Anxiously awaiting part 3 to see the ending :D

From last year's car/bike trip.

Yep, hoods were popular. I used them quite a bit too but just depended on how hard we were going.

As for avoiding the crash, thanks. There was really only one place to go...off the road for a bit or right into the swinging bikes and body parts. I probably could have just stopped at that point too since we were only doing around 10-12mph up the 12% hill. Just glad I stayed upright.

Working on that now. Should be up late tonight or tomorrow depending on when I get too tired to edit stuff.

Tour of Lawrence this weekend. I am probably just going to try out the circuit race since I have to work Sunday and can't do the crit. Since I'm such a bad climber, I think I'd do better at the crit but I just never have the time to do one.

That guy in white was scary

Some clips from Sunday's ride. There is about a minute between these videos. The second video ends at the regroup point. I took second at the sprint behind a teammate. The people already there took a shortcut cutting out either the climb in the first video or skipping the loop that goes onto the freeway (most of the second video).

Even in a beginner/Cat 5 race, I didn't expect bike handling skills like that. Then again, I had nothing to base those expectations on.

Anyway, here is Part 3 of 3. Everybody feel free to criticize. Pretty frustrating stuff for me.

I think you did really well, you mixed it up with the front of the race almost the entire time and you were one of the strongest guys there. It's hard to tell from the video, but it seemed like you could have kept more sheltered. And it would help to think more about tactics. But I think you should definitely be happy about your fitness, you could have done a lot better if you had raced a bit smarter.

Went you went to the front to chase those guys down at the end, it looks like you went to the front to pull. That was your mistake. In that situation you should have jumped to bridge. You were doing all the work anyway, but you were giving them all a free ride, and they've already shown they aren't going to help. Then of course after you pulled hard for a while chasing, they were fresh behind you and attacked you. If you had gotten a gap they may have chased you anyway, but they would have been tired too, and you probably all would have stayed together on the climb. May not have caught the 2 of them up ahead, but you probably would have finished better.

+1

In your situation, I wouldn't of tried to bridge up to the break in the final lap. You pulled the pack up with you, and they were fresh enough to out ride you at the end.

I would of contested 3rd, tucked behind someones wheel, and attack from the climb.

Great job though, and great video! Watch the entire race was a nice change of pace, and a welcome change at that.

Cool videos Copperhed. When you had that large gap in part 2 do you think you could have really pushed and kept it, or was that way too early?

Strictly my opinion: I think it would of been too early. A break of at least 2 riders could have bridged up to him in a lap or so.

Cooperhed, great video (and comments).
The green team had it together. Where was your team?

great videos guys. and thanks for keeping some substance in the 41 ;)

I could have pushed it and kept it for a bit. The little winding section before the climb is a pretty slow part of the course and I would have used a lot of energy there but with a big enough gap, I could have held it over the climb and then most likely for a good portion of the next lap. I don't think I could have held it the entire rest of the race though. That was my thinking at the time and still is my thinking. I kinda wish I'd tried it though just for the hell of it. Probably wouldn't have finished much worse.

Thanks for the comments and tips everybody else. I'll obviously have to race a bit smarter in the future.

Oh, and I am not on a team. I would like to be but because my job has me on the road a lot, especially on weekends, I don't get much time to train or race so I'd feel kinda guilty joining one and then never doing anything. Still might do it eventually though.

Thanks for the comments and tips guys. I will obviously have to race smarter in the future.

Some people ask how to pick what team to be on. Cat 5 is great for just kind of observing everyone and when you see a bunch of guys that you like racing with/against, you ask about getting on their team. :thumb:

In other video news, I shot my lunchtime hammerfest today and when I got back to my office and flipped the record switch the red light didn't turn off. I held the power button and the unit wouldn't power off. My heart sank, and I didn't know what to do, but opened it up and took the memory card out. Sure enough, my fears were confirmed and the file was corrupted. 2gb file but won't open in anything. Read around the interwebz about repairing the file and found someone wrote a utility on the vholdr site for recovering the video stream from the mov file. It's about 20% done... crossing fingers.

umd: do you record at 720p @ 60fps, or?

720p @ 30fps, I don't have the 1080 version.

Yeah, there are 2 or 3 teams around town that I train with on a fairly regular basis so I think I have some options if I want. Like I said though, I don't want to join a team to only race twice a year and piss them off. Chances are I'll have a much better schedule next year though and might get some weekends off...but that means I won't be home during the week to train. Hmmm...

I had camera troubles tonight too. I was getting all my stuff ready and dropped my camera onto my driveway. Tried to turn it on and it made the 3 beeps and didn't want to work. Removed and replaced the battery and got the same thing. Removed and replaced the memory card and it worked. Silly electronics.

umd, do you have an external mic hooked up or do you just have the mic settings different than me? You don't pick up nearly the wind noise that I do. Also the road quality in Cali is impressive. I gotta move back there one of these days.

The wind noise seems to have improved in my new mounting position. Not sure why, maybe cleaner air?

Not to speak for umd, but I think it is simply location of the camera. Depending on where I place mine (have the same), the sound of wind and other things either get enhanced or diminished. umd has the camera under the stem now, so the sounds of pebbles and things hitting the frame from the road will be enhanced. You can notice that in the last set of videos he posted.

BTW, after seeing the road conditions in some of the umd videos, I guess I will stop complaining about road conditions around here.

Haha, you mean the roads that are falling apart?

If you look at the first video from yesterday, the bates climb, as soon as we make the left at the start of the video, it is freshly paved. That was one of the crapppiest roads, and now it's pretty nice, at least until the descent.

I'm currently on vacation in Seattle, but drove here from San Jose, CA.... California sucks. Plain and simple. Oregon roads are in near mint condition everywhere I drove and Washington... isn't too far behind.