ShovelHD. Great result. It is not that you just won but who was in the field. Sometimes who you beat is more important than the field size.

Thanks for the kudos on the pics. I have to agree that my wife looks amazingly pro. I liked the pic using the 3T drop bars the best. Originally, I purchased those bars for me and she has taken them over.

And she does beat some of the elite cat 2 women in TTs and pursuit even though she is a Cat 4. Unlike yours truly, who gets his ass kicked by the elite men and many of the masters men. If I put together a list of racers who do not kick my ass, the list is short. However, I try to hang around with excellent competitors.

From a results view, we both think we sucked. We have lots of excuses but sucky is sucky. The LAVRA event is a wonderful concept and we really appreciate the time put in by the organizers and volunteers. However, for this event, we arrived at the track 7AM and left at 3:30 PM. My wife did the pursuit at 2:45 PM. It was a total tour de force for the racers and volunteers. We had lots of racers show up for same day registration and it overloaded the capability of the event. Everything took a lot of time and it was almost impossible to time a warmup to the actual race. However, it was the same for everyone. The next one the format and times will be changed and we may only allow pre registration.

My missile bars were okay for the 500 but did not yield a great time. I think they were too low and I did not feel like I produced as much power once I got into the aerobars.

The other thing that impacted the performance was the training on Thursday. We did a relatively hard session on Thursday. My legs felt amazing on Sunday but not so much on Saturday. Obviously, I need more recovery time or better preparation.

Bottom line is that the trip was a blast and the Thursday training session and Friday racing were great.

AzTR, not much to add about stressing yourself in the heat. How did you feel the next day? You can still be dehydrated the day after something like that. However, with all of the water you drank, it is possible that you over-hydrated and that can have serious physiological effects too (including death in extreme cases). There is a lot of expert information out there about staying in a good hydration zone. I know that you mentioned dumping water over your head. Just wanted to add that doing that for cooling can be as important as drinking the water. After making a mistake a few years ago, I try to make sure that I have one energy drink bottle and a bottle with plain water. It's better to err on the side of plain water as it's not fun pouring energy drink over your head. :innocent:

sarals, you have a great attitude about this and if you have the passion to fuel your attitude you will get more competitive. Being there counts for a lot (see my paraphrasing of Racer Ex below). Are you going to enter the Pasadena Senior Games (bike racing in Long Beach) in June? Info here: http://www.pasadenaseniorcenter.org/...s/senior-games These races are more about the joys of being a senior athlete rather than being hard core competitions. The senior games races have a much more collegial feel to them.

So now everyone knows I wasn't lying when I commented on how good Hermes and Velo Diva looked when I saw them in person. :D

Regarding race reports in the 33:

Racer Ex, I think you've told me and others in the past that showing up is more than half of the game. Congratulations on winning the TT series (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...1#post14128329) and this year's award is the best looking one that I've seen them hand out. Just don't tell me that you're going to be racing 55+ next year. ;)

shovelhd, great results and race reports (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...1#post14131272)! I don't know about the northeast but there is this rolling wave of Baby Boomers that either follows me or emerges as I move up in age. (And remember, it is all about me. ;)) My understanding is that our 55+ fields are 20-30% larger than previous years. They combine us with the 60+ guys and the smallest field I've experienced this year has been around 40 racers. Most races have been 50 or more. Been in several 100 rider 50+ races this year :eek: (including one that Racer Ex won).

For myself, after sitting in a mentally stimulating, work-related conference on Friday night, all-day Saturday, and Sunday morning, I headed over towards LAX for the LA Circuit Race. My club used to be one of the original co-promoters for this race. When I started racing more seriously again in the early 2000s I got dropped on this course more than once. :o Because of the conference I entered the Cat. 3 race and for some reason I had a fear that the pace would be high and that I might have trouble hanging on. In the end, that fear was unfounded. It was barely as fast as and not as hard as your typical Masters 55+ race. I was less than pleased with some of the risks that many of these younger guys were taking to move up and stay in the draft without actually going to the front. I ended up attacking twice. The first time we ended up with 6 people in a short-lived break. The second time there were just 2 of us in an even shorter break. The lead up to the sprint was a cluster with clanging wheels but fortunately no crash. Still, I decided to just sit up and roll across the line.

Shovel, I've got to read that!

Oh - that gal behind me in the photo - I have no idea if I dropped her or not! I think you all get what I mean there - that climb was a struggle, or worse, and I wasn't really aware of what was going on around me.

BTW, the "almost crashes" in the neutral were NOT during the descent. I would have expected that, too. One was on the Raceway - a gal dropped her bottle, and another gal swerved to miss it and almost took out a few riders in the process. The other was as the peloton was near the beginning of the descent, and someone just plain ran off the pavement. Adrenaline and young people - what a bad combination! I didn't mind being at the back, it was part of my plan. I felt, at my level of experience (among other things) that I had no business being boxed in anywhere, despite any advantage I might get. I wasn't worried about "jumping" at the climb - I would have been "out jumped", and I was. I felt "safety was the better part of valor"!

HTFU? Nope, you don't need to say that to me, AJ. But I don't mind if you do!

Mr and Mrs H ALWAYS look great! If you haven't seen them on a track in person, you're missing something. I know Hermes has posted video of the Diva flying around the track, and it's pretty impressive.

Once again, everyone - thanks!

not for me. I don't go fast enough for the wind to blow the drops off!!
For you, YES!

Cleave, our 45+ and 50+ fields are usually pretty large. We'll have over 110 for my road race this weekend in the 50+, including several ex-pros. The weather kept this field down, for sure.

Thanks everyone for your kind words, and to Ex for helping me prep.

No over-hydration, and no residual dehydration. If you live in Phoenix, and don't know the signs to watch for, you better not ride. I actually managed it pretty well, other than under-estimating the heat and having honey-water in both my bottles, and the plain water in the Camelbak. You should have seen my trying to figure out how to get Camelbak water onto my head without crashing. Actually, by the time I needed cooling off water, I had neutral water to use. But I am going back to my standard system of having the energy stuff in a flask, and plain water in the bottles. I was trying the other approach because I have a tendency to not take in enough calories, and having it in the bottles ensures I get the caloric intake. But the advantages of plain water in the bottles, in an environment where you need constant refills or replacement bottles, overwhelms all else.

Cleave, I'm not going to make it to Dana Point, but it's looking good for joining Ex to get dropped climbing a huge mountain to watch the pros.

Sara? I just want to say once again that I'm really proud of you for jumping in the way you have now. Way to go!

AzT, thank you! Cyber hug coming at ya!

Track workout this AM. Warmup and three efforts behind the motor. It is always interesting to ride the 335 meter track compared to the 250 meter track with 45 degree banking. It was a beautiful morning with rain coming in later today and tomorrow. So I am back on the trainer for the next couple of days.

Your commitment to the trainer is commendable, Hermes.

Day off today. On Sunday I did an hour just below threshold, and yesterday I was out in the rain for just over four hours in Z2 and, occasionally, Z3. I'm starting to feel pretty good, and while the weight is coming off only half as fast as I had planned, I'm beginning to feel that might be a good thing as long as downward progress is maintained.

I rode with the Tuesday group today. Parts of the route cover some of the sections I raced on Saturday. I was determined to work hard and get positive results, and I did. I was able to get my heart rate above 152 and sustain it up there for a few minutes on several occasions. I did well, feeling fairly strong (for me), maintaining a good cadence for the first half of the Barloy Canyon Road climb (the finish climb on the SOC road event), but that last .4 miles, where it really gets steep, is still painfully elusive. It will come.

The weekend after next is the Wildflower Triathlon. I'm doing the run portion of the Olympic distance event as part of a relay team. That run will be the last one until October when I do the Big Sur River Run 10K. It's all bike for the rest of the summer. There won't be any more triathlons, either. I said I was going to get serious, and I am. I crave and love a challenge. I don't know how much I can gain, but I'm sure something will come of it. I certainly will enjoy it! The racing will be much more fun if I can stay attached to the peloton for the better part of a race, too - and that's on me. I'm looking for "flat" road races, as Hermes suggested, to get some group experience. I've already entered two of the CCCX circuit races coming up in June and July - they're on the same course I rode in March - and there is a fair amount of climbing on that course! As my brother the marathoner says, "Good PT".

After a croissant/recovery ride with my wife Sunday, and the day off yesterday, I started prepping for Sunday's state crit by doing the Tuesday night practice crit. But I did it differently to keep the total stress of the workout in line with prep goals. After a warmup, I rode the A crit for ~15 minutes, joining a brief break, and pulling a little, before dropping off for cool-down. During the cool-down, I did 6 'form sprints' at the finish line of the course, not at full effort. Well, a couple were pretty close to it, as I topped 1,000w. But I tried to keep them smooth and practice shifting as I ramped it up. I think that, in trying to temper the effort, I was shifting too soon, as my cadence never got up very high. Great workout though, and my stress score was only 8 points above the target of 75.

Great night of velodrome racing last night here in San Diego except I had to work late and missed out. Guest racers were Sarah Hammer and the Felt Racing Team. We had three World Champions racing: Sarah Hammer, Shaun Wallace and the current Junior World Scratch Champion Jennifer Valente. Sarah showed the boys how to ride a points race!

Sarah is nothing but class. Got to watch her at Elite Track Nats and I thought she rode the cleanest pursuit out of any of the competitors, male or female.

Good luck this weekend at States. What point do you shift when sprinting? We are all different and I'm just wondering. I usually will sprint OTS and shift at 115-120 rpm. Looking at power files, my power doesn't seem to increase much beyond 125-130. Seated it is best around 130-135 and I can hold it a little longer seated but it is not as high.

FWIW, I start my sprint at 95rpm and shift between 110-120rpm, running it up to 135rpm depending on the course, jump, group, conditions, etc.

I am surprised by the 135 sprinting cadence. That is a good number for track seated sprinting where we have fixed gear. For the road, I sprint out of the saddle and there is no way I can do high cadence OTS but then I am a lowly Cat 4.

In the sprint clinics, I have attended, we were told to pick our mark on the course which was 200 meters from the finish line. At that point, we shift into our sprint gear, get out of the saddle and kill it. The ideal gear would be one such that the 200 meters is covered in 20 pedal strokes. Another way to find the starting point is to get into your sprint gear and pedal back 20 pedal strokes and note the start. However, this is very basic sprinting 101.

In the case of Cavendish, he knows exactly where to start his sprint and what gear to be in. Everyone else knows this and tries to disrupt the execution. I hate it when sprinters cry on TV.:D

Believe it or not, Bradley Wiggins won the sprint in today's stage of the Tour of Romandie. Went with just under 1km to go, and held them off.

To be fair, Cav and the other real sprinters had been burned off some time earlier. Still...

Thanks for that...I have not watched it yet it is on my DVR. No spoilers please.

I apologise. I always complain about others posting this stuff outside the pro forum, so there is no excuse.


You'll enjoy it, though...

My DVR cut the last 10 minutes off of LBL. Recording Romandie and have Amstel to watch.

Leave for Texas tomorrow. Ft. Davis stage race. First mass start since the wreck; I'm fat and not exactly flying but we'll do the best we can. Be a nice visit with my old teammates. Great bunch of folks. Texas was very good to me in a lot of ways, especially the friends I made.

Ex, say hi to Mike for me. Best of luck to you and Joe's.

Ex: Welcome back and have a great time in TX. In bocca al lupo