grolby

Purgatory RR Cat 3 - DNF, booooo.

Crazy stacked field in this race. I was active but not overly so in the first three laps. Made it up the big climb just fine at or near the front on the first two laps. It was hard, but I felt okay. On the third time up, we hit the steeps and my legs were immediately filled top-to-bottom with lactic acid. And then the break went on the second kicker. Suddenly I was sliding backwards through the group. I couldn't do much except hope I'd be able to grab a wheel before I ran out. I made it to the descent still with the group, but then we hit the feed zone climb and it was game over. I couldn't even go over threshold anymore. I TT'd the rest of the lap solo and packed it in rather than ride another 11 miles by myself. Still, it was a fun race and we had a good team result. Our guy got 6th, last out of a break packed with firepower. My teammates insisted I was helpful, which was nice.

It's frustrating but what can you do? It seems pretty clear what happened. I haven't been doing intensity in my training (this is all part of the long-term plan), and I had the power to go hard up a 1km climb a few times, but I couldn't keep repeating that effort. The data backs that up. I put down a lot of all-time high power numbers in this race, so that makes me feel a little better about what happened. The data say that this was a HARD race for me. The first and third times up the climb I was doing well over 500W for the first 30 seconds of the climb (almost 600 the first time). NP for 2:12 was a totally ridiculous 239W, for an IF of 1. LOL. This was a major NP-breaker, my average power was 174. I don't even know how the hell to interpret that. The intense effort of the climb really skewed my NP even higher than it otherwise would've been, but for it to be basically my FTP for over two hours is... just wow. I'm not sure that I should be thinking about bumping my FTP based on that, but an IF of 1 is just silly. This wasn't really a race where my FTP seemed relevant. I suppose I should consider re-testing.

carpediemracing 

Heh. If I had a normal spring series, okay, but just one place (albeit a win), not so much. I have a 1st, 3rd, 3rd, so 7, 4, 3 points. This last race was under 50 starters so only 3 points. No worries. Also I have no real races on the radar. New Britain Crit (of course), Keith Berger I think, and probably a Ninigret. I have no plans or expectations for the rest of the season.

Too funny. I think once the kids are a bit older you don't see them on the podium, else some people would have kids and possibly even grandkids up there.

64, I am looking at his stats. NY.

In 2006 he got 3rd in the 3s, 3rd in the M45, and 2nd in M55, at New Britain (meaning in one day). I remember many days like that where he'd place top 3 in the 3s/M35/M45 (in the 90s). He usually won the 3s and one of the Masters and get 2nd in a different Masters.

caloso

Lodi Cyclefest 35+123. Crazy: corner dive bombers, a service hole cover flipped into the air on one corner, a guy rode his front skewer into the rear wheel of another guy. Made it through alll of that and then on the last lap a couple of guys locked bars right in front of me on the widest part of the course. They were lying in the road and I tried to split them but didn't make it and did a somersault. Torn jersey and some road rash, but nothing broken. Bleh.

shovelhd

Nice escape.

longe

Purgatory Cat 3. 10/40

Like @grolby said, the break went on a power slog up the 1km climb on the 3rd lap. I saw them going while climbing but let the thought that they'd get reeled in (like the previous 2 laps) sit in my mind too long and held back too long- I'm confident if I had recognized them slogging up a break faster and let my mind go, I would have been there. Turned out not only was it stacked, but they had a mix of teams that allowed for several blockers in the field. So OK, lets organize and catch up, right? I thought it was pretty obvious we were getting blocked, so my verbal, if impatient, insisting to go around the blockers was met with a nice ol' STFU from some cool guy without a teammate in the break. I was impatient for a reason though- I knew who was in the break and it doesn't take a ph.d to figure out that a break doesn't get easier to catch the longer you let the gap grow. Maybe I'll say please next time. Anyway, that's when I joined what I perceived to be the group think and twiddled my thumbs for 2 laps waiting for a field sprint. I was crushing that pretty good until I took the line with the massive sewergrate hole I unsuccessfully bunny hopped. err.

In retrospect, I maybe should have taken steps to get a smaller chase group going without the blockers. I did manage to stay calm and not get into a shouting match, which is something I've been working on- anger just takes too much engergy. I probably could have tried to explain the situation a little better and tried to build buy in. meh.

grolby

Heh. My teammate was telling me how you were trying to inform people that our guys were blocking and didn't get much help. Seems there were a few people who took a bet on that break coming back rather than bridge and got burned for it. So you're not alone. All the biggest thighs were in that move, though, and not much in the way of teams in the race. Most of the guys with representation had someone up the road.

mike868y

Purgatory went well. We executed what little plan we had and got our guy in the break. Would like to think I did was at least a little helpful in marking bridge attempts once the break went (sorry longe...). Felt decent, better the longer into the race we got. Good stuff all around.

mattm

dad jeans, big kids, crashes. loving the race reports!

looking forward to writing some again soon..

Wylde06

I tried racing my bike yesterday. Too bad my leg/hip started to hurt again and I got dropped. ****ing frustrating as hell.

Sizzle82

Nebraska omnium weekend

Cat 5 crit- 2nd
This was my 3rd crit and my first podium. Rode in the pack the first 3 laps and realized the technical course and couple hills were gonna play to my strengths. Made a break of four and we got a 17 sec gap on the field at about the half way point which turned into about 28 seconds. Worked good together and lost one guy with 5 left. Then I realized that all I had to do was not crash and I would be on my first podium so I was pumped. Third wheel coming in to the sprint the guy that won went early and made it, I nipped the other guy at the line for 2nd. Also won the prime so great day for me.

RR-3rd of 17
Rode the first lap in the pack,l pretty easy pace with some goods hills. Everyone worked together and nothing to special happened. By the second lap it was a lead group of 7 of us, try a couple attacks to spread thinsg out but nothing stuck. Uphill sprint finish my legs were shot so I was gonna try to go as late as I could. The two guys in front of me hook bars and went down in front of me so got around them and rode through for 3rd. Overall and great weekend. I learned a lot and got on two podiums so that is a moral booster.

hubcyclist

I had posted this in the northeast thread, but the winner of the cat5 field had a NP of 344w, whereas I (finishing 56/72) had 246w (209 avg). Crazy stuff. I'm not even sure how to interpret my power stuff at this point, since I actually haven't done an FTP test with it. The nice thing about the power meter was that once I started to use it as a bit of a pacing tool on the latter half of the race I actually put out some better efforts on the last lap. I guess hilltowns is next on my agenda.

hubcyclist

Awesome! my in-laws live in Nebraska, would love to go out there and race sometime (although my impression is there isn't a ton of options)

Sizzle82

Yeah there is probably only about 6 or so races. I have to travel about 3 hours either direction to race. But it better than nothing!!!!

echappist

thinking about what others put out is always a fool's errand. For starters, it may not even be accurate. And if he's really that much stronger, not much you can do about it anyway as he'll surely blast through the ranks.

More often you have the following: some guy i know who used to have a Stages believed his FTP was 320 or higher. THen he got a P2max and realized it's probably at least 10W lower when he can't complete his intervals. If you were to look at his numbers before the change, you may have despaired for nothing. Do the best that you can do and go from there. People may also deflate their numbers, etc.

dz_nuzz

I just don't understand how Cat 1s and 2s don't understand how to ride in a break.

Purgatory was just a WTF race for me. Get into the initial break with a GREAT mix. Take my turn at the front before the base of the hill, still ~40 miles from the finish. So what does our CCB rider do? He lights it up going up the hill. I think just about everyone in the break was ready to strangle him. Me? Well I got to blow up and spent the next half a lap with them in sight, chasing alone before another CCB rider bridges up to me. He wants to get to the break. "Great!" I think, only apparently he also only know how to go HARD so I spend about 2 laps with him where if I am not doing greater than 450 watts he comes around me, but if I do greater than 450 watts he falls off my wheel when we hit an incline. Work-load was never split well and we get caught.

At this point I know my race is over, I have burned too many matches and I know it. So as I get popped the next time over the hill I have a teammate who wants to bridge me back to the field. So continuing with my current luck I take my pull before the feedzone (which is on a nice uphill.....) then he takes his pull and just lays down the power UP a hill while I am trying to grab neutral water. My teammate pops me, I yell out to him and he comes back and drags me into the grouppetto he just popped me off of and blows himself up in the process.

So I got to spend the last bit of that race riding in a grouppetto that actually knew how to ride together, yay.

Moral of the story: NEVER take a pull before an uphill, doesn't matter if it doesn't make sense to get attacked, or your teammate is the next one taking a pull. Don't do it, ever. Lesson learned. Also I now have a certain CCB rider on "The **** list", I will never take a pull if he is in a break with me. THE END.

mike868y

for what it's worth, grolby road really really well. the only reason he popped on lap three and I didn't is because I was sucking wheel while he was dumping watts at the front on the second lap.

hubcyclist

Oh, I agree, I've seen some other folks who finished higher in their respective fields with similar power numbers to mine. Main difference is I suck at racing lol This guy also finished nearly 20min before I did.

globecanvas

I agree it sucks when somebody shatters the break, causing it to get caught. But I also see that team won the race out of a break, had chasers (or break stragglers) in for 4th and 5th, and won the field sprint for 7th, which is a total domination finish.

If your **** list guy was one of those 4, then it sounds like he was strong enough to do whatever he wanted. If he was their one guy who finished OTB, then maybe it was an intentional thing to work over all the favorites?

echappist

his numbers are probably legit, as i did a quick google search. Varasity rowers are very strong.

As for what to do with your numbers (more important here), things i like to see are the highest power numbers for a given duration. Did they occur early in the race or later in the race? Purgatory has a vo2max hill, and what you do on that hill gives you an indication of your 3-5 min power.

Another thing is have you needed to do extended chase effort (say over 10 min)? If so, what are those numbers? The first one would probably give you an indication of suprathrehsold power.

Lastly, NP for the race should be pretty close to your FTP, perhaps a bit lower in this case as it's over an hour

dz_nuzz

Ahh I should have specified that he WAS the guy that won. I have raced with him before and he is an incredible engine but has zero sense while racing. His team has even openly said that. Last year at GMSR while he was in the break that I won out of he would continually ride off the front of the break only to be caught again and again, in the end he just blew himself up because that was a 90 mile breakaway and he had no clue how to ride it. This time it was far shorter so he wasn't in as much danger of running out of "turbo". I wasn't in the rest of that break but my assumption is that it was slowly shattered by him pulling through too hard and the guy who got second is a savy racer so he probably figured that out and sat in.

It felt like racing with a single Cat 5 in a Cat 1 break. Most of us were preparing for a coherent breakaway and were doing work to match that assumption since ALL the major teams had representation. Things went totally out the window though. In the end I definitely cannot fault him since he won. But that does mean that as far as I am concerned he is just someone to be used, not someone to work with because he simply is incapable of that. Perhaps "****-list" is not the right term but there are people I welcome in a break because I know they are both a motor and understand basic breakaway mechanics, then there are those that are a motor but have no clue how to ride with someone. He falls into the latter.

TheKillerPenguin

So as far as Purgatory goes, the favorites tipped me off on the winning break before the race, reminded me of it during the race, and I responded that I thought it was a lap too early and got complacent and when they went I was at the back of the field, but suddenly decided I needed to be up with them and rode through the field and bridged up to it, but I finished bridging right at the bottom of the feed zone climb and I was popped pretty much 100m later.

So when the strong guys tell you to join them in the break you don't second guess yourself and you make sure you're in position at the place they've told you to be ready. Also if you decide to do one thing you shouldn't dump watts all over the road deciding to do something else.

I think I need to see a shrink or something, or just get angry, or snort some coke.

canuckbelle

Its not just the power you can put out, but how you use it. I've seen way too many people able to put out a NP >300w who ride at the front the whole race, then blow up with a couple laps to go. Meanwhile, the winner was in the pack riding at 170NP until the decisive moment(s).

KingShakes

Some data on the crit. Sprint for the mid race omnium points was better effort than my end race effort which I guess is no surprise considering the work I put in for positioning at the end of the race. 1100 Watt Jump, 800 watt 15 sec. Was about 100 watts below that at the finish. 325 watt average last 5 min. This was my 10th mass start race, so I will be upgrading to cat 4. Probably a lull in racing with the calendar around here until mid July.

grolby

Data say: Lap 2 was my easiest trip up the climb (with the group), by a good 20 watts or so - but that was right after some brutal attacks and covers down by the lake. Biggest power was 1st time up (!). Lap 3 probably would've been higher, though. I just cracked. But seriously, thanks. I'm trying to make peace with it. Mostly by doubling down on my commitment to the long-term training plan I'm on, so I can crush it next year.

grolby

That sucks, man. We've got one of those guys in the 3s (I think you know who...). With any luck he'll be your problem soon, heh. Better luck next time!