umd

+1 as well

saratoga

Yea, no such luck. Local shop support.

Saris has been at a couple of races so far this year with neutual trainers to warm up on however.

mike868y

They also pass out specialized tarmacs...which is where my bike is from

umd

They gave you a neutral bike and you rode away? Ride it like you stole it I guess

mike868y

No silly, I bought a used one

umd

That makes more sense but is far less interesting.

roy5000x2

I always chuckle when racers will try to trade in their heavy box section wheels for some 404s just a few minutes before a race.

CrimsonKarter21

Aalbeke Kermesse

A whole 7*C, a grey sky, a good 25mph wind, an overpass, a traffic island, the finishing straight on a 500m long shallow hill, and several treacherous, narrow, windy roads.
I almost miss the start, so I get a good last minute warmup going up the opposite way on the finishing straight in a sprint. I get to the line with 30s to spare and land on the front row next to my buddy and roommate Bish. We take off from the gun hard. I make the first breakaway of the day. I didn't know I was in the break until I do my turn at the front, come back around and 5 guys later I'm on the back of the group. I look back and see that we're doomed. The early break never sticks. With 100km to go and the weather, it was cemented.

2 minutes later, we're back in the peloton. A locak team is trying to get a stranglehold on the race, sending 5- guys up to the front to control the pace. The headwinds are brutal, the sidewinds are brutal, the manic sprints out of every corner are brutal, even the tailwindswinds are brutal. My middle-of-the-pack position is constantly threatened, I have to bridge a gap or two. There is no stopping your pedaling, you have to keep on pedaling just as hard to make rank in the wind. With the race strung out as it was, nobody was making passes on me, but my position in the field is gone, I'm at the tail end. 20+ racers behind me are shed. I need to move up now in the crosswind. I'm good in the crosswind.
I make a few passes, it's Lap 3 now. We round the left-hander to cross the start/finish.

BANG!

A rider on the left-hand side goes into the barriers ahead of me. I see the rider go down on the right with a front wheel/half a fork bouncing to the left side. Everybody is on the brakes and swerving. I stand up and try to shoot between two racers, one being my roommate Steve, he swerves into my path to avoid the wheel, I have to hit the brakes as every path is covered.
I have a second and look at the fallen racer. It looks like a rider from Arizona I met before the race. He looks hurt. I chase back to the group.

We chase hard, but nothing. We can't bridge. We got caught too far out by the crash.

Me and Steve come in at the same time and get pulled, while Justin is in the next lap. On Lap 7, Bish and Jesse come in. The race is now down to 29 racers in 3 groups, with the Lithuanians* driving the pace. The rain is started. The race is becoming more of a slamdance, and less of a race, and it's painful just to watch. The Belgie's watching in the pub are happy as clams. Belgie's love seeing people suffer.

Today was Belgium.

mike868y

Tuesday @ the Rent training crit B Race:

My first time doing this race. Didn't seem as dangerous as I had heard, but the field wasn't huge so that probably didn't hurt either. My team attacked from the get go (per our plan) and one guy got in a break with 3-4 other riders. Another very strong teammate bridged up, pulled the break around and then won the sprint (woot!). I hung in the pack, but felt better than I thought. I was able to move around in the pack better than I had at Bethel, and stayed towards the front for most of the race. Most importantly, I got a very good workout in.

I also got to practice some "real" crit corners (Bethel is the only other crit I've done and the corners are pretty relaxed) and didn't feel very sketchy at all. I got in the habit of downshifting going into the corners so I wasn't pushing a huge gear coming out and it seemed to work well.

Next week I think I'm going to try jumping in the A race just to see how long I can hold onto the back for and to get some more volume in. Should be fun

carpediemracing 

Same race, the Rent.

The B guys were strong - mike868y doesn't mention it but Lance led the last half lap, led out the sprint, and dropped the guy. Incredible. Lance helped me a lot in the Bethel Spring Series after he upgraded from Cat 5 (!).

A race - it was nice, decent sized group (it was a relatively big day by Rent standards - under 20 riders per field and I'd call it "small"). Me, two teammates (and wishing the B guys could have raced the As). I wanted to work hard so I brought my bike in training mode - Down Low Glow lights, box clinchers, two bottles. I didn't want to go for the sprint but I wanted to make sure no breaks got away (if that was in my legs to decide).

Bridge, break, attempted leadout (me leading out my teammate Chris). Very fun. Hardest ride/race I've done in recent memory - normalized power was 260w, about 10w higher than my "as tested" FTP (263w for 20 min = 250w FTP). Therefore my FTP is probably a bit low. Also saw the highest heartrates I've seen in forever, averaging 179 bpm for a lap here and there. Normally I'm at 165-168 before I explode, and at Bethel I was happy if I could stay at 140-150 or lower (120-130 on the easier sections).

Today I'm sore.

cdr

*edit* link to longer post of race:
https://sprinterdellacasa.blogspot.co...aytherent.html

mattm

Wow, excellent report! Keep 'em coming.

CrimsonKarter21

I'll have another one tomorrow. It's the same course as a few weeks ago, which was a windy slaughterfest, with something like 140 starters and 26 finishers. Hopefully tomorrow will be a typical U23 race, but I doubt it.
I really, really, really need money, so a Top 30 would be groceries for a week.

ZeCanon

Awesome reports CK. Glad you're having a good time over there. Good luck tomorrow!

mike868y

Nice! I wish I could have stuck around for the A race. I had a lot more fun than I thought I would. I plan to do these throughout the summer until I take off for college. Lance is insanely strong. Hopefully we can get "new mike" out there for a couple of weeks because he is probably just as strong as Lance on the flats and stronger on the climbs (not that that matters at the rent).

aicabsolut

My body doesn't like bike racing, but I am trying to make it.

Ft. Ritchie criterium last weekend in MABRA land was my first Women's Open crit (really 1/2/3 and a couple 4s whose upgrades hadn't gone through yet) where I had more of a goal than "do not be DFL" because (1) it wasn't my 2nd race of the day, and (2) I am a cat 3 this year and need to try to act the part.

My right hamstring hasn't been ok since the WVU RR a few weeks ago. That plus a week off for a sinus infection thrown in hasn't been good for my training. It's reminiscent of my fitness last year after I blew my left shoulder. I was in a fair amount of pain with each pedal stroke with the right leg, and the pace was hot from the gun. It was really windy. There was a strong headwind by the S/F, and then gusts came from all directions throughout the rest of the course. The quick tempo strung out the field right away. I had a mediocre clip in and immediately found myself in the back 1/2 of the pack. I was pretty content to stay there for a while upon finding a very stable draft behind one of the few taller women in the race.

Then there was a split. In front of me. The front group was represented by all of the larger teams in the race. I had one teammate, so I started looking for her. Uh oh, she did not make the split but was sitting 2nd wheel behind it. I pulled up alongside and yelled at her to get ready to go. She didn't hear me, I guess because of the wind. So, I started a long and painful solo bridge attempt. As I came out of the chicane, I saw a group of 3 who had been dropped from the front group. A friend of mine (and former teammate) was on the front of that group looking back for help, but no one was pulling through. I rested in that group for a couple of pedal strokes and could see the front group closing in on turn 4. If I didn't catch them by turn 5, it was going to be all over for me. I called out to my friend in the chase group, hoping to bring her with me in case of bridging failure. She didn't hang on. Luckily, I caught the lead group as they were making the final turn, so I could go through at full speed and enter the headwind in the draft. Phew!

I tailgunned that group for a few laps. Rear wheel caught some air coming out of the tight left-hander for no apparent reason. Landed hard and stayed upright but moved the nose of my saddle down several degrees. Great. Then the person in front of me blew up. She started struggling through the chicane and then BOOM! Instant 30 foot gap for me to fill. Thanks.

Just as I was starting to feel a little rested, I hear someone breathing down my neck, saying, "That was hard!" It was a person who had at least 2 teammates in the break. Did she lead the chase? Hope not; that's not cool. Most of the field was now back together, minus my teammate and several others who were dropped in the chase. The pace picked back up, and I was really hurting. I tried moving around but didn't have the energy to move up to the sweet spot, much less sprint. I found a wheel that towed me up part way. Mid-pack finish.

Technical 1/2/3 crit #2 coming up on Sunday. I will be content if I blow myself up if I get the champagne prime. Perhaps I will also battle the Poolesville dirt on Saturday.

chado445510

Last race of the high school season today. I raced in B as usual, and it was a mostly flat course around a lake. Lots of long, drawn out downhills and a few steep uphills. Race started pretty quick, but eventually slowed down. Unfortunately, a few 7th graders thought it would be a good idea to have a solo break and make us chase them when we realized they weren't coming back. We caught them about two or three miles away from the 23.8 mile race finish. At the end, I was somewhere in the middle of the pack, and since it ended with a sharp turn from a downhill, I swung on the outside and passed most of the people while thinking "hmm..... I don't think this is gunna be a very good race" but everyone ended up slowing down and I passed them. It was me and one other kid about 30 meters from the finish, and I was closing fast, but I didn't have enough gears, or road left to pass him. Ended up snagging second. I think it's a pretty good way to end the season. I think I got 5th overall for the B boys, but I missed two races and I didn't place at all in one of them. So for the season, I got 3rd, 3rd, 4th, and 2nd.

wanders

aicabsolut, great report.

This stuck out for me. In the last few weeks, for some reason I've started counting pedal revs after major efforts to either catch on to breaks or close large gaps that I've allowed to open. It takes about 10-15 for my eyes to uncross.

Another limiter identified.




feelin' real damn old 'bout now.

waterrockets 

+1 great fight!

johnybutts

Wednesday night crits.... 4th in the 4/5; DNFed the 3/4

4/5 - 30 minutes, 62 starters.
I'm getting into the habit of going solo OTF at the beginning of races. I really need to stop that, but it's a good way to warm up a little bit and see if anyone's going to play. 2 laps OTF, someone joins, I let him take a pull, pack catches us. In the pack, good position. Nothing really happens until about 10' to go, teammate is in a small break with about 5 seconds on the field, we're doing a little blocking, but eventually a couple people sprint over and the field collapses.

4 laps to go, I'm about 6th. I hold this until the last lap, get swarmed a bit. Sitting ~10th. teammate takes the only corner on the course too hard on the outside, crashes. I chose the inside line to avoid that. Now I'm 5th, but 123 have ~2 seconds on me. I sprint around this guy for 4th, didn't catch the lead guys. I noticed that I really don't really put an all-out balls to the wall effort for the final sprint - this is somethign I need to work on and psyche myself into. It might have been that the crash distracted me - dunno.
31 minutes:
338 NP
288 AP


3/4 race - 50 minutes (I lasted 12). ~65 racers
I start at the back and takes me ~4 laps to move into 10th slot. I'm sitting here, and lap after lap, this one technical corner (mentioned above), just kills me with these guys. We're single file with some heavy hitters driving the pace. Every time through this corner a gap opens, and I can't close it. each lap I'm in the wind longer and longer trying to close this Fing gap. Finally I was like, screw it, and just quit.
12 minutes
250AP
282NP

I really need advice about this because I want to be competitive with these guys. What could be the limiter here? Here are my thoughts:
1) I had about 5 mintues from the end of the 4/5 race to the start of the 3/4 race... Not much for recovery...
2) Cornering this thing is a B*tch. in the 4/5s race I was dragging my pedals a few times, enough to make me hesitant.
3) I went ant watched how the 123s corner this thing, and their body is in a perfect line with their bikes - similar to how I do it.
4) Maybe like neuromuscular is lacking since the quick 3 pedal strokes to gain the ground I need wasn't there...

Thoughts? - Looked at numbers, I think I was just tired.

waterrockets 

It sounds like you're taking a different line than the guy in front of you. Being slightly outside his line is a bit more efficient, since his draft projects backward from his tangent at any given point in the turn. Also, make sure your entrance speed is adequate. It might be useful to gap a couple lengths before the corner, and speed up to close it as you enter -- this is a common remedy for the accordion further back in the pack, as you can come out of the corner at a higher speed and pass some people. Here, it might just be what you need to come out of it in the draft.

ridethecliche

I'm broke as shiet, but can we please pool together some $$$ so CK can buy groceries? It's the least we can do because his reports are one of the things I most look forward to and hope for when I log into teh bfs. His writing has remarkably improved as well since he started writing reports on his blog as well. I mean back to a year+ ago.

johnybutts

Thanks, I'll practice this gap method next race. I just put numbers up there. I wasn't hitting anywhere close to the first race's numbers, and PE was through the roof.

ridethecliche

Let there be longer intervals in your future.

kudude

340NP for 31 minute in a 4/5 crit.

**** me

johnybutts

It did get me new PB power numbers for 3 minutes through 13 minutes...