Ygduf

he's very strong. went 4->3 this year and was very close to 3->2 already.

hack

rides same bike as you? he may be the guy i kept thinking was you and I couldn't figure out why you were in a 3 field chasing down breaks.

aaronmcd

Not sure who he is (can't see his face), but it was someone from his team who won the last Red Kite I did... after I left his wheel with a lap to go.

hyperlitenerd

Yep one of my team mates (45+ 4s). Hit a bump while getting a water bottle he said. Some road rash, nothing major.

globecanvas

This is both brilliant and stupid. Guest narrator: Werner Herzog. Ish.


https://vimeo.com/102903229

collin2985

Highlights with narration

UmneyDurak

A 3/4 combined field. The second race of the day. Raced CAT4 couple hours before.
Goal was to seat in, and practice moving through the pack, and in general do as little work as possible.
Ended up with 17th overall, 3rd CAT4. The SJBC club who blows by me on inside on last turn got 3rd in CAT4.

hack

^Again...total novice assessment on my part, but I am familiar with the course...

Still seems like you need to be more assertive/aggressive (not at the risk of danger to the field) and be much better positioned well before corner 3 to setup a good position coming out of corner 4 for that course. There is that little lull just before and just after turn 2 (assuming we call the big sweeiping turn turn 1) where you could have moved up instead of slowing with the group. On the straight before the last turn, you can jump some spaces, but at the expense of energy since you'll have to jump hard to get around everyone. If you are better positioned before the turn, you just need to hold your spot instead of working harder to improve your position. Guys will try to come around there if you're not hammering the pace, so your objective could/should be to hammer the pace to keep yourself up in the top 3-5 while making those trying to come around work that much harder.

UmneyDurak

I completely agree. I think I was psyching myself out and didn't push as hard as I could have. It felt like I couldn't go faster, but then I gained some positions coming in to last turn, and held on to position during sprint...

Thank you for the assessment.

hack

No problem...I'm sure there are more efficient and smarter ways to do it, but sometimes what works for me is to just pedal harder and faster than the guy(s) next to me.

spectastic

one of these days, I'll stick to a 1/2/3 group and actually finish with the pack. need to put in more hours... only about a month before state champ. damn.

collin2985

Cat 3/4 Dawg Days of Summer circuit race, Bowie Md

waterrockets 

Looks to me like a lot of guys cracked when you did. You rode it like it was a threshold workout, not like you wanted to finish with the front group. You rode up front and took a lot of wind with gaps and misalignment, falling back a little in the corners. When it was your turn to pull at 3:24, you stood up and attacked. None of that is efficient racing. It's fine for a training race if you're after fitness, but not if you're trying to work on the pack skills needed to survive in a pack with a few Cat 1s pushing the pace.

spectastic

It was my first time racing there. they rang the bell on a prime lap, and I thought it was last lap, and they were finishing the race early or something. That's why I attacked, wouldn't have done it had known better.

I'll work on reintegrating in the group, shrink my bubble a little. same with the corners, I always feel uncomfortable when a guy is so close to my handlebar next to me, so I slow down. and that last corner in the finish of the 3/4 race was me not paying attention to the pothole. I had to slow down like 2-3 mph and lost my gaining speed and slipstream, and it ruined my sprint. dumb mistake I know


what do you mean a lot of guys cracked when I did? you talking about the 123 race? yea I wasn't paying attention, but was suffering pretty bad too. Normally, I feel like criteriums start out at a fast pace, and then settle into a tempo. Our 123 crit started out at 30 mph flat out, and we slowed a little throughout the 13 minutes I was with them. I don't know if they slowed more after that. not really used to racing with the 1 and 2's

waterrockets 

I'd recommend bump drills through corners. Go to a soccer field with 2+ others and push each other off your lines, try to hold your line with contact, etc. Then move it to a foot track or some other no-traffic location and work it on pavement. It's a big skill and confidence help when it comes to riding close to people in corners. My first crit as a Cat 2, a guy on my inside got pushed into me (we're talking 30mph corner), and I had done enough bump drills to naturally just lean back into him and keep him from coming out further. I didn't stay on my line though, and the guy outside of me came in and leaned on me to help. We all cranked through the corner, shoulder to shoulder at 30mph and nobody made a peep. Just business as usual. You'll get there.

I saw you trying to close some gaps, and there were a bunch of riders sitting up. It was right before you tipped the camera up to pause recording, and I'm guessing you just waited for the pack to come back around.

I've ridden there, and I HATE those posts on the side of the road. What a safety nightmare.

hack

That was the first thing that really caught my eye in the video. Obviously too many to put up padding, but it's only a matter of time until someone goes down and slams into one of them.

spectastic

so anything touching a wheel is a big no no, but handlebar to body or something like that is no big deal?

shovelhd

Not really. Wheel touches happen, it's how you handle them that matters. It's another thing that you can practice in the grass field.

Contact in general is part of racing. Defensive contact is expected. Offensive contact is discouraged at least until you know what you are doing.

carpediemracing 

Coming from a person that drives "annoyingly safe" (a friendly rival made that comment about my driving after we carpooled to see "Half The Road"), I prefer no contact. It's not to say that I can't handle aggressive contact, it's just that I never intentionally initiate it. In fact my personality is such that I wouldn't be able to initiate it, it's not in my realm. I've reached out and given someone a helpful shove, yes, and a couple times (in 3+ decades) I've reached out and touched someone's hip (totally unnecessary each of those times), but aggressive contact, no. I fight for wheels by exploiting the other riders' vulnerabilities, not by pushing my way around.

Front wheel contact is hard to recover from, ditto bars and hands-if-they're-on-the-bars. Keep in mind that a bike stays upright because you can steer, however minutely, so when something takes away your ability to steer the chances of you hitting the deck increase exponentially. This is why front wheel and bars are so precious. I've hit my front wheel really hard into another rider's bike. It's significant enough that I remember each of those situations. I've had much lower impact rubs and those sort of fade from memory. My last two crashes were due to my front wheel getting hit, one was my fault (training ride, I was checking for cars back when the guy in front of me slammed on the brakes, I didn't have time to think of a way out), the other was not my fault.

Shoulder, upper arm (i.e. not directly holding the bars), hip, etc, are standard bumpers for defensive situations. I've been slammed hard when guys to my inside misjudge entry speed into a corner. I've been leaned on hard on my shoulder and side in sprints, for a few seconds at a time, as people tried to push me out of the way. As long as my bars and front wheel are safe I'm okay. I prefer no contact but knowing how to handle it is key.

I generally don't worry about my rear wheel. As long as I have hands on the bars and my front wheel is on the ground my back wheel can get bumped around pretty significantly without problems.

Grumpy McTrumpy

i pulled this off the net. The new Thater course was way faster than the old one, albeit much crashier. I didn't race but spectated a lot. Next year I'll do the masters (which may have been the only field which didn't have crashes)

shovelhd

I saw that coming a minute in. That video is a case study in how not to race an NCC crit. I miss the hill but love the new course. Nice long sprint. Next year.

Grumpy McTrumpy

yeah this one favored the windup sprinters. if you came through turn four in the top 3 or 4 and could make it stick, you were golden.

The P1 saw its share of carnage too. At one point they had to stop the field for about 5 minutes to wait for EMS personnel to treat the wounded.

The replay may be available for a few more days https://new.livestream.com/steadypace/events/3303870

carpediemracing 

I couldn't make the hill, even in shape. At best I think I rolled in at the back of the field, but maybe that's my imagination. I know I didn't finish at least twice. The new course, if I was reasonably fit, would be great to do. If if if… next year, maybe.

UmneyDurak

The last of Red Kite Series.
CAT4 8th. Looking on the vid, I am kicking myself even more. The San Jose Bike dude (white jersey, wheel I was following) got 3rd. Not sure what happend.
Later in the video CAT3/4 got 15th. Orange kit is hack to pull me to the line.
As usual comments/feedback welcome.

shovelhd

What happened was that you did a good job of defending against 312 but at the most important time you chose to go around him for some reason. It looked like he slowed to shake you and you took the bait. In general I have seen a lot of improvement throughout the season from watching the videos. Two things you will need to work on for the 3's. First is following closely and directly behind the rider in front of you. There are good reasons to be off to the side but I didn't see any of them. Second is you have to work on cornering harder in the turns. You swing wide and give up too much ground. If you have the points I would upgrade. You're ready.