shovelhd

I've been to Boise. It's not weird, it's just, you know, Boise.

rkwaki

If I was using here she'd be a screamer...



Oh and I like dirty....

Flatballer

Jesus, that's a lot of free gear for a Cat 4. If I buy a GoPro can I get in on that? Perhaps swap the cross bike for a track bike, since I hate getting off my bike (Yeah, I've never tried cross, I will eventually, I know it's the best thing ever, whatever, spare me).

Plus, I actually race somewhere that people watch me. Usually they're just watching me get dropped, but hey, there's still 100 people at the velodrome on Friday nights.

rkwaki

You want to see crazy sponsorship talk, go check out Slowtwitch...

I have a pretty sweet deal but no free bike (if I were racing that is). In out parts very few get a free bike. I know of one that has a loaner for the year but he is a former Pro that went back to school.

Flatballer

Even the good guys around here tend to get cost, or cost plus 10 or something. The team I'd like to join next year is cost+ I believe. Certainly helps, but it's no pro deal.

AMFJ

Do bike manufacturers like people talking about getting free gear?

I was sponsored in a different hobby and if I had posted what he posted above (my deal), I would been dropped immediately. Seems like you are kicking your sponsor in the junk posting your deal for all to see.

mattm

that is actually quite funny.

jsutkeepspining

i know one team that has free bikes. They place well in p/1 ncc races. I know of no cat 3-5 team that gives free bikes, and only some give cost, and the ones who are nice give discounts. We aren't attracting any business for bike shops with a free bike. I'm amazed most places even give us a discount. I am on a team for the team, not what the team can do for me. if i have strong teammates and a strong support group i can do well. If all i have is a free bike i'm sol 90% of the time.

Flatballer

I can see why the cost+ or discount stuff helps the shop.

1) all the team riders will then go there for everything
2) anyone who asks a team rider where to go will get sent there
3) people who don't race tend to listen to people who do, from group rides, charity rides, etc.


But yeah, if you're racing to get free stuff, you're in the wrong sport. You'd be much better of just going to work instead of training.

JohnKScott

Mmmmm...pudding...

Oh and careful with that lower case "g". I heard Garth Books has that trademarked

JohnKScott

Perhaps if they let you keep one of the bikes at the end of the season you could train more and move up quicker...maybe you should run that by them

Oh...and not typical. I got to keep what the shop gave me at the end of last year. (discount on service and merchandise)

Not going to bust your nuts about your deal. I'd take it too. Hell I have a camera and I'm a cat 4. Maybe I should go team shopping

carpediemracing 

First, since you pointed out that you didn't read my latest manuscript on tactics, I won't point out much. My one comment would be that your attack that wasn't really planned ended up sapping your legs so that when a move went you were less able to respond. If you'd been fresher when that move went I have a feeling things might have worked out differently.

Also some general observations. I don't know Boise but the race videos you post show relatively small fields. I guess I'm lucky but I rarely see fields under 20 riders (a pouring rain Masters Championships a few weeks ago had 12 starters - I think that's a record low number for me since even 1993 when a training race I did started with 21 riders). Most of my races are 60-80 riders, large ones are 90-100, huge is 120-ish, and "small" is 40-ish.

The reason I point this out is that a lot of tactics assume some amount of "field elasticity", i.e. the field is large enough to offer some shelter, some reprieve. In a 15-20 rider race that is not the case. Your races resemble a large break rather than a small field. You should race with that mentality in mind. If it's 30+ riders then start thinking in terms of field. If I'm in trouble I usually give up 20-30 spots to recover. If I'm in real trouble it might be 50-80 spots. In a sub-20 rider field there is virtually no room for recovery.

Also a larger field implies that there will be a higher level of skill. Not always true, fine, but if you get 100 racers in a race the front end of the race will naturally be made up of stronger and more savvy racers. Mixing it up in the front will put you in company of better/stronger racers. Get 20 racers in a race and it's not as selective before it blows apart. Being at the front doesn't mean as much as it does in a 100 rider field.

You should feel like your slamming the gap closed. If you can't honestly describe your speed differential as "slamming the gap shut" then it's probably not your time to close it. At the very least you should be making progress as soon as you start making the effort. The gap should never, ever open more when you're trying to close it.

Waitaminute...

Remember that bike racing is pretty merciless. In amateur racing if you're not in the top 6 of a qualifying race (top 6 generally means you've earned points toward an upgrade) you might as well not have raced. Placing outside the upgrade points is like doing nothing (minor exception - if you made money). It's not like running where doing a slightly better 10k time is cause for celebration. In bike racing you're either in the points (or maybe money if it's significant) or you had a non-race, a field finish. You can interchange your numbers, reverse the order, and it honestly won't make a difference. I got 15th at a race. Yay. I got 51st at a race. Yay. Same thing. Both are non-races. This is one of the reasons why it is almost never worth it to sprint for a deep place in a field (like 30th in the field sprint). Placing 30th in the field is nothing. Top 6 or so, worth sprinting, even if there's a break that already finished, because if you can sprint to top six in a field that's good experience. This means that unless you did significant something in the race (led out a teammate who did well, worked for the team, hit the bell lap in last place but won), a 12th out of 20 starters is not a real good finish.

This means that in a small field a top 6 is maybe starting to get into the "good race" range and a top 3 would be good. I understand there are Cat 2s and such. In our Tuesday Night training races I've managed 2nds and 3rds in a field whose finishers are mainly of 2s, some 1s, and the occasional pro (or future pro). I helped a teammate, a 3, win a race there. I won there once but I was gambling on the race being rain shortened and rode super aggressively assuming the race would end very quickly. I don't count it as a true win because in 10 laps of racing it would be hard to beat me in a sprint. I even led out the sprint to try and even the odds.

I think filming races for feedback has its place. However if the films aren't changing significantly from clip to clip then it may not be worth editing and posting the clip. The feedback will be the same for the clips if the race is the same in terms of venue, plot, and actions. If one of them changes significantly then it could be worth posting. If the action is exciting then it'll be fun to watch, even if the result is similar to another clip.

For me I happen to post a lot of races at Bethel, but it's primarily because I have tried to peak for Bethel for virtually the entire time I ran the race. It's important to me viscerally and it's also important to illustrate to others how things can unfold in the last few laps of a race there. I also have a vested interest since I'm the promoter of the races in the spring. Another venue that I post more than once includes New Britain / Nutmeg (my favorite course), Keith Berger (fun course). I have multiple clips of other courses but haven't posted many of them.

My last edited race is from sometime last year. I have so many clips of rides and races that I recently bought two more drives, 3TB apiece, to go with my 2x2TB and 2x1.5TB drives. And I only record on one camera! There are gems in the clips but nothing so good as to warrant spending a bunch of time editing. I have maybe 8 clips half in the bag - I have most of the video portions selected, I have the story in my head (meaning the lessons, the tactics, whatever funny/weird things happened, etc), but not enough of a story for closure. it's like my blog - I have about 200 drafts that are not good enough to be done. Most are not timely posts, they're general type things. I used to save them so I could post them when I didn't have anything to write about, but I ran out of the easy-to-complete drafts about 150-200 draft-posts ago, probably a couple years ago. Now I'm left with the really hard ones to finish.

I pick and choose the clips I post because I feel there's something significant about each one. In fact when I need motivation on the trainer I watch my own clips. I enjoy the racing, the clips bring back very specific memories, and they're super motivating. In fact in the shape I'm in now I can't believe I was doing what I did back in 2010.

Instead of churning out clips that don't change much it might be better to wait until a clip has a radically different outcome. Do that huge attack at 2 to go. Do nothing until the field sprint. Win. Whatever it is do something different so that the clip isn't the same each time. Lettings gaps open, trying an attack, failing to follow the final moves, the clips follow the same script.

One tip - try to make it to the finish as fresh as possible. I don't know what your avg heart rate is but whatever it is try to bring the average down by 20 bpm, give or take. If you're averaging 165 bpm try and see if 145 bpm is possible. It probably isn't but you might see 152 bpm or something. Hitting the bell with only a few minutes of effort in your legs makes a huge, huge difference.

For the clip ideas it would be very illustrative if you could do drills - bumping, touching wheels, etc - and show them in clips. Get old clips and new clips and show the viewers how some drills really tightened up your sphere.

I took a class, some kind of writing class. We ended up writing plays in a peer-review kind of environment. What really fascinated me was the progress some of the students made between the first draft and the final. There was one student that I immediately chalked up as "never will have a good play". That student ended up slowly but steadily working some ridiculous premise into a really funny play. I think that a new racer who is willing to record their successes and failures will have a great resource at hand after a few years of racing.

MDcatV

lol

carpediemracing 

Another thing is that shops can use a team order to piggyback their own orders (or vice versa, effect is the same). There are breaks for ground shipping, 2nd Day, etc, and if a team member comes in and wants to get a relatively big order in then the shop is virtually guaranteed free shipping, maybe a discount, etc.

Shops may have a quantity point for a price break. I know that one wheel company had extremely aggressive discounts once you got to a certain number of wheels. I went to a local shop and asked if they would be ordering from said wheel company. I knew the discounts and I told them that I'd get at least 30% of the order necessary to get the biggest discount and I'd pay them a reasonable amount over their cost/shipping (10-15%, I had a dollar number in mind). If they could extend a discount to wheelsets I had friends/etc buy then I felt I could get 60-70% of that order, maybe meet the whole pre-season number, without them having to do anything. Even if I couldn't get the whole pre-season for them the shop would still be able to order an absolute minimum of wheels (a racer who worked there might have bought enough wheels to meet that pre-season order size) and then enjoy the lowest wholesale prices for the rest of the year. They'd be competitive with any shop around. Unfortunately the shop was more extended than I realized - they closed down that year - and they didn't even want to file a credit app. I ended up buying wheels from another shop, fewer of them, over a longer period of time.

echappist

In retrospect, pathetic is a bit strong of a word, but posting in not two but three different threads about this same thing perhaps does not give the signal you would want to convey. As for the aggrandizing and motivation, those were more pointed at the first 40 seconds of the video more than anything else. Let's just say that we agree to disagree on mixing commercial interests with your race videos and leave it at that. The sycophant comments were directed at people not on this forum who perhaps don't want to say anything that you may find abrasive because they would want to win your bike at the end of the year.


I don't think i said anything about your intelligence. Only thing remotely related may be the part about introspection. But introspection is an emotional thing and has nothing to do with intelligence. I apologize for calling you pathetic.



I'm flattered to know that i apparently talk a bigger game than i actually possess; now if i could do this in the real world, this would be quite a valuable asset (as a scientist, i'm quite bad at BS'ing) . Many here are much more experienced than i and have palmares that blow mine out of the water, but that doesn't mean I can't spot the glaring things in a race video. Truth be told, i'm just a cat-3 who still has tons to learn. For example, gsteinb is a state champ and knows much more than i with regards to racing.that said, there are things in your video that an aware cat-4 would have been able to pick up.

Thanks for your kind words. OP, grolby could probably tell you how much of an ass I could be (grad school does awful things to people), and looking back, I'm somewhat ashamed at the antics I typed (you want misanthropic, and not just trollish behavior, my posts from spring 2012 were pretty good exhibits). In any case, I really don't wish the torturous path I took on anyone else as it took me quite a while to upgrade due to a variety of circumstances, but as I've said this before countless times, I attribute my "race acumen" to all the stuff I gleaned from this forum right here.

To the OP, once upon a time, i was perhaps in a similar situation: hand-wringing, disappointed about results, felt jealousy toward other riders on my team, etc. Simply put, some rather misanthropic behaviors. It took a good bit of self-introspection and a lot of humble pie to realize that i wasn't focusing on the right things. I can still remember the one reply MDCatV wrote regarding riding in a pack and being comfortable. Helped immensely. There are other threads about training and tactics, and those, too, helped immensely. When i needed advice on training, people here freely shared their wisdom. Long before I actually had a coach (i'm one of those high strung cat-4s who hired a coach), I told people that the road racing forum was my coach.

Last year, one particular poster allowed me to pick his brains for free.99, and I got feedback that was very valuable as it changed how i was training and allowed me to start doing well in races. The said poster could have asked me to pay his usual coaching fee but instead didn't ask for anything in return. What I'm trying to convey here is that while this forum may quite a few snarky, sardonic posters, most are more than happy to help to get beginners on the right track and then help them along their development.

So like grolby suggested, post away in the race report thread, but be prepared that not all the comments will be affirmative, but you can be sure that people will try to offer up constructive advice. Don't be vague and general; if you have a specific concern, address it and people will answer it. Think of mistake you may have made; if you donno how you could have made things better, ask.

There's not much more to say. Despite the words that may perhaps be abrasive, I do wish you well and success. Hopefully, you'll continue to learn and develop, and as I was told by another more experienced rider, that 3 upgrade will come naturally when you are ready.

echappist

ha, now i know why you put the hurt on me on that group ride
pro at procrastination and not much more
hey wait a minute; totally apocryphal

for anyone who needs a place to crash in the DC area, just let me know. The carpet in my apartment may not be in the best of condition, but i do my damnedest to make your stay enjoyable. There are two big NCC races every summer (actually this weekend): one's a 5-corner crit and the other is a 7-corner crit. While i don't think they can match what Tulsa Tough has to offer in terms of Cry Baby Hill, it'll be a pretty neat experience

mike868y

damn, i'm ging to the wrong bike shops.

gsteinb

I absolutely call bull**** on that

MDcatV

^and i wont be at either. our 2 y.o. decided to grab a handful of cashews at daycare yesterday afternoon. turns out he's allergic. his face swelled up like rocky's! ER, observation, released, now home, but late night. going to the beach tomorrow for a family vacation so too many things to do to race, and missing towc also. :-/

gsteinb

If the op is getting free bikes they'd chip a frigging statue of me, and dammit they'd bronze Ex and display him in the shop when his time crushing souls has come to an end.

gsteinb

I'm friends with some folks at a bike mfg. Higher ups. Recently they asked me (they also posed to same question to others as well) 'why aren't more people racing our bikes?' They're as good as anything, maybe better. The answer they got was that guys on a bike at races and on training rides = more guys on a bike at races and training rides. And while we may all think we're immune to those sort of marketing attempts (ie see fast guy >>> want gear fast guy has) the simple fact is our brains are habituated to that very movement. So I told them get some guys on your bike (in the interest of honest I was, and continue to angle to be one of those guys). And they're doing it, and getting press for it. Presumably sales will increase. That said the guys we're talking about are doing pro races or are at the upper end of their age categories. They're not guys who will be a three by the end of the year. dear mother of god.

MDcatV

^i rarely notice what frame anyone is riding anymore.

i think that's because in our local 123 races, which is usually the younger version of the M35+ races (the 2 racing groups i race in) most of the teams have some level of sponsorship and thus are on frames/wheels that their sponsor shop or direct mfr sponsorship puts them on. this leads to the local 123 races having less fancy frames than many of the 3/4 or 4/5 races.

since 2010 i think half the 123 race was on caad9s or 10s, one team is on diamondback frames, and now we're on guru's (which is pretty sweet). another is on specialized something or other frames, whatever they are, i think they're kind of ugly. I still get wheel envy, but i'm a sucker for hoops and have a whole garage full of them.

shovelhd

I'll stand up and say that I was one of your harshest critics. I have no idea what kind of stress grad school puts on people as I have a lowly undergraduate degree, however stress comes in all shapes and sizes, and if you knew the story of my life and family I think you'd agree that I understand stress well. I allow stress to be an excuse, for a limited time. But your flailing and hand wringing only made your training and racing worse. You seemed to have the talent, it was just buried under all this doodoo. I was tough on you publicly and privately, but I hoped that whatever I told you would eventually sink in. You had gotten some great advice from some great racers. Now it was up to you.

I don't know when it clicked, but you put it all together this spring. You have had a very strong early season with the results to show for it. The stress hasn't gone away, in fact it probably increased with your job search and relocation, but you figured out how to find the balance. Once you did, you became a much nicer person to deal with. We'll be in the same field at some point. I look forward to it.

gsteinb

you're all effing d-bags, and can't even see past that to see what d-bags everyone else is.

shovelhd

Says the king of self-aggrandizing dbaggery.

Love ya, man.