Racing 2012
 

Is this cross insanity over yet? It will be interesting to see how folks still geared up for cross do on the road this year.

Anybody happen to have any sort of idea how the WCA schedule is going to pan out? I've got an idea of how things are going to pan out on the Illinois side. I'd like to start filling in some of the other options.

I'd ask if it's March yet, but I'm headed outside to ride as we speak. It might as well be early May already.

'Member when the season ended in late August? Just two years ago? :lol:

My latest video:

http://youtu.be/nNR0zVtoMY4

I'd take road racing going strong into late August. Seems that folks around here want to shut down the road season earlier and earlier. Only the diehards are willing to race after Elk Grove. Such a shame. Winfield and Fall Fling are so much fun.

Speaking of earlier racing, those pre-july dates are getting awfully cannibalistic. Looks like Illinois is very possibly going to have the Road and Crit champs on the same weekend (maybe even the same day) about 6 hours apart. It also looks like there could be two Illinois races on the first weekend of Superweek. It's gotten awfully messy over the last couple of years.

It's highly front loaded due to the impact of TOAD and Superweek and the "New as yet named after Superweek TOAD run stage race in Illinois". Illinois racing as far as local promotions is essentially done as soon as June rolls around. Kind of pathetic actually.

Once August rolls around everyone is on cross it seems. Kelli said the following in our meeting the other night, "nothing says 'cyclocross' like 'August 1st'." Just the way it is now. Now with it this way you have local clubs having to beat each other up for dates in April and May. This will continue as long as cross is so popular and ToAD and SW keep getting traffic.

I'll never understand why cross is popular before mid-September, really. 70 degrees and a high sun are a recipe to bake during a high-intensity, low speed (virtually no cooling breeze) race. Not to mention that dry, firm turf really make the cross races around here more like grass crits than cross. But, whatever keeps people happy, I guess.

I don't really mind a front-loaded schedule. I'm plenty content at the late-season ABD races. The new team competition at the Fall Fling this year made it the most fun I had all season.

The local races scheduling all over themselves in the early months doesn't make sense, though. A light turnout in August will likely not be remedied by putting your race in June if there is another race or two going on within a decent distance.

And, it REALLY doesn't make sense if both Glencoe and O'Fallon end up as State Championship races this year. As much as organizers pick and choose their own scheduling, the ICA has a say in who gets championships. I thought making Glencoe the state crit was a bad idea last year, making it the state crit would be a doubly bad idea this year. Maybe that race should go back to Peoria, or Cobb Park, or Dixon or something that could use the extra "something" to get one or two extra riders in a field.

Really, though, there is no better way to diminish a state championship than to schedule them both on top of each other (says the State Champion of a fairly marginal State Championship).

I think I missed this one. I'm putting my racing schedule together, and what's that all about?

The TOAD guys are looking to invade Illinois. They're trying to put on a 4 day series in late July. I know they've talked to a lot of people in the west and northwest 'burbs. I haven't head much about any kind of progress, but everybody around here assumes it's going to happen in one form or another.

I'll be crushing it at Leland before shutting down my training in preparation for not racing 'cross.

Any race before memorial day weekend is a training race.

Any cx race before October doesn't count.

O'Fallon is two weeks later this year, date on usacycling website is wrong. No conflict with GGP.

The Friday crit before GGP is a cat B. Pretty big.

+1 on GGP not being state crit.

Yes.
YES

Yes, yes, yes.

In other news looks like Leland reg opens tomorrow. No lower cat masters racers. Looks like Carlosflanders is going to be forced to duke it out with the young kids this year.

Odds are I'll be duking it out with druber, conant and other big boys at Leland That's fine with me. Don't want to ever do another cat 4 race if I can help it.

Gotta wonder about why they removed last year's largest category though. Doesn't make sense financially.

Looks like you're in for 125k, too. Much better distance for you than me.

I'm not sure why they did what they did other than it looks very streamlined. Thinking that all the 4's and 5's already have options, I bet the total number of 4/5 riders won't be any lower than last year... even if they did eliminate their largest race.

I do have a pretty decent belief that this race won't be in the Illinois Cup, which I find very interesting. If the Cup is going to be mostly in the first part of the year, seems like this might be a great race to have on there.

10 guys pre-reg'd for Leland, 6 of them from the BH. Talking about chomping at the bit to get back out there...

http://www.bikereg.com/events/ConfLi...?EventID=15310

Sooooo....

The Illinois Cup schedule is out. I think most of the changes (shorter, earlier season) are great. Interesting move in eliminating what was probably the biggest (on numbers) class (masters 4/5). As a fat guy who sucks at both hills and road races, though, I'm a bit surprised that there aren't much in the way of road races or (from what I can tell) hilly crits. I suppose that if Leland or Dixon aren't interested, though, there's not much they can do.

I agree with shortening the length and making it a bit more intense. Illinois is a crit state and the cup, at least, is honest about that. It's not intended to honor strong riders. Good thing to separate out the state champs as well.

I think it's crazy to remove the biggest category, both financially and from a points perspective. A lot of people upgraded to the 3s last year - there were lots of opportunities to earn points. Now there will be much fewer, with fewer upgrades.

Most 4s and 5s want to race twice, only a percentage will want to race open masters. I get to race 3 times if I wish.

Even USA Cycling have abandoned 30+, but not IL.

That said, I think it's an improvement overall. I think a minimum purse requirement would be great as well. Seems that the larger the numbers attending the more miserable and shallower the awards.

Best thing is that former pros who wish to race at cat 5 level need to do 10 races before they can start to bag the cash.

I'm contemplating putting all of the races on my calendar. So, regardless of what I may or may not thing of anything, it seems they've done a good job of making it more appealing (to me).

I'm wondering if they maybe haven't streamlined the whole thing a bit in an effort to give organizers the ability to run additional races of their choosing? Maybe you will see some masters 4/5... just not as a Il Cup cat.

The masters stuff does seem a bit much. There's no real good answer to that stuff, though. My personal thought is that there has got to be some way to attract decent fields in masters races and not necessarily run 3 races. Weird as it sounds, I'd consider going to something like 36+ and 48+. On the other hand, when you've got whole teams around here formed just to race masters stuff...

The masters cats last year definitely didn't work. I think 40+ and 50+ are the most reasonable. Only better cutoffs would be Druber-9 and Druber+1. There are a lot of masters racers out there who would like that.

I should be at a few races this year.

if true this leaves me one main guy to mark, instead of two. better odds i guess. :) later.

Unfortunately, it appears as though I won't be racing Leland.

Still planning to go. Aham, carlosflanders... you guys need bottle handups? I'll probably be doing that for the BH. Don't see why I couldn't help a few more folks out.

you are going, but cant race? got a training conflict or something? i think i carried only 2 bottles last year, but needed 3, so YES. later.

Basically, yes. I've got a million races I'm going to try to hit May-June, so chasing the 1/2's around for 80 miles this weekend didn't really fit in the plan. I'll likely be racing Montrose the following day.

I'm hoping to take the BH tent out there, set it up in the feed zone, and hand out water to the team as they come by. Getting you a bottle shouldn't be an issue.

Looks like they're going to let me transfer my entry, so there should be another chick 4 in there soon.

Might take you up on that, thanks. I did Leland on 1.5 bottles last year and was even pouring water on the drivetrain before the end, but if the temp is over 40F I"ll probably need more.

Got some work issues both weekends of Hillsboro and Leland, so won't be able to commit to participation until just before.

Who's got the Kenosha reports? Lets hear it, people.

Okay. Second hand report from a spectator's perspective.

Warm and windy. Headwind on the final, slightly uphill stretch to the finish line.

Masters 40+: Very aggressive race. Lots of attacks, all reeled in until Billy Jones (IS CORP) went with about 5 go to. Bye bye. :thumb: See the video on Peloton Star.

Masters 30+: Two riders went from the gun, two bridged and the four stayed away the entire race despite never getting more than 20 seconds on the pack. One rider got dropped on the final lap, but beat the hard charging main group to the line. Billy Jones led out the other two, right up the left hand gutter blocking the one man that looked like he had the legs to come around, but had no room to do so. Great sprint strategy on Jone's part. (see video on Peloton Star! :) )

Men's Cat 5: Easy breezy start. One rider saying: "Okay guys, try not to win it on the first lap!" :rolleyes: Pace slowly increased as riders dropped off one by one. The pace went way up on the final lap and the sprint really came down to about 3 riders with everyone else strung out behind. (see video on Peloton Star! :D )