caloso

I also raced Cal Aggie: E3 and M123. The first just to get comfortable with racing again, move around in the pack, and stay out of trouble. The latter purely for fitness. Back to back is hard but I think it's jumpstarting my fitness.

hack

Amazing how those things stick with you for a long time. I remember that day well, I think the way things shook out you were pulling from the back corner through the S/F, I'd pull from the corner after S/F to the little incline, and the third guy took it from the incline to the back corner. You jumped before the final turn and it took my legs a few seconds to respond ... thought for sure I was dead.

mattm

3rd is really good man, congrats!

when you make it to the big leagues you can pay for my coaching with leadouts.

mattm

Man, it's gonna be a long season..

hack

Folsom Winter Crit ... wet weather stayed away leading to a nice sunny day for racing.

35+ 123. Pack finish.
Peets showed up in force. After 10 minutes or so, the break of the day was gone. We had a rider in there, so the other 3 of us stayed near the front and covered. Peets was doing most of the covering though. With 6 to go, our guy fell out of the break, so we set up new team sprinter and grabbed the field sprint for 10th.

P12. 12/36.
Fast race. Strong break gets away early with our strongest rider in there. Many attacks from the field to get across and a few succeed. Break is about 9 guys strong and motoring. They lapped the field around minute 40 of 60. Some shuffling and a few guys from the break were caught out as a few of the original break riders bolted away from the field. Fortunately, our guy was one of them. Pace was hot in the last lap with riders trying to bring back the few escapees. Two of them were able to hold off the pack. Feretti from Amain with the win, our Jr held on for 2nd, Willy flying in for third.

Yep

Just popping in to say this thread is full of solid posts so far. Keep it up!
@scheibo That's a really impressive result and seems ominous for the guys you're racing against. You were probably wasting watts all over, and by your own admission, didn't feel comfortable on the course.

Ygduf

red kite 35-123

Mikes had 8 guys, Lange had 4, winner is a stud and my team was at team camp, so I was solo. No excuse - I was the 3rd strongest in the break and the Lange guy outsmarted me. Oh wells. Another day another 4th/28.

aaronmcd

Some hard racing today. Red Kite circuit race 2/3 and P/1/2 with a half hour between. Mixed terrain and windy. Tailwind on the gradual climb kinda sucked.

2/3, we had some guys in an early break on a short leash, my plan was wait for the best time to go off the front and make other teams chase. Just as we turned on the false flat, attacks go and get chased, it eases up and I roll off the front. Got a nice big gap for a while, 15 minutes later Mikes bikes chased me down. From there it was maybe 12 minutes to go. I popped off on the climbs a few minutes from the line, our guy attacked a minute or so out and held it to the line.

P/1/2 was crazy. I went off with 4 others at the start, which gave me a buffer for the crazy fast surge to chase us down lol. From there I just focused on hanging on, legs were screaming at every riser. Then we hit a turn to a flat 1 minute then 1 minute climb. Someone attacked all out out of the turn and kept going, many got gapped including me. Popped off on the climb, then maybe 6 minutes of pain chasing with a couple others and I get back on and notice the break of 10 guys is gone. We roll around chill for a while (2 in the break). Then attacks here and there. Roll in near the back of my group. You know it's a hard race when Eamon takes 3rd! Oh and our guy who won the 2/3 race came in 4th in P/1/2

1:00, 96 TSS
1:25, 123 TSS

hack

Is he racing for anyone this year?

And good racing ... that's a tough course.

aaronmcd

Hmm, Idk. No team kit tho, just a plain black skinsuit.

scheibo

RKO #1 Bump Circuit Race (Winter)

Cat 4 - 5/42. Kind of bungled this one, pretty sure if I wasn't impatient I had a shot at 2nd.

First two laps were pretty easy, just sitting near the front. No one figured out the bell on the first lap was signalling a prime, but a teammate had told me before the race that there would be one so I got it the second time over the bump uncontested. A rider from another team (Jakroo, who won the crit I did last week) chatted with me on the second descent and told me he would attack on the bump at the bottom which I thought was a nice heads up, but in retrospect he was just clever and knew I have a disease where I can't possibly be OK with a break getting away if I'm not in it . We put in a good dig and had a couple others come with us, but Cat 4s seem to chase everything so it all came back together in a minute or two.

Heading into the last lap I made the mistake of letting up a bit on the descent of the bump heading into final time up the climb (or rather, not speeding up like everyone else did, I guess?), so I ended up being caught in the pack and boxed in when someone took a flyer. No one in the pack chased (what happened to Cat 4s chasing everything?), and I wanted to try and motivate people to start moving so when I made it back to the front I jumped off and placed myself between the rider up the road and the peloton, hoping to spur them to chase and giving myself the possibility of completing the bridge as we neared the finish if the pack still didnt chase. My logic for sitting in no man's land like an idiot was that I didn't want to waste all the energy bridging up to the leader at this point because if the pack did decide to chase I'd probably be too tired. Eventually, I saw Jakroo and some other riders fly past me as I sat in no man's land so I jumped on their wheel as the bridged up to the leader and the front of the race was all together. Someone else attacked, I followed - I was hoping to be in position to launch on the final bit of climb before the final corner. My one teammate n the race made an attack and I blocked as best as I could, but he didn't really have the strength to hold everyone off.

The front of the race was all together when we hit the spot I had decided before the race that I would attack, so I jumped and I led all the way to the bottom of the final bump, but my legs were tired and I faded hard up the rise (possibly overgeared as well?). I think I also kind of relaxed a bit after the first 2 riders passed me thinking 3rd was secure, but 2 more came by in the last few feet which was kind of frustrating.

Overall, I played the last 5-10 minutes of the race poorly. I obviously should have sat in the bunch and been patient, but I think that mistake was actually salvageable had I modified my plans and not attacked so early at the end. I think I should have adjusted my plans, realized I was a little tired from pseudo bridging at the bottom and since I wouldn't be able to generate a decisive enough attack from far out I should have just ensured my position was good through the turn and sprinted later. That decision wouldn't have won it for me (Jakroo would still have ate my lunch), but I think it would have probably resulted in me placing a little better out of the rest.

Cat 3/4 - 10/33. First 'Cat 3' race (only 7 of us from the Cat 4 race doubled back, 4 out of the top 5). I figured most of the Cat 3s were doubling back after the 2/3 race earlier that day, but looking at the results, no one who finished ahead of me had doubled except the single 4 that beat me (my new friend from Jakroo who had won the 4s). I guess this makes sense - if you want to upgrade you should try to race your primary category fresh.

Anyway, I was kind of tired from chasing breaks in the first race and getting burned because of it, so I figured I'd just sit in and leave it to the final sprint. There were two larger teams (Mike's Bikes and Pen Velo) as well as some smaller teams, and it seemed like they had some clue of what they were doing, which was a different dynamic from the first race. I felt uncomfortable sitting in the middle of the pack (I think partly because of safety concerns, but also because I just hate the feeling of being boxed in. I'd always be willing to run in lane 2 if necessary in running races to avoid getting stuck at a critical time, but cycling seems to be a lot more punishing than the +7m running in lane 2 inflicts), so on subsequent laps I sat in at my preferred position of 2nd-5th wheel.

On the second to last time up the climb someone was drilling it on the front and most of the field was guttered right next to the yellow line on the road trying to stay on his wheel. Looking back, this lap was slower/less power than I did in the previous race, but it felt worse, I guess because I already had a race in my legs. The guy who was at the front ended up getting a bit of a gap after the top but before the descent, and no one seemed to care. It didn't seem to be a question of people being tired, just that I guess they either didn't think he could hold it to the finish, or that we'd catch up on the descent or that they just didnt want to have to work hard after already having to work kind of hard. I could have easily bridged at this point, I just didnt want to make the same mistake as last time so I decided to trust the field and that the large teams would clearly want to bring things together. However, I found out after the race that at this point we had dropped half the field up the drag of the climb...

No one seemed to even realize someone was off the front. I spent the entire descent and most of the flat of the last lap trying to convince someone that 'yes, that guy is in our race and he has 15s' (we were passing dropped riders from other races, so i guess I can see how people got confused). Nevertheless, we went up the climb the final time having to chase down a 20s gap, and once again I figured someone would pull (at the start of the race TMB had almost 1/5th the people in the race. I only realized afterwards that only 1 of their riders had made it to the lead group when the field was split in two up the penultimate lap's climb). We were making some progress but by the top it had turned into mostly cat and mouse stuff, positioning to get in place for the final sprint. Someone jumped where I had in the 4s and ended up holding it to take 2nd behind the sole leader (I'm kind of frustrated I didn't have fresh legs and a firm commitment to wait for the sprint in the second race, as clearly my original game plan would possibly have worked). I was in an OK position into the last corner but Jakroo tried to squeeze through a gap that didnt exist and that caused a ripple effect that meant I basically had to come to a complete stop in the corner, starting the 'sprint' from a standstill. I guess that's kind of the risk of waiting for the sprint - if you do, you've got to be able to do whatever it takes to position yourself well for it. In the end, I didnt really have much to sprint for, with all the upgrade points spoken for so I just maintained my position as best as possible.

Takeaways
- Teams change the dynamic quite a bit (duh), with riders blocking or the necessity of making sure you get a person from a large team in a break with you.
- I need to be more aware of what's going on behind me during the race. Not knowing that a split had occurred meant my belief that there were still big teams that should be capable of chasing down the solo leader in the second race was wrong.
- I need to better anticipate/be more aware of when the pace will increase in the last lap to avoid getting swamped/boxed in.
- I need to be willing to adjust my pre race plan depending on how the race goes. If I had waited around a little longer in the first race instead of leading out the sprint I would have had better odds and in the worst case I would have pretty much finished the same place.
- That being said, I still think I need to focus on flat minute power, because I don't want to leave things to a sprint as I won't be guaranteed a win.

Ygduf

He said he started his own conti team. He has a few guys registered and they got their own sponsors and whatever lined up. He wants to race conti US, and some in Asia and Australia? He seemed excited about it.

hack

Nice ... seems like he's got waaaay too much talent to not be riding for someone.

mattm

I read most of this, but what stood out to me was sitting in no-man's land on purpose.. don't do that!

If you're in the wind, you need a good reason for it.

You'll be able to get away with that kind of stuff in the 4's and 3's, but once you get to 2, you'll find that energy needs to be conserved as much as possible.

aaronmcd

^ Agree, I made the mistake of doing this at Copperopolis in cat 3. We were a couple miles from the descent and stupid me didn't want to blow a too many matches. The pack caught me but the other guy got far enough up that he made the selection after climb 2.

aaronmcd

New road race for this year and first of the season yeaterday.

Hensley Lake Road Race
19 P12s combined with 3 cat 3s.
10x8.8 mile laps.

Each lap consisted of headwind to a short 3% power climb, turn crosswind to a 6% legit power climb (2 minutes), turn to rolling descent with one fun muddy corner.

There were 6 on our team. Race started really slow for a couple laps, guys waiting for us to get things going. I tried to get a move going with a teammate and 2 others. When the pack didn't let us go and eased up teammate kept going and most of the pack somehow didn't notice for a while. With no other big teams in the mix, no chase happened for a while. Another teammate got in a chase group with a guy and bridged. Then 6 got away with our designated guy and we blocked for them.

Eventually I got bored, our original solo guy came back and told us designated guy got in the right half of a break split, so I followed a real attack with 3 to go. We caught a few from the back break group, and one to go all the guys with me were running out of gas so I soloed in for 6th behind the front group.

Teammate in the break got 2nd after losing a one on one game of chicken over who was gonna pull more to stay ahead before the finish.

So yeah, another no man's land finish for me. I seem to do that more than is statistically reasonable.

1/35, woohoo!

mattm

I did the same RR as @aaronmcd yesterday, first ride over 30 miles in three weeks. Went about as well as expected - cracked at mile 60, cracked HARD. Was seeing stars, legs pushing 200w max. Dropped. But at least the team did well!

Today was better - CCCX circuit race, 5th. Local pro guy said he "wasn't going hard today" before the race, I joked that meant he'd win. He did. He went from the gun, I tried to bridge but didn't have the legs. One other bridged, the pack was racing for 3rd, one guy got away last lap, 2nd in field sprint.

Could have gone better, but given current fitness I'll take it!

Ygduf

I raced 2x at CCCX.

35+ 123 - games for 15 minutes then Giles countered me and got a little space. I jumped, got 90% of the way there but wasn't really recovered when I started and saw 2 guys on my wheel so I flicked them through thinking they'd easily make contact. Nobody came through, Giles stuck it and I took 3rd of our little group of 3 that stayed clear of the field.

35+ open - games for 15 seconds and then I said **** it an went for it. One 45+ stuck with me and eventually one other 35+ bridged across. 2nd of the 35+ at the end.

Ended up 1 place down on Jeromy in both races. He's better than I am at bike racing. What can be done.

scheibo

CCCX #1 Bay View Circuit Race

Cat 4 - 3/17

Out and back, straight course with rollers. This entire race could best be described as an extended neutral rollout. Usually I try to sit 3rd or 4th wheel and was slightly worried about being on the very front for large periods, but at ~160-200W I averaged significantly higher in my warmup... I figured out that the last corner would be critical, as its very narrow and if you turn on the inside you can go wide and block everyone behind you before the final sprint. I ended up executing this perfectly in the last lap, only I didn't fully think it through as I was now leading the race on the final stretch (in hindsight, I should have either put in a dig on the final hill up to the turn and gunned it all the way home, or aimed for 2nd wheel into the turn instead of first). Lacking eyes at the back of my head, I missed the jump, leaving me on the back foot for the sprint where I was not able to chase everyone down before the line. It turns out the final effort was 25s, meaning my practice on 1:00 power wouldn't have helped much anyway unless the final rise was magically twice as long on the last lap. Ended up in an unsatisfactory 3rd.

After the race, thoroughly demoralized by how stupid bike racing is (why do people drive 2hrs to do nothing when the race starts?), I complained to @Ygduf who lectured me in the art of attacking until the other racers just give up. Not wanting to spend another 50 minutes breathing through my nose only to lose in the sprint I was committed to attempt to break away or die trying.

Takeaways
- My 30s-1min power is pretty good, but it turns out if you soft pedal for the entire race you end up with a whole bunch of people who are *only* good at 30s efforts. If the race was ridden at an honest effort by the field, my chances would have been a lot better as the sprinters would actually be a bit tired.
- Leaving it to the sprint, or even the final climb, means its much more of a crap shoot. As I said, I think I could have won the first race if I had launched before the last turn around or even out of the last corner. However, I'm very confident now that I could have had a guaranteed win had I simply rode hard and dropped everyone in the first race instead of being conservative and banking on being able to podium and get upgrade points.
- I'm happy I noticed the final corner was an issue and prioritized not getting pinched out by the pack on the last turn, but still need to learn that when you're in first going into a sprint, even if you're not pulling you're still at a disadvantage because you cant see what your competitors are doing.

Cat 3/4 - 1/15

The game plan was the follow the inevitable attack up the rise after the far turn and then launch at the top when everyone was tired every lap until people gave up. By the second time doing this we had split the field with 8 of us pseudo-working together together to keep the dropped riders off the back. The middle of the race was a flurry of attacks (I kind of gave up waiting to only attack once per lap), but it didn't seem like anyone was going to get away. Unfortunately, I had a teammate watching the race that didn't seem to care about that point, so he yelled at me to break away every lap anyway. The jeering seemed to have work, as with 3 laps to go I attacked for the umpteenth time at the line and miraculously no one decided to chase. Everything instantly became simple - it was just like doing the standard rolling TT circuit back home I do all the time. I continued pulling away from the 7 behind who didn't seem to be working well together on chasing, and with a lap to go the chase was already waving and giving me the thumbs up. Not satisfied, I continued working to the line, in the end winning by about a minute. 281/309W avg/NP for the race = 248/296W until I got away and then 312/321W for the 18:30 solo.

Takeaways
- So it turns out winning bike races solo is *really* fun. I finally get it. I think if I had won just by being smart it wouldn't have been as satisfying.
- It takes a lot more attempts to go off the front than I had imagined. Ygduf described it as feints followed by a big attack, I think I just did something in between until I got away. Maybe if I had taken his approach I would have gotten away earlier, something to try next time.
- As I've read (but never really internalized until I actually applied it), attacking after another person attacks seems much more effective. I think it also helped that the race was somewhat more honest than the 4s.
- Being solo really simplified things (as did the small, tired field). I think if there were 2 people the pack would a) be more likely to chase and b) I'd have to try and convince the other rider to work. At dinner, @mattm suggested that in the future I might have to just pull until I have a big enough gap to convince the other person its in their best interest to also work to maintain it.

Ygduf

2nd time in as many days I have tears of pride welling up because one of my babies stood on their own.

good work. when I tell you that you're too strong for c4 and c3 racing, trust me!

wktmeow

Oh hey, I've got a video of me trying exactly that lol:

(click the link or fast forward to 48:30)

Except I suck at tight corners like that, and it didn't work. Also doesn't help that I blew up.

I did the Roger Millikan crit yesterday. Went into it maybe a little cocky, thinking I could help launch some attacks for the team, but it ended up being a really hard race for me. I didn't come into it fresh, which certainly didn't help, and I also think I didn't drink enough water prior, as my mouth was dry the whole time.

Our plan was to send a bunch of stuff up the road, so I figured I'd draw first blood and attacked about 10 mins in. Bridged up to another guy that was off the front already, and then two more joined us, but their pulls were just too strong for me and I couldn't hang after my initial effort so me and another guy sat up and let the field catch us. After that I struggled to recover a bit and get my crit mojo back, as it was my first race of the season and my first crit as a 3. I started getting a feel for it again and made my way towards the front a couple times, but didn't really feel like I contributed much to the team effort other than helping one of our guys move up to the front with maybe 5-6 to go. We ended up getting him in 3rd. Dodged a big crash at 2 to go by being on the inside of the corner... always gotta keep in mind that **** flies outwards But, I was too far back after that to do much and just rolled in for 26th.

I'd say the Collegiate A's that were racing with us stacked the field pretty well, and 1st and 2nd were both collegiate riders. But also I need to get my head back into crit mode and work on that aggression and assertiveness again.

valygrl

sheibo, great racing!

But - that word "honest" -- watch your thought process on that. not everyone is as strong as you, and people will win in whatever way they can win. There isn't really a way that is better, winning solo is fun, but it's also fun to win by being tactically astute. Conserving one's strength in order to use it at the correct moment is not dishonest.

Since you are strong enough to ride away from the pack now, if you eschew tactics as "dishonst" you will be in world of hurt when you rise to the level where you need both brains and strength to compete. use your time in the 4s and 3s to learn, or when you are a 2 you will be that guy who doesn't know how to race.

TMonk

Same race as @wktmeow, same team. Millikan is something of a harder crit for 3s, due to the moderate hill on the course and the collegiate A's that are in the race. I think we avg'd around 27 mph.

I tried my best to make sure we were represented at or off the front for much of the race, including a huge dig with an incongnito teammate wearing a collegiate kit to bridge up to some Dutch u23 national champ guy who happens to be a UCSB rider now. Guy was OTF with 2 others (who got dropped) and then solo for 20+ laps into the final lap.

After that failed bridge attempt I was pretty tired and kinda dejected. With three to go I managed to put it one more dig on the hill to get to the front and our protected rider started barking orders at me which gave me motivation and some renewed energy. I sheparded him at the front until 2 corners before the bell lap when I hit the front at the hill and just drilled it through the S/F line, stringing it out and bringing the Dutch dude within striking distance. He got caught, our guy got third, and I got props for it afterwards.

It was a good day. The high intensity efforts and overall high pace were a bit of the shock to the system and as such I was hurting. In retrospect I was able to do something, so I'm excited to continue getting in better shape and racing more as the season progresses.

mattm

+1k

scheibo

Sorry, by calling it 'honest' I just meant 'faster average pace'. It's very common parlance in running where fans love to complain about races like the 1500m at the Olympics this year which was won in a time slower than my PR (for example). And all I was implying is that the whole field can chase attacks when we're averaging 21mph vs when we're actually going 25mph+. I definitely respect savvy racers, and if you look at my other race reports I've at least been trying (poorly) to be be one.