there was a nice porsche MTB for sale in melbourne on EScam latley if anyone wanted to experience the prestige of paying well to much for a badge on a bike .

then again , i guess people do that everyday for a Trek

I was drooling over a 9.9 hardtail yesterday, mmmmmmmm

jaysus, $8500 for a hardtail...... somones earning too much money!

carbon steerer on the SID world cup as well, would be interesting to see how that hold sup over the medium to long term.....

Didnt say I was buying... just drooling

I did however join the carbon bar club on the MTB (FSA XC risers), new XT dual controls + discs and XTR crankset :-)

Did i mention I scored the cranks free, and a set of DA 10spds?

carbon bars has always been somwhere i fear to tread on my MTB. I have FSA alloy bars. i should probably just suck it up and get over it... I have a carbon seatpost, but even that makes me nervous, 1st time i rode a carbon post my fat ass managed to snap it out at manly dam.

you will love the XT dual controls. one of the best ever MTB inventions IMHO. XTR cranks for free? where do i get some eh? have fun paying for new chainrings in the meantime, i couldnt beleive how expensive they are.....

it'll crack for sure.

I know a bloke who had the Trek hardtail, loved it, cracked it after 2 years or racing it. Did get a full warranty though and got a Trek Fuel dually instead which ain't bad.

aparantly the trek duallys are a fast piece of kit. i know a guy who had one who swears it was the best piece of kit he ever owned. he now works for an opposing manufacturer and it near killed him to sell it. would have loved to have gotten it, but it was too big for me

How do you know so many industry types HDT?

i only know a couple. mainly i know people who happen to introduce me to other ppl. would probably help if i was fast enough to get sponsorship.

thats probably the biggest wet dream i have. somone to come up to me and actually give me somthing for free for riding.

Amen

Oh dear

2 from 2.
Another drag race at the end, another new Max HR, another new top speed... quite a few Southern Vet riders there too.
I don't really have any tactics other than stay in the first 4-5, drive the pace a bit, do the odd attack and then go like stink at the sprint.
The other blokes in the sprint (5 of 'em) were drafting on to the straight but because I was at the tail and wanted to go around the corner a bit faster, I ended up doing what I did on Tuesday... go around the outside on my own and hammer. So they were on the left side of the road and I was on the right slowly reeling them in and passing them.
Just like Tues, I started passing them at a reasonable pace, noticed some starting to tire (it's a hell of a long straight) changed gear and seemed to take off.
I still haven't done a standing sprint... I can't imagine going any quicker at this stage (feels like my legs would fail when I try) let alone even get up on the pedals. Any tips on that?

Pedal hard and fast.

It's no different to the sprints you're doing at the moment except the pack takes off from a crawl when the first guy blinks. Even if you legs are tired from a hard race you should have up to eight seconds of maximum power available when the sprint starts. Use it wisely. It'll hurt, but the pain is temporary.

Oh yeah, and well done on your second win.

Guess you'll be a marked man now!

Doing that.

The bell laps tend to go nuts and the sprints are taking off from 40+ km/h... today's was a good 20-25 seconds... for me anyway, I'm not sure how far the others went before they jumped.

So I needn't worry about standing when they start from a higher speed?

<edit> cheers Jock

hehe, a few wanted to see my birth certificate, and there were a few calls for "stick him in C"

Said they'd be watching what I do next week. I doubt they'll pick much up, I just pedal as hard as I can at the end.

So while they're expecting you to wait for the sprint why don't you try a few other elements of racecraft over the next couple of races:

the long, determined breakaway
short, savage, but half-hearted attacks
or my personal favourite, the 'block and run' (ie. leave an increasing gap to the main bunch then sprint across it leaving your foe behind)

you might not win, but you'll find out what you can and can't do in a race.

For high speed sprints everything happens/changes very quickly, so you need to be comfy and relaxed. That means grabbing the right wheel and draughting for as long as possible before exploding out of the line for the win. The gun riders can time it so they just step out and push 3 or four times to take the win!! It takes nerves of steel (ie. patience) to be able to do that. Practice makes perfect I guess.

Racecraft... I have soooo much to learn.
'long slow breakaway' would be the end of me I think. 'short, savage, but half-hearted attacks' tried that today and was surprised that I got 50 or so metres fairly quickly.
'block and run' sounds like fun... next crit

Another question, some bloke today kept sprinting up to us (4 of us were driving the pace) either pushing directly in front of me (when I was 4th wheel), or right up to the front and then backed it right orf and sat up. We just kept going around him. Did it about a dozen times.. was really giving me the irits.
Is there a point to doing that?

Yes, to give you the irits.

Crits have lots of niggle in them. If someone dun like you you'll sure find out about it.

Pushing you out is a common way of testing someone's nerve, very important in a tight sprint situation. If you let him push in he'll have you figured as a wallflower in a bunch sprint and will have no qualms pushing you out of the paceline if he wants/needs to.

By slowing down the guy was doing his best to get you to sap the energy out of your own legs. Enduro guys try every trick in the book to wear out the sprinters. It mostly boils down to lotsa hard accelerations or keeping the pace very high at the end of the race. By slowing down in front of you he was making you accelerate often, removing punch from your sprint.

Squeezing you out on a high speed technical corner is also a fave move of the experienced guys. It's all very safe if you both hold your line and don't tangle handlebars, but it's meant to put you off your game and out of contention.

He didn't do it enough then

Thanks fer the explanantion Jock... parts of the race make a bit more sense now.
re: the cutting in, having to go around him wasn't what annoyed me as much as wondering WhyTF was he doing it.
Once the pace was up pretty high, he tried it on me and I kept him out without too much trouble... 4 years of SuperSport racing taught me how to give someone a F*** O**!

I never realised all of this stuff went on. Naive I suppose.

Well done Odin, you seem to be doin' it a bit too easy. It's great fun though don't you recon? A bit like motor bikes but without the huge costs.

...or the throttle

Thanks mate, yeah, it's awesome fun hammering yerself like that, and it's nice to be able to race without it costing 1K/race.
Dunno about doing it easy though, I'm going as fast as I can.

You racing this w/e?

E-Mail me your address and I'll send ya a sticker

Practice doing power drills- especially standing power drills.

Koffee