mattm

Probably time to see the leprosy doc at that point.

globecanvas

Go quick though, Doc's a lunger.

shovelhd

Try changing your socks more than once per month.

Enthalpic

Let's see these feet.

Flatballer

Have you been to Vietnam recently?

tetonrider

don't want to nitpick, but it seems to me like breaks succeed when the riders are all-in, and if you felt you STILL had a shot when the catch was made, maybe you weren't all-in either?

i don't know your race AT ALL....so just asking: when you saw that guy was distracted and you ID'ed one passenger.....what if you attacked the break? TKP might have worked and maybe the strong guy bridges?

just curious.

i know the races where i felt i had a chance in the break but also a chance in the field sprint usually wound up with mediocre results.

tetonrider

an excellent resource, IMO, is globalDRO.org.

answer a few simple questions and you can figure out if what you have to take is legal or not. i find the USADA list hard to decipher in answering simple questions....like can i take a benadryl at night for my allergy issue or is nyquil OK?
+1,000,000

tetonrider

works quite well. your primary insurance comes in first...then you can get some money back toward your deductibles.

the people on the phone at the insurer are VERY helpful IME. if you have any questions, call 'em.


bad form, IMO.

OK to ask the RD (or maybe ask for registration applied toward another event or the following year), but to call the CC and initiate a chargeback (the merchant has to pay a fine when this happens) is not cool.

if people are worried about missing a race due to getting sick, then pre-reg is a bad idea for them. you can't have your cake (discount reg) and eat it too (just get your $$ back if you change your mind, get sick, etc.).

i agree it sucks, but penalizing the RD isn't the answer.

TheKillerPenguin

For me, the issue was the strong dude was surging hard on the hill which was an annoyance, and it was really upsetting the rhythm of the break because it meant we had to do like 50m of chasing over the top instead of staying smooth. So then you have the one strong dude taking his pull which is really more like a mini attack and the dude behind him having to go even harder to get back to him over the top, so 2 guys for one pull in a break of 6 riders, and there's one other dude who doesn't have the power to contribute. Because of this, and because we still had over 10mi left, I was holding back a bit, expecting the strong guy to try and go it alone meaning I'd have to bridge up to it, and also not wanting to take pulls that left me on the limit and not have time to recover for the climb where I knew there would be a fairly hard surge. This is a long-winded way of saying I'm still learning and I didn't know how to play this particular poker game.

shovelhd

Let's not.

wens

Re: pre reg, it seems like promoters around here really prefer it, and complain about people not doing it.

But they then put things in the flyer like no refunds for any reason, and I'm hesitant to do it then. Does that include if the race is canceled? Because I really feel like I should get a refund then. There's a race weekend that does call ups by order of registration, that opens registration three months before the race. I'd be more inclined to hand over some money if I knew I could ask for a refund up to two weeks out if I found out I was going to have another commitment, or injured, or whatever.

I think a lot of bike racing pre reg policies are poorly thought out, and given the effectiveness of thirty day money back guarantees etc in retail, I'd be interested in seeing if more people would pre reg and hope many would actually ask for money back if you had to ask over a week in advance (so everyone doesn't just look at the weather the day before and decide to bail)

shovelhd

Sounds like your switch was flickering. If the guy is blowing up the break but not really attacking you need to tell him. Give him an "ease up" as he starts to pull away. At that point he has a choice, play with the break or attack it. He may not know the difference. If it's the guy I think it is, message me as I know his coach. I'm sure he would appreciate the feedback.

Next time you are in a break with that much power don't save anything until 5 minutes left, or in a road race, the last major feature. Holding back is how breaks fail. Yes, you will be tired. Yes, you won't have your full sprint power. Yes, it will make chasing attacks harder. But unless you dragged along a wheel sucker, so will everyone else. It's better to finish 3rd in a break sprint than 6th in the field sprint after you get caught.

globecanvas

I'll give the short answer and say yeah, it's on me.

We were away for a half hour. Field was doing about 26. Our first lap away was 29.5. Subsequent laps were 26.5 ish, pretty consistent. Last lap with the bickering was under 25. I wasn't saving anything (I was the one shouting "no we're not done!"), but I was hurting. And, sad to say, I was a bit deflated because I thought it was my buddy TKP saying "forget it, we're done," when it was actually the other strong guy.

But that's all incidental. I didn't properly process and react to the race situation, that's why the break failed. The key to winning this game is racing on the physical limit while maintaining awareness of everything happening around you.

gsteinb

he's your buddy, and I'm a guy you try to run off the road


obviously with that much invested you keep going and then work on shaking him. more likely than not his protestations were because he was done

globecanvas

It was the guy you think it is. He was certainly aware of what was happening, but processing it as "why do I have to wait for you weaklings at the top of this hill every time" (and a couple bike lengths turned into "5 seconds" in the retelling after the race).

But, like everybody here is saying, you work with what you've got, that goes both ways. A break is a collection of resources; he wasn't managing us right, but TKP and I weren't managing him right either.

globecanvas

Oh, I'd run TKP and his bougie 90210 convertible off the road if I had the chance. That's how buddies do.

Grumpy McTrumpy

maybe the break didn't fail.

maybe the field needs to be credited with succeeding in their chasing effort.

I know if I were tearing myself apart bringing back a break only to hear that the guys in the break thought they had it "in the bag" if only blah blah blah... I'd be like..

Ahem. we didn't exactly soft pedal back here.

globecanvas

Not to spend pages on this one failed cat 3 break, but I think in this case the break did fail. I looked at lap times and everything was pretty consistent, the break just finally fell apart and did a lap 15 seconds slower. CDR in the field even commented that it was more the break coming back than the field catching.

Grumpy McTrumpy

maybe

TheKillerPenguin

I'm more of an OC guy myself, less riffraff.

I appreciate the input @shovelhd and will take your wisdom to the bank; thanks.

carpediemracing 

I started editing the clip for Limerock. It's too long to show on the clip but we weren't going fast pretty consistently and then suddenly the field went absolutely bananas on the hill. There was a chase group, gap, then the field, and it came back together in a lap or so. There were times where at the back of the field we were going pretty slow, and we were spread out pretty wide. FGX had something like 6 or 7 guys at the front, @GLobalcanvas had at least one teammate sitting near the front.

If that one guy was pulling so hard on the hill then you should have made him pull into the wind on the main straight. If he was, and he still had the punch to gap guys on the hill, then the only other solution I can think of is letting him pull on the downhill as well, the only other spot where working at the front would be significantly harder than sitting even second wheel. You needed him to work hard at the points where his power output was much higher than the rider in second wheel. Go through and pull off, for example, if in the headwind, or invite him to pull in the headwind because he's so strong. Etc.

When he gaps you on the hill don't chase him down. Let him establish a gap, if he can, and then jump across it. Or let others jump across. The thing is that you needed to get him a bit worn down so that if you, say, went into the headwind, as soon as you gapped him he'd be done because once there's a gap he'd be too tired to make it across.

Hills are the worst place to get strong riders to work because they just gap off the others. Tailwinds are a close second, and you shouldn't make a smart rider work in a crosswind. Always headwind and descents.

Grumpy McTrumpy

The Strava Flyby of this one is interesting to watch

TheKillerPenguin

I would wager FGX going nuts on the front probably coincides with them spotting their dude getting flicked out of the break.

Thanks for the rest of the insight as well, racecraft is a WIP.

carpediemracing 

This was my next stop.

gsteinb

with a little effort and CDR video you can make this the most highly analyzed cat 3 race in the history of the sport.