Red Rider

Saturday is the Winters Road Race, and Sunday is the Vacaville Classic Crit. Great local events for our area.

I'm racing Winters RR and volunteering as a course marshall for the crit. Putting up a couple of San Francisco racers (our son's roommates) as well.

Anyone racing, volunteering, watching? Look for a hot red-head riding a pistachio Orbea or ringing a cowbell and say hello.

caloso

I'm doing Vacaville, both the M123 and E3. Still too fat to get over Cantelow, so I've opted out of Winters.

rydaddy

I'm in for Winters... and yes, I am too fat for Cantelow. Hopefully I make myself useful for at least 2 laps.

Vacaville is a maybe. I'm not really liking the 4's starting before the 5's but the course sounds fun. I'll say hi if I see you.

ericm979

Death Valley Road Stage Race this weekend.
There's a Severe Weather warning for high temperatures today through saturday. Should be fun.

BenRidin

I'm doing Winters as well. Those skinny roads w/ so many people on them is going to be interestingly fun.

BR

UmneyDurak

I am in for Vacavile for E4. Damn 8 am stat? That has to be some kind of violation of human rights! lol. Too fat for climbing, as University showed me again last weekend, so not doing Winters. Might do the Winters Crit in September thought.

parity

I'll be racing Winters RR. I like the course and hopefully can do as well as I did last year or better. Also the down town area is pretty nice for a post race lunch.

save10

season over. recovered/recovering from broken rib and flying to Paris in 2 weeks so no more chances.

UmneyDurak

So what is a good route to go for a ride after the Vacaville race? Also what heck does a hill bigger then Santa Cruz means? Are they talking about University RR hill, because that is a pretty damn big hill.

Red Rider

How long a ride do you want? Do you want a hill bigger than Monte Vista? I have a couple routes I can suggest.

rydaddy

Oh, simple. MIX CANYON ROAD.

rydaddy

When I raced the 5's in '09 the field was shattered on lap 0.5 (i.e top of cantelow). Good luck!

caloso

I think that will be the case in all the fields. It's just so steep that everything is going to get stretched out. Things might come back together on the flats if a dedicated chase can get organized (and the chances of that in the 5's is nil), but on the steep backside, it's not going to be an issue.

Red Rider

This.

UmneyDurak

Scenic route? How hilly is it?

So apparently timing chips will be used for the race. Should be interesting, I have never used them. I think when they first came out the initial experience from some users was not good. People were not placed, or placed incorrectly.

BenRidin

Thanks! You too. Have a good race.

BR

Red Rider

So Hank and Ryan are here from SF (I think they ride for Mike's Bikes but don't know their BF names). They're 3s. And fast. I expect to be lapped by them.

Bottles are filled, food organized, bag packed. I'm ready to get my ass handed to me.

bigbossman 

Rich and I might come up on Sunday to view the crit hijinks.

UmneyDurak

It's not hijinks, it's a demolition derby.

Anyone want to go for a spin after 4s race?

bigbossman 

So - Rich and I made it to the Vacaville crit, did a short milk-run over Cantelow, and then stuck around for lunch and a few races. I took a few pictures but all I have is a point-and-shoot pocket camera, so they are what they are. I only photographed two races - the women's and the men's pro race at the end. Full album is located HERE, but I'll include a few of the better ones below. If anyone knows who the pictured riders are, feel free to forward the links so they can see themselves in action.

UmneyDurak

Fun course. I still have no idea why they start 4's before 5s.

Red Rider

Hey, BBM, nice pic of that hot course marshal!

Good shots of suffer-faces and that 170* corner. I marshaled that a couple of years; I never tired or watching the cyclists come through there. Impressive.

Saw Rydaddy after he passed me heading up Cantelow in the road race on Saturday. His group came by, I heard, "Hey, Red Rider" and when I looked up I saw him wave, already several bike lengths ahead of me. Hope you had a good race, R.

UD, I don't know your bike or your kit or I would've cheered for you, too.

caloso

I lined up for both the E3 and the M123. Didn't have any teammates in the 3's race, so I decided to just sit in, go with the flow and see what happens. As it turned out, not much. Just didn't have the legs to hold the front 10 so I just satisfied myself with not crashing and finishing in the middle of the pack.

In the masters race, I had a teammate and told him I'd work for him as long as I could but no promises that I'd even finish. As it turned out, I did not. There was a crash on the 4th or 5th lap on the infamous 170. I didn't go down but had to employ a little creative maneuvering (bmx skid, then ride through some cones and around the traffic island). The big horses immediately drilled it, and I had to dig like mad to catch up to the back of the pack. I was able to hold it for about a lap and by then I was just blown up and I got popped off the back on the next time up the hill. So, I DNF'ed but after looking at my power files I discovered I had personal bests in max, 10s, 30s, 1 min. and 5 min. power. Doncha just love NorCal Masters racing? :rollseyes:

rydaddy

The first 2 laps at Winters went pretty well. Both times I had to chase to latch back on after the climb but it wasn't too bad. At the start of the 3rd lap the pace slowed down a lot and I thought it would be a good time to fall back and talk to my 1 remaining teammate (2 others had to abandon). Bad call. As I was talking strategy about 20 riders back, the winning break of 8 or so riders took off and their respective teams blocked the road. I scrambled like mad to get back to the front and made a hail mary bridge attempt. I got halfway to the leaders with a Bike's Plus guy but soon realized we would not be closing the gap. I fell back into the field to recover and tried to rally the others to help chase. No takers. Either they had teammates up the road or they had no guts. So I attacked again and was quickly marked by the other teams. The legs were getting a bit tight at this point so I told my teammate to not lose contact with the front on the final climb.

I pretty much popped at the feed zone but happily grabbed 2 cold bottles of water from our awesome feed crew. Over the top I had passed a couple of dropped riders. I rode the final 8 miles with the same Bike's Plus guy that I tried to bridge up to the break with. I finished 23rd out of a field of 50 and my teammate got 11th (3rd in the field sprint). I should have been more aware earlier in the race and things might have gone differently. Oh well, I still had a great time.

Good to see you out there, Red Rider.

UmneyDurak

Oh yes, that corner. It's quite fun: sharp, off camber. Kind of surprised no one binned it at our race. I think only crash was on a last lap on a right hander towards the finish line. Someone went wide and in to the curb. Did stay up, that was quite impressive. Actually that is my favorite turn, slight decline, speed is high, you go over a bump and right after just flick the bike and make the turn.