mike868y

thanks guys - i know in the grand scheme of things my results aren't that impressive but after getting hurt last year and barely hanging on in the few races I did then getting my ass kicked at races earlier this year (battenkill, quabbin) it feels really, really good to finally feel like i'm riding at a cat 3 level again.

grolby

You have the ability to continue improving. Stick with it. You can place in these races.

kmill23

2015 LAMBRA Team Time Trial Race Report


The Team Time Trial is one of my favorite events. I hadn't had the opportunity to race it in a while, but when I asked my brother (who's a really strong Cat 4 TTer) if he was game to race the Cat 3 TTT with me and he agreed, it was ON. We talked two other strong guys into racing it with us. I knew with the four of us, there wouldn't be another Cat 3 team in our district that could touch us.

The course was 30-miles, out and back. Our plan was to take pulls of about 1:00 each, set the power output at about our 3-mile TT effort, and roll. From the gun, we got into a great rotation taking steady pulls. A nice tailwind greeted us for the first few miles. We averaged 30.0 MPH for the first 6.6 miles. The wind turned into a crosswind toward the turn-around. We all took our fair share of the pulls until about mile 12, when another guy and I started taking longer pulls at about 90-seconds each. We made it to the turn-around in 31:05, averaging 28.9 MPH.

We took the turn-around smoothly, got regrouped and back up to speed quickly taking advantage of the cross-wind (lack of headwind!) for the next few miles. At about mile 22.5, a small gap opened up on my brother as he rotated off the front and he couldn't regain contact. We didn't notice until I rotated to the back. At that point, the pressure was on, and we had to keep rolling with the remaining three. Without the additional horsepower, the effort was definitely harder for the last 7.5 miles. One of the other guys was starting to hurt and his pulls were shorter and shorter. I did my best to keep my pulls at least 60 seconds, sometimes 75 seconds. The third in the group was the powerhouse and drilled it. With about 1.2 miles to go, I took my last pull, and held on as he went to the front and set the pace at 28+ MPH into a headwind and took us almost all the way to the line.

We crossed the line together at 1:02:45 (28.5 MPH Average) for the winning Cat 3 Team and second fastest time on the day to a Cat 1/2 team, who rode a blistering 58:56.

Harlan

Hello there.

As expected, I rolled right through the back of the field on the first climb of the day (3/4 field for those not keeping track, my first weekend racing as a 4) along with a surprising amount of 3s. We regrouped at the end of the climbs for a fun and uninhibited descent and had ourselves a nice Sunday ride. A 4 from Cycleloft (443 IIRC) whipped us into a chase midway through the flat section but I wasn't trying to pull too hard right before the last climb. Did well enough - I got up it. Everyone else I was with left me behind. Overall a blast and I had enough time to shower before I watched my wife finish as well.


We are staying in Tannersville for most of the week to finish out the honeymoon and will get some sweet riding in.

island rider

I wish we were too. When are you leaving? We could grab a ride. But we're in lake George. Stick around for the UCI World Cup. It's a great event.

tetonrider

never, ever apologize for results.

we sometimes say it as a joke but it works both ways--it is DAMN HARD to be a mediocre amateur bike racer. add in stuff like getting hurt and the difficulty increases.

respect for sticking with it. lots of reasons to be discouraged but you are finding reason to keep going. i like that.

mike868y

unfortunately my form seems to be coming up just as the season is wrapping up around here, but i'm hoping this positive reinforcement helps push me through the darkness times that is winter and early spring.

gsteinb

The season isn't just wrapping up. There's 3 months with road races in them. And if you actually placed in some of those races because you had good form and others were started to slow down, would that be a demerit in your mind? If you got a result or two between now and Jamestown would it be unfortunate? Form is form. Results are results. Stop being negative. It's not unfortunate. The season isn't almost over. Get what you can and enjoy it.

mike868y

i mean as far as road races go there's basically just tokeneke and gmsr. i'll be doing everything that's on the schedule, but in the same way as you don't fool yourself into thinking you can win tokeneke, it's not a productive exercise for me to target something like mayors cup to try and get a result.

gsteinb

Jamestown.

If you don't think you can get a result at Tokeneke do the jersey devil instead of tokeneke. that's a 2.5k hill

there's a bunch of hill climb coming up as well.

gsteinb

in jersey there's also

August 16 Pinecone Road Race
August 22 Flanders

With Flanders being an eddy TT with a climb.

wens

Man, I wish our calendar wasn't almost wrapping up. Maybe four or five total road events within four hours. Stupid Cyclocross.

mike868y

i love bike racing, but traveling from boston to jersey is too far for me.

gsteinb

guess you're screwed. thanks for playing.

Wylde06

Im probably only doing one more race on the calendar. Was thinking of doing the Milk Race, but the early start coupled with the 2-2.5 hour drive doesn't sound too appealing.

wens

You should do neocycle over here. And as close as you are to Michigan it would be a shame not to do Debaets-Devos.

Milk race is ok, the hill is mostly pretty shallow.

Wylde06

Debaets-Devos is a definite. And I just saw this pop up on usa cycling... https://www.bikereg.com/tour-of-ohio .. if it actually happens, I should be able to do both Saturday and Sundays race, then Debaets-Devos on Monday. I thought about doing NeoCycle, will have to see how anxious I am to do 1 or 2 more crits (depending on how early I want to leave) in the middle of September.

gsteinb

TheKillerPenguin

Tour of the Catskills, 7th in the ITT (thanks again for the jammer bars @globecanvas, faster than my ITT bike), 10th in the circuit race, 11th in stage 3, 7th/50 starters on GC. Was 3rd coming into the final stage, had some bad luck and someone ran into my rear wheel with 45ish miles to go which knocked it way out of true and had the brake rubbing it turns out. The field was blown apart when it happened so I couldn't stop to change it, and the pace was kept too high to chance stopping to change it when we got to the flatter section of the course. Figure if it cost me 10 extra watts that's something like 22-23 seconds on the Devil's Kitchen climb (double digits steep and ~15-16min long) at the pace we were going which was the difference between making the front group and keeping my podium and chasing like I was. Bad luck but such is life and bike racing, 9 more points, puts me at 25/30. On to the next one.

globecanvas

Nice racing TKP, and points in the "overcoming adversity" column too.

Ygduf

that's great. too out of true to open the brake all the way? I actually left my rear brake pretty wide as that's the wheel which tends to go out of true if I run over a huge bump or something. Is a bummer if you missed out on a podium chance from mechanicals, but it happens to everyone eventually.

globecanvas

This exact thing has happened to me, but more accurate to describe it as the wheel getting hit and pushing the brake out of center, which then rubs. In my case the wheel ended up being fine but I had to re-center the brake after the race to stop the rubbing. I opened the brake all the way on the fly (during the last lap of a 1/2/3 crit :/) but it wasn't enough.

TheKillerPenguin

Nope, they were as wide open as they can get, the wheel is crazy out of true. Thankfully carbon rims are really strong, taking it to my bike shop now and hopefully it should be ready for Tokeneke this weekend.

Sizzle82

State Games of America Circuit race Cat 5
2nd/26

3.9 mile course with a couple short steep climbs. 1 guy got away on the first lap and nobody wanted to chase. I tried to bridge across but didn't have the legs. Made another lap and he stayed out front with about a group of 6 of us chasing. Last lap, uphill finish was sitting fourth wheel and everybody attacked the hill early. I decided to sit back and wait, soon as I seen a couple guys sit down I went and got by all 5 of them. Overall I was good experience. This is the third 2nd place finish Ive had in a row. I really want to win one. I have two more chances with back to back crits in a week so we will see what happens.

TexMac

Darn! that's fast!