretty low. Given there's some 3's (I'm a fairly new 4) in there I knew there were going to be some tactics and pretty decent sprinters so I tried to conserve power. Came around the last corner for a 2-3 hundred yard sprint and I get pushed wide, exit the corner in about 8th....Faaaaawwwwwwwkkkkkk, it's on and I bury myself as deep as I can all the way to the line. 4th place

The following weekend was the Cascade Cycling Classic in Bend, Oregon. I had high hopes but realistic expectations. I'm NOT a climber...tooo fat! First stage is a 71 mile road that started with a 750' climb, a fairly long decent, and more climbing up to the Mt. Bachelor parking lot. Race starts out and I make my way to the front on the ascent as I did not want to be anywhere in the pack for the decent. By the time we finish the climb I'm at the front and 1 guy has taken a flier....again we let him fry. For the decent me and a couple others stay on or near the front to help string it out and keep it safe! As the race procedes into the rollers, there's a crash a few wheels back from me, more confirmation I'm staying at/near the front and I proceed to do so for 60+ miles. 10K to go the road turns up and I roll out the back faster than I'd anticipated. Disappointed in myself for a few key mistakes in race preperation and strategy I resign myself to going for a stage win and this wasn't going to be it.
Day 2, a 14 mile out and back TT with 1000+ climbing. While riding to the TT, a mile out I hear a loud noise followed what sounds like a puncture. I stop to fix the flat and discover it's a broken spoke...fawwwwwwwwkkkk...screw it, I do the TT nice and easy and save it for the crit as that's my best discipline and what I'm most looking forward to.

That afternoon the crit goes off at 2:45. Pretty fast pace but I feel very comfortable. Again I stay at or near the front but keep my pulls to a max of 20 pedal strokes. The winds are pretty gusty so nobody is getting away. Corners 3 and 4 are a bit tighter than 1 and 2 and were cause for concern if people didn't maintain position and hold their lines. At the start of the race the clock was MIA, but they started it anyway. Midway through the race the clock was present but not working. All of the sudden I hear 5 laps to go at which point I'm still maintaining my position, feel good, grab the wheel of every attack, and do so for the next 3.75 laps. Approaching corner three on the 4th of 5 remaining laps we've strung it out pretty good and I'm contemplating where I want to launch my attack. HR is mid zone 4, I feel strong and I'm thinking just prior to corner 3 of the last lap I'll go for it. We single file through corner 3, single file into and through corner 4 with one exception. I don't know if they thought it was the last lap or what...but somebody decides that's the corner to try and make up postions and cuts the inside. We were already taking that corner pretty fast, they proceed to slide out and highside right in front of me. I have no where to go and lock it up to scrub speed, lowside, and then take a couple hits from behind. Race over...the end!

Lesson learned...don't leave room on the inside!

Then traveling back home...1100 miles, we hit a nasty bump 10 miles from home...don't know what the hell happened but it dislodges one of the bikes from the fork clamps and it hits the pavement at 60mph....bike is destroyed but amazingly all the components are fine with the exception of a little road rash. Now I have to get the wife a new bike and I'm using the components for a new crit build.

Lesson learned..not sure..don't point quick release up???? Not sure what happened, I've traveled thousands of miles with that rack, no issues until now

tallmantim

Bugger! Bad luck the whole weekend...

Oh well - I turned up to race on Sunday only to find it called off (after a 1 hour drive) due to rain and high crosswinds (80km/h wind gusts potentially blowing riders into traffic). Drove home.

mattm

Damn, sorry to hear about all the mishaps!

Cool to hear a report of the Boise Crit, I wanted to do that but didn't it out this year, maybe next.

Cascade Classic too, that one sounds like crazy fun! Most likely next year as well.

Better luck next time I guess..

Apus^2

Lesson Learned: If you need components your new bike, "accidentally" trash your wife's bike. She gets a new bike, slightly used components are suddenly available for yours (just can't let them sit around, can we?), everyone is happy.

ridethecliche

That's gotta be worth something. Good show man. Any idea why you're cramping so much and what you can do to stop it?

grolby

No, that's not the lesson.

Colonelmom

For those who haven't seen this yet... if you have.. it is worth repeating..

https://www.podiuminsight.com/2010/08...d-lost-a-race/

Out-The-Back

QUOTE=grolby;11222338]No, that's not the lesson.[/QUOTE]



Enlighten me! Seriously, not being a smartass.



My understanding has always been, when entering a corner, hold you line and hold your position, the inside isn't for trying to make up positions. Motocross, car racing...different story.



That said, I have and do pass in the corners from time to time. Rarely on the inside and when I have, I've told the rider I was there, I was coming through, and to grab my wheel cause we're going for it. Obviously I've only done this with riders I know. Other passes have always been on the outside early on to avoid the yo-yo effect, conserve energy, and get up to the front where I like to race...again, there's usually nobody there and/or I communicate my intentions.


Apus, hahaha, yeah you're right. Insurance is paying for her bike...I'm not to broken hearted it although the initial shock sucked!



mattm, thanks and the Twilight crit was awesome, I'll definitely be back next year. CCC was a good race as well, being more of a crit racer, it definitely exploited my weaknesses. No excuses...I'll be more prepared next time.



Anybody know anything about the Tulsu Tuff? It was recommended to me and I'm thinking of putting it on my calender for next June. 3 days of crit racing (if you're cat3 or above, 2 days if not) on 3 different courses sounds like a blast!

CrimsonKarter21

I think the reason was that I was doing so much training volume and not nearly enough maintenence (stretching, massage).
After a block (Sun,Mon,Tue,Thurs) of racing, I woke up very, very sore on Thursday from head-to-toe and raced anyways. I rode around for a few laps with the assistance of Guarana shots and caffeine pills and got popped after 2 hours.
I decided to get my first deep tissue massage and found out that the two calf muscles had practically fused together, and my masseuse spent a good 10 minutes "separating" them with her fingers, as well as working over my legs.

My first ride back was very good, and there was yesterdays race the following day. The first massage didn't quite get everything (understandable since I went so long and so hard in a rough state) and I just got another a few hours ago and feel much better.

We'll see tomorrow. The race is in the same place as Monday.

grolby

I think the only thing you can take out of that is that sh*t happens. People are going to dive to the inside and try to make up positions in corners no matter what; if you chop that line, you're probably going to put yourself in more danger. Just IMO; I'm pretty nervous about taking the innermost line in corners precisely because I'm worried about idiots trying to squeeze in where there's no room. I feel like the calls of "inside" I constantly hear in my races are a pretty good confirmation of my sense of caution - guys really think that they can say "inside" and then just take the line they want.

Communication is nice, but I actually find the guys that are constantly telling me what they're doing to be slightly irritating; mostly because I know that they're there, and my attitude is, if it's safe and clear, do it, if it's not, don't (there isn't necessarily a communication and the wisdom of the move being communicated). But I tend to be a bit irritable in the middle of a race, so I'm not saying you should stop. Some people have no situational awareness and probably do need to be told. Just saying that it makes me a little bit nuts: "Hey, I'm to your outside." Yes, I KNOW, I'm not going to cut you off... heh.

CrimsonKarter21

Oh yeah, here's the Frenchbag's blog. I love how he glorifies his races and his great excuses for being mediocre after so many years racing in Belgium. "Violent pain of the hip," my ass.
He takes himself very seriously.


https://geoffreyducarne.over-blog.com/

kudude

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPRkJPHWPz4

I've got to assume this is being discussed somewhere, but I've been so far off the radar I can't find it.

mattm

This is one nice thing about the 3's: people STFU and race, instead of yelling "slowing!" all the time..

Creakyknees

A pretty routine, if hot, TNC B tonight. Up till the end, anyway.

A break of 3 eventually got away and had the right mix of jerseys.

Cue the slow racing... man I think it's hotter when we just roll around.

Anyway, coming into the final laps, the break was getting close to lapping the field. I was keeping an eye on it, thinking if they catch us before the finish, I'll bring my guy up to the front for the sprint.

Didn't quite happen that way. The field sees 1 on the card, but no bell. I know the break had not yet caught us b/c we're accelerating and I had just looked back.

So we all sprint the last lap. As we come to the finish, the ref is in the road blowing the whistle and waving his arms. As we pass the line he's saying something about "wrong lap".

Lap card still says 1. Still no bell.

So I rolled around and I asked the ref what the deal was. He said, the break caught you as they were finishing. So the field was finishing too.

I saw no reason to argue with the guy, but I disagree.

How is the field supposed to know that we are judged to be caught? And that therefore we should sprint?

Out-The-Back

That's because people don't hit their brakes for every f'n corner....although I rarely hear "slowing" but I get what you guys are saying. I think I only have about 5 points to go to get to cat 3, crits..I'm probably ready..TT and road, it'd be ugly as I only have about 15 races total of which 13 are crits! Maybe next year.

carpediemracing 

Tip: look for locked threads that have nothing to do with "Sunday" "Night" "Worlds" "Crash" in the 41. Look for a base layer thread. (and you wonder how a base layer thread gets locked...)

Or look for the last few dozen posts by the bean guy - a bunch of his were in the thread.

substructure

Should have posted it here.

Grumpy McTrumpy

I've been treating my tuesday nighters as "training only" this season, just working on specific goals with regard to the workout, attacking, trying to get OTF, leadouts etc, but last night I decided to save some energy for a result.

4th in the field sprint, which is pretty decent for me. Race was much faster than the last time we did this course.

cmschmie

Are you participating in the whole series? Concord, Salisbury, Stateville and Harrisburg? As I've stated in another thread, I'm not quite up to racing yet, but I am really looking forward to spectating at least a couple of these before the PRO race Saturday evening.

substructure

Yes. It's my team's event. www.charlottesportscycling.com We host it every year. So I'll be setting up, racing, and breaking down most of the events.

JoesInBoston

Teammates Tour of the Catskills report with 2 other video's in addition to Horsegate included: https://thresholdcycling.com/index.php?p=1861

mikerhymeswith

mocksville nc crit part of crossroads series - not safe; roads were in horrible condition; roads closed at 5:30 racing at 6:15 - no one swept; Water street is an alley at race speeds and its gutter is sunken; corner 4 had a sunken manhole on the inside; mixing 4/5/juniors in a big field on a .5 mile course is a bad idea;saw a guy elbow a junior - why not a soft hand - safer for everyone; advancing on short straights is difficult and led to lots of corner diving which brought the Water St sunken gutter into play; roads were so bad that i pinch flatted a tubeless hutchinson atom on 8 to go; when i put away my bike the front tire blew because it had been cut down to the threads; having no more wheels, i could not race the masters so i lost my race entry fee

crossroads crits are off my calendar; i can do better; too much marketing and not enough quality for the racers

substructure

We try to get as many cities/towns to host our events as possible. Yeah, sometimes the streets are not quality. The main problem is to squeeze all of it in between 5:30-10 as possible. In doing so the city officials scramble to close roads at 5:15. We were still putting up barriers while the 4/5s were lining up to race.

Also, we have to combine fields and we even have to skip women's races until Saturday because of the time limits we have. This is our 10th year but we are not going soft or getting comfy with how each event is hosted. Neal Boyd puts his life into it and tries to make it the best for everyone - racers and spectators.

No hard feelings, but I will convey the message because we want to make things better. Mocksville has always been a tough course and most racers realize this before getting out there. I wish we could do something about the race course but it's sort of out of our hands. Sorry, man. Hopefully you won't bail on us totally.

BigSean

Guess I too missed all of that. I mean I saw the thread in the beginning, but not the last 6 or 7 pages of it. Im not a o have real big 'ignore llist' user, but Beanz seems to have earned a place on mine.