tetonrider

if you'd like to be a 2, you should take advantage of the fact that utah races (almost always) have p123 fields. you can then get to see whether or not you enjoy racing with the p12s. if you don't like it, then no need to worry about the upgrade and go back to the 3/4 fields they run.

haven't raced much in utah in the past 18 months but EVERYONE talked about wanting to upgrade to 2 and almost no one would race p123 while they were a 3. it's a great 'try before you buy' thing. serious.

tetonrider

yes!

fun RR stage in the morning........ YOLO!!!!! we'll see what happens. aggressive racing is a given.

mattm

San Rafael p/1/2 - survived!

Got to line up early, but like half the field came from the other direction and got in front of us.. oh well.

Took a few laps to feel normal, but eventually moved up.

Tried to bridge to a move but failed.

Caught behind a crash with 3 or 4 to go, that didn't help things. Came in mid-pack, but really glad to do this great event again and not die trying!

gsteinb

I rode a really good race today. Bridged to everything and anything. But with four or five to go and unlikely break went up the road and it wasn't really my turn to drag it back. I won the field sprint for fifth. Tough sport this year.

Ygduf

Red Kite - Berkeley Crit 35+

Some idiot rode a cargo bike like this

into the middle of the race at the halfway point. Amazingly only one guy hit it and he and the kid were relatively unscathed. His bike basically exploded.

30 minutes into a 60min race we had a 10 or 15min pause to get the **** sorted out. On restart one guy rides clear and is maybe 10-15sec up. Someone shouts "let him dangle!" and I ask if they will let me dangle out there. 1 lap post restart we're still noodling so I say **** it and go seed the break. I never get more than 10 seconds gap because those ****s chase me like I'm the golden snitch and I have no teammates (again) to disrupt or mark bridge attempts. But, I hold my 5-10s gap for 10 minutes and when I'm caught it's 4 guys. The represented teams' strongmen.

They basically ride right through me. I latch on for 5 minutes. I take one pull. ONE pull, and the strongest guy counters my pull and we're now full gas for the last 3 laps. I eventually disconnected with 1/4 lap to go on the race to the final corner. Sat up and coasted across for 5th. Snagged 2 primes while solo, which are points in this series so today I scored 20+5*2 for 30, winner was 25+5 for 30, and 2nd place (like 5 points ahead of me) exploded his bike into a child carrier.

I'm happy and unhappy. Last weekend 1 teammate strong enough to help and I win. This week none and I'm back to my back-of-the-break results.

Oh, and one puckering moment - there's 1 left turn and it's sort of uphill with a pretty high crown in the road. I misjudged my exit and traded some pedal for some of the crosswalk paint.

aaronmcd

^ was my teammate hit the bike-cart, maybe a month after going down at the track. I feel bad for him, but he has some good gymnastics skillz. Did a front flip entirely over the bike-cart and child, snapped the right half of his bars off and walked off with barely a scrape on the elbow.

UmneyDurak

D-faq? Then again, from marshaling few races it doesn't surprise me how stupid people can be. "Stop, don't go" "Who are you to stop me?" "Marshal, and also a guy who is saving your ass because in 5 seconds you will be hit by bunch of bikes going 30+" Idiots.

My left pedal is scrapped like that, actually worse, from Covalita Crit. No one has a video of me almost high siding myself off the bicycle.

aaronmcd

Race weekend for me, no results but felt pretty good.

San Rafael, Cat 3/4
Had 4 teammates in the 88 man field. None of us got a good spot lining up. I spent the first 15 minutes moving up, while ALL my teammates and about 40 others got dropped. Early break was caught while I moved up. I got to the front, and immediately got swarmed. Figured I'd sit in and conserve rather than fight for position until the last few laps. Last lap was farther back than I wanted to be, but I usually have a sudden crapload of energy at the end. I did this time as well, but got chopped in corner one, hit the brakes, then caught behind a crash in corner 2 and had to carefully navigate around it. Suddenly too far to be worth risking limbs, and safely rolled into the final straight before sprinting it out for 23rd.

Today 2 crits, P shape course with 5 rights and a left.
3/4, felt sluggish at the start but warmed up ok a few laps in. Went for it a couple times, but the wind out-weighed the cornering and we couldnt get a break to stick. Felt strong at the finish, near the front, but my mind and legs betrayed me and I didnt jump on the second to final long straight. Lost position and sprinted for 7th.

2/3, teammate Chris won the 35 1/2/3 and he and I were working to keep Erik fresh for a sprint. By 15 minutes though, a break had gone without us, and when Chris was done chasing he sent me to the front. Put in a few good half lap digs, and he come back up to help. He gets in a chase, gets almost out of sight and looks like they will make it, so I start covering instead. I sit on several bridge attempts, but none seem promising enough to work for. 2 laps to go, 6 up the road, a Mikes Bikes guy attacks hard out of turn 2, I chase hard with one on my wheel. Make him pull through the bell, decide to sit on until the pack is almost at us and attack. Out of turn 3 they almost caught us so I go. Didnt get enough rest though and burned out coming into the sprint. Erik won field sprint for 7th, but Chris and his chase never made the bridge and he ended up 5th. Fun race though! Worth the 2 hour train ride to get there.

bostongarden

Subconsciously this may have been an homage to Le Tour or a desire to have color accenting on your pedals similar to that on your bike.

canuckbelle

Won another race in the "local" crit series. The 3/4 women race with the 4/5 men, and it's mostly just a matter of who can hold on the longest...and who can be in the top half of the field during the final sprint. So it's not really that much of a challenge. Happily, my teammate lapped the field with one other guy, so he got 2nd and secured his upgrade ^_^

jdms mvp

haha so true. Kudos for being the most combative rider!

hack

So ... Cascade happened. Eff that was hard.

Road Race. Opens with a 10 minute climb, then a short descent, followed up with another 10 minute climb. That's followed up with some 30 miutes of descending, then 50 miles of rollers, and finally a 10ish mile 5-6% climb into a head wind. I sucked bad in this one. Goal was to support teamate. I barely did that by getting stuck behind a crash and getting him a bottle from the first feed (which he didn't need) then chasing back hard for 6 miles to catch on and work my way through the field to him at the front. After that, sat on the back and blew up on the climb as expected.

Time Trial. Ouch ... finish a 75 mile road race at 6+PM and then hit a TT at 8-ish AM the next day. This didn't go as well as I'd like. I was a good 30 watts shy of where I should have been on power and the time showed.

Crit. Fun, much much fun. 35-minutes, 100ish guys, 0.8 mile rectangle course with a tight turn 3 and 4. Opposite direction from last year for those familiar with it. We were clever and got to the start 10 minutes early to line up. Once our field was called up, we moved up to the line only to be told that we were lining up at the cross walk some 20 yards back. Oh and that we had to do a lap since no reverse flow was allowed on the course. Come around and we're starting dead last ... shoot. Took 20 minutes to work through the field. On the way, there were a few crashes in corner 3 due to too many guys trying too many bad moves (including one guy constantly hopping on the outside curb with his cross bike). Got to the front too early and moved back about 10 wheels. With 5 or so to go, got caught behind a pedal strike or some other wobbly-ness in turn 3 and fell back about another 15 wheels. Made the decision to just sit in and not risk too much with 3-4 to go and tried to make sure our GC guy stayed safe going into the finish. Came in 24th. One of the fastest crits I've done.

Circuit Race. Fun course, but at this point I was just wrecked. Hung in as long as I could, but eventually got dropped. Fell back into a "chase group" (aka, off the back catching nothing but sunrays) and finished off the day/stage/race nice and easy (and a loooong way back).

In the end, I did about as well as I thought I'd do in the road and circuit races, but expected more in the TT. Crit was good, but could have been better. Now that I know the courses a bit better, I'll race smarter next year (assuming they dont change things up).

Teammate did awesome netting a 6th in GC with a 4th in the road race and 4th in the circuit race.

save10

sounded epic

shovelhd

Sounds like you left nothing out there. Don't you just love those Peter Sagan wannabes? It's one thing to jump the curb to avoid a wreck but another to do it lap after lap. That's just being a dick.

hack

Best part was on his umpteenth time doing it, he (or an imitator) clipped the curb. Glad to have made it around that.

edit: but yeah ... while not a series of courses for me, it was a good time

misterwaterfall

Nice report @hack My team had some guys down there in the 2's as well and they snagged the win in the opening RR. Guy that won is seriously strong so I'm not surprised it was a tough race.

furiousferret

solid work @hack!

hack

when you're right, you're right

save10

San Rafael Sunset Crit

35+3/4 - was on the wheel of the eventual winner in the final laps, 3-4 position overall. some how managed to lose the wheel going up the hill with two laps to go. then almost got crashed going down the hill on the same lap, was shuffled to the back and ended any chance of contention. It was a hard race as usual. At 20 minutes i thought....just quit it all the pain will go away. then i said to myself if you finish you dont have to do the 123 race. i got a hold of myself, but i should have fought harder for those important wheels

35+123 - zero chance of finishing, but i reg'd for it already. at 10 minutes i looked behind and guys were already off the back. Guys on real teams who hadnt raced yet. Ominous. then a guy in front of me would get gapped and i would have to sprint through the opening. and then it kept happening over and over until a group of us got pulled en mass about 18 minutes in. i got to 24 minutes last year.

Notes:
-i was sick. fever/sore throat in the morning. i didnt effect me too much. i timed my tylenol to kick in right at the start of the first race. But i was still sick the next day and decided to skip what turned about to be fudgy's cargobike-apalooza. fortunate in someways i guess
-i developed a crack in my saddle after crashing a few weeks ago at burlingame. somewhere during the 3/4 race (probably the near crash) i cracked it all the way through on both sides of the cut out. i raced with it in the 123s. but now its replaced with a branded model
- @aaronmcd noted that 40 guys got dropped from his race. I watched the beginning after my race. some guys were gapped after one lap and pulled with two or three. a blood bath. i dont think those guys knew what hit them
-i ate my first pizza in two months after the 123s. i love pizza
-i was eating my pizza quietly when one of the podium girls for the Pro race came by handing out cow bells. brunette, over 6 feet tall with heels, full stop one of the 10 most gorgeous women i have every seen in my entire life. she said 'do you want a cow bell?' my response 'uh....uh...' her response..an emasculating 'look, just take it'. smooth.

Racer Ex 

Track Nats report HERE.

Andy STi

Cascade is always fun. Maybe one day I'll do well in the TT.

4th
13th
6th
2nd
9th on GC

Was kind of bummed about just missing the podium on Friday - I need more beer!

Ygduf

not bad for some busted old man!

Racer Ex 

The long plane ride hurt me more than the racing.

carpediemracing 

Due to logistics (I drove from work, Missus was going to drive from home) I had no water at the race. I remember seeing 96 deg in the car while driving. It got a bit cooler, not much, maybe it was 90? I drank a few ounces of the free electrolyte stuff at the start area, lined up, and went.

Had no snap, like really no snap. Sat a lot, didn't stand. Parched by a couple laps in. Got dropped once but the field seemed collectively uninspired and I actually caught back on. After about 30 min (of 55 min + 5 laps) they rang the bell for the second pair of SPY sunglasses offered up by some SPY rider as primes. I don't use sunglasses but I figured that this would be the end of my race sprint thing. Followed a guy who was leading out for fun / no-apparent-reason, thought I was the only one with him, and jumped a bit early. Didn't shift into the 11T because on the trainer I've dumped the chain off the big ring a number of times sprinting in the 11T. Pipped at the line, had no acceleration left. I think the 11 would have helped but I'll never know.

I went straight at the first turn, stopped. I saw 176 bpm after the sprint, much higher than the 173 or something that I saw in my last Sunday race 2 weeks ago. SRM data says I hit 181 bpm after the sprint. No wonder I felt bad. Normally I don't see much over 175.

End of this year's Tues Night Races.

mike868y

already?! damn...summer flew by.