1jacktripper

How about sharing with the rest of us!

1jacktripper

Nice going!!

uspspro

Good Job Eric... time for the B group!

I took PTO yesterday... so I wasn't in SJ.

Next week I will try to head down there and do the B group.

Slonie

Congrats Eric!

I'll just wait for pictures now...

Ty.S

Working on that Jack Need to re-size and then find an image host.. got one in mind?

uspspro

why not Flickr?

Ty.S

Ahh here we go. Found an old imagecave login of mine that still works Here are some of pictures I got, I walked the course in reverse, but towards the end the sun was right in the picture, so most of the stuff didn't look all that great. But for now, here is what I go that day

The little ones were a lot of fun to watch..



Bottom of second descent hill







First descent turn


The last shot I got before the sunset got too direct.

Slonie

Hey Ty, mind if I repost some of these on my flickr? (with credit of course)

ahpook

Thanks for the pics Ty!!

Let me do a quick writeup before I forget everything... Slonie and I got there a little late so I just had time for one lap before everyone massed up. Recognized some people from last week and said hi, then it was our turn to roll. Right off the bat I was feeling way more comfortable, just from not being the first time. The wind was less strong than last week but still blowing pretty well up the Hellyer leg.

I really wanted to stay in the lead group on the downhill leg to practice taking the turn at speed -- towards the back it would get bunched and folks would hit the brakes more, then feel like they had to work massively to not get gapped as it turned into the wind. Not efficient and no good for learning. I just took it easy for most of the laps, took turns in front when I felt like it but never topped out over LT for minutes at a time like last week.

The last lap the SJBC gals , Benson (mentor guy, leading in ty's second pic) Slonie, me and a couple of others picked up the pace. Benson yelled out "we have a break, if we work together we can keep it". People didn't work together very well but Slonie ended up pulling into the third turn. We went wide to let people come up inside for the last turn into the finish. My goal was to be 4th back when people started sprinting. The lead marshal went really early (I guess either for fun or to inspire people to pick it up) and I just let him go. He was crazy fast and I thought he was either gonna burn out or blow us out of the water, and either way was ineligible to win, so what was the point Two others jumped and I followed over a SJBC on her Leopard. I spun up in lower gear and waited to shift up until it almost felt too late , then went for it with maybe 60m to go..bumped across the line as hard as I could and saw Slonie was right behind me and a grinning guy in SJBC kit.. Slonie said "Whoa, what just happened?!" We hung out and slapped our own backs for a bit (nobody else seemed to notice or care because hey it was C's -- what a good antidote for ego trippin'!), talked to Jon and Maurice, then headed back to town for some well-earned Kahoo ramen.

So yeah, time to repeat with the B group - which I do not have any expectation of winning; hanging in the pack till the end would be a fantastic start.

Ty.S

Not at all Slonie, actually if you would like PM me your e-mail and I can zip up and send you the whole lot. It will probably take several e-mails as I snapped quite a few, also the image size will also be a little bigger as these were resized by the image host.


Eric -
NP man, thanks for posting this up, it looks like a lot of fun. If I can ever get ontop of my schedule and actually get back in gear this is certainly something I would at least like to try.

I'll give you a week to feel out the B's... then when you think you're going to make a move off the front I'll get out and get the proof

Maaku

Ty - do you have a gallery of all the photos you took? I would like to browse through them and look for myself. I do recall seeing you on the sidewalk moving throughout the race, i wanted to smile but i was so tense.

Ty.S

Maaku, actually I don't. What would probably be best is I just put the entire collection on a public fileshare that way anybody from tuesday could DL them. I'll try and look into that, it would probably be faster then putting up a gallery imo.

Anybody wanna filehost ? :-P

ahpook

Bump for this week. Gonna try to hang with B group today, we'll see how that goes.

Marco are you going to be able to make it? It'd be great to ride with you, but I *totally* understand if you have other things on your mind :O

Maaku

Hope you guys weren't affected by my fall in the Group B, i got a puncture on the front tire on the first descent turn, didn't realize it until we approached the second downhill corner and slid and fell! One guy got tangled behind me, i think all he had was a mis-aligned shifter, but he seemed fine. I only got a skin scrape, maybe a bruise on the shoulder, nothing serious. Wheel out of true, might need to be replaced. Brake caliper damaged.

Sad part was that it could have been avoided. It just happened so fast and it was my first time getting a flat in a race situation. I felt my bike wobble during the downhill short straight but I thought nothing of it. It didn't occur to me it might be a flat until I approached the corner and that's when I slid. Next time I will pull over at all costs when I feel a malfunction like that. Sucks, i was just about to OWN the field haha..

Maaku

I forgot to mention: I am never going to use Michelin P3Rs again!

ahpook

Sorry maaku, I was about 4 bikes in front of you I guess, close enough to hear the awful sound of the slide out.

I held on for 50 minutes and then ran out of gas for the hill. Tough work!

Maaku

Eric - tough, just keep training and you'll be able to keep up. And don't forget to stay within a few bike lengths from the pack or else you'll lose the slip stream and fall back.. I meant to try to find you today but I came late and had to rush to warm up. I'll try to find you next week.

Marc

BlastRadius

50 minutes is good. Most Cat 4/5 crits are 40-50 minutes. Good job hanging in.

Slonie

I started in the B's with Eric, and noticed a big difference. Wheras breaks would kind of form slowly in C, it seemed like the guys at the front of the B's were really pushing the pace. I almost got dropped badly during the first half of the race and had to try really hard to get back on and position myself closer to the front of the pack.

At one point about halfway in, on the front straight, the lead guys took off, and I was pretty sure I was about to crack. I sprinted my guts out to try and grab back on, and by the time I hit the hill and looked back, there was a huge gap behind me (but I'm not sure how many people were back there). Since Eric was right before that, this was the last time I saw him riding... But I really appreciated the cheering from the sidelines later on, Eric!

I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be able to stay in, since I was already pretty tired when the lap count was down to 14, which was the entire race for me last week. Eventually, it became 10, and it seemed like a long ways to go. Miraculously though, I was able to keep going till 5, and at that point I figured I might be able to stay in.

The rest of the race, I managed to hold on, and stayed in the lead group up until the last straight, when the guys who still had something left took off for the "sprint" (which was actually a pretty long distance and up a hill, but hey). I'm not sure where I finished, but it looked to me like I was alone in no-man's land between that group and the rest of the pack.

(the preceding recollections of the race may or may not be accurate, due to brain oxygen-deprivation during observation of the events)

Oh, and as for the difference in experience between B and C... In C I could do some work for people, but in B's I was much more of a passenger... LOL!

Maaku

ahpook - I totally had the wrong person in mind when I tried looking for you, oops! Re-looking at the pics from above, now I remember who you are and i did notice you in the Group B field.

As for the race.. i did Group B's again and finished in the lead group, a few seconds behind the breakaway that formed on the final lap. The group really separated when the stragglers from Group A decided to join us and really pushed the pace. Despite that, our overall pace was slower (22.7mph) than my first race with SJBC (2 weeks ago, 22.9mph). Probably had to do with the 18-lap long distance! I was extremely paranoid through the corners due to my crash last week and took them cautiously. I need to build my confidence back up, I know I wasted a few watts catching back up to the group and held back people behind me, sorry! Slonie where you there?

ahpook

Maaku say hi or something! I have no idea what you look like...

I held on for a bit longer but got separated when the A's passed and only half the group neutralized, and couldn't get it back together. Going off the back out of the pack hurts bad when the wind is blowing. I worked with slonie and a dropped A in Trek kit to keep it going for a while but that was it.

Definitely gotta get back into interval work - I used to do sets on the 10 mi stretch of central expressway from San Tomas to Palo Alto when I was commuting up there but now I don't have as long of a commute and I haven't been making the time to do it on my own.

Slonie

Yeah Maaku, I was riding again... Hung in the B's but got dropped at the same time as Eric during a total de-neutralization. At least that gives me an excuse besides "running out of talent" for not finishing in the pack this time. It's amazing how much slower you go once you fall off the back!

Handy ID guide from a picture by Ty...



That's me on the left, I've been representing for Sent Sovi and the now-defunct Breakaway Bike Shop!

Ty.S

@ Slonie

Did you get the rest of the pics?

Slonie

Yep! Thanks again!

Sadly, it seems like it'll be a while before I'll be in any position to pose for pictures that look that good, at least as long as I'm in the B's...

Slonie

Yesterday went pretty well actually... And hey Maaku, nice to meet you!