carpediemracing 

First tip - you can eliminate everything after the "&" (I bolded the stuff to keep, left out the URL stuff so you can see it all), click the "video" icon in the thread tools (next to picture icon), and that will automatically embed the video in your post.


Can't watch it now but I'll watch it later.

globecanvas

I just watched this again because my teammate commented on it on FB. At 10:25 "I let this guy in because I'll crash if I don't", the sketchy guy is spinning insanely fast, presumably on junior gears, pedaling so fast that he's bouncing in the saddle and has trouble controlling where the bike is going. Isn't the purpose of junior gears to make things safer?

TheKillerPenguin

I actually thought about that at KSR, the juniors really have no choice but to bounce all over the damn place to keep up which must contribute to sketchiness. I certainly can't spin smoothly at 150rpm.

carpediemracing 

That was good. You did a great job moving up within the group, it looked really tight and I didn't see any weirdness.

Next time your teammate can tell you when to start, and you can wait until that point. The teammate should worry about getting swarmed, and the later he can tell you to go, the better it is for him. He should keep an eye out to the sides (and look down to look back a touch), and when he gets unnerved enough then he can yell at you to go.

If you had a planned start point for the leadout (it seemed you did, at least a general vague idea of about how far you can go) then the idea is to wait in position until it's time to go, even if there's no swarm. As it was you were only 50-70 meters short of executing on the plan - if you'd led into the last turn that would have been about all a sprinter could ask for.

That final turn screams for an inside line leadout. You/leadout go screaming up the right curb, sprinter on your wheel. No one can go around to the outside because it's too risky (they'll get curbed at the turn exit) and no one can go on the inside because you're there. There would only be one real possible line through the turn, one lane wide, and if anyone deviates from it they'll have to brake/slow/crash. You barely clear the curb, sprinter has literally one guy on his wheel, and therefore has a better chance of carrying it to the line.

*edit - I mean early apex. You go up the right curb, you turn in as soon as possible, and you'll barely clear the left curb exiting the turn /edit*

Your teammate, in the future, can also direct your leadout. There's a right curve where you don't move right. A move might come up the side and your teammate should be looking to see what's going on next to him. If riders start to swarm he should yell to let you know, like "right, right!" etc. I don't know the situation to the sides or back but that was one thing that stuck out.

A leadout where I directed my leadout man.

Doge

No, its to keep juniors racing juniors closer together so the strong don't big gear it and ride away. The idea is they develop the skills for full contact cycling. I don't know were the safety part is.
USA used to allow juniors racing in adult races to use adult gears. That seemed rational to me that everyone in the same race could use the same equipment.

mattm

At 00:20 you surged with everyone and coasted when they did. I think you should've pedaled a few seconds more to move up generally for free. Then you're not boxed in later.

Seemed like a good leadout; if your team mate didn't win that's his fault and maybe next time they should lead you out!

At 01:00 you wanted to get over to the left with your team mates; if you'd pedaled more at :20 you'd already be up there ready to help. But in this situation it seems like you could've gone around to the right?

Edonis13

Thanks for the tips. We were supposed to have another guy there with us, but he no showed, and a different team mate showed up. He got there right before the start and we didn't have time to talk about our plan.

I really should have hugged the right curb. We had talked about launching the lead out from the left side, because everyone was staying right and they would have to react to it, but I don't know why I stayed mid-road. I'll learn from this.

At 00:20 I was thinking more about staying sheltered. We had a side wind from the left on that section of the course and I had spent several laps at the front during the race and wanted to conserve for a full lap before we made our move. I'll keep this in mind though as I'm sure it will be harder to move up or maintain position on the last laps now that I'll be racing in the 4's.

Thanks for the advice guys.

I have no problem working for team mates, but I'm sure I'll get a lead out eventually.

shovelhd

Forget about lead outs. Focus on yourself first. The one takeaway should be not to be afraid to burn watts in the last two minutes to maintain or gain position. Common mistake.

mattm

Memorial Day Crit p/1/2 from when I crashed. Sketchy race for some reason - you can see me almost getting taken out. The incident isn't on cam, but me lying on the ground is...


At 1:50 I almost get taken out. At 3:00 I actually do get taken out (then got run over, but the cam missed that part). Ahhh good times.

Grumpy McTrumpy

I made a promo vid out of my iphone clips from Thater 2014.

shovelhd

Really nice job.

carpediemracing 

Generally speaking if you're at the front (leadout, chasing, etc) then you want to be on one side or the other. This lets you ignore one side because unless you're in Belgium and everyone is jumping on the sidewalks, no one can move up on the closed/curb side. It also forces you to think about where the wind is hitting you because it almost never hits from head on. You think, "Okay, wind from left, stick to the right, give a bit of room for TeammateOne." etc.

Sitting in the middle leaves you wide open, vulnerable. Yeah, you can react to moves on either side, but you need to be a monsterously strong rider to pull it off. Even if you were you'd be tactically stronger to ride one side.

I can't think of a term but what this does is it clarifies the tactical situation for everyone around. If you're on the right and wind is from the left, there is no leeway, no give. Anyone that wants to move up has to do it in the wind and pay a penalty. The faster you can go the worse the penalty.

There was some less-than-super-important crit way back when, but big enough to be covered by Winning Magazine. Subaru-Montgomery put something like 7 guys at the front on the last lap, led by Mike McCarthy. He did something like 40 or 42 mph for most of that lap, until he pulled off. Gaggioli, a rival sprinter and a very winning one, moved up from 8th to 3rd or so during the leadout but had nothing for the sprint. I think he got 3rd. He said after the race that he used his sprint up just trying to move up. McCarthy's move really clarified things - it made it impossible for anyone to do anything and left the team in absolute control over the sprint.

Obviously the teammates could handle it. If it was me getting led out I'd have gotten shelled. I've yelled at leadout guys to slow down because they were going too fast for me.

McCarthy was cut from the team that year. The following year he won the World Professional Pursuit title as well as the US Pro Crit title, both while racing for basically an angel sponsor team (GS Mengoni, a NY real estate guy that has backed riders like Lemond - he's the one that Lemond hugs and says "don't have a heart attack" after Lemond won the 1989 Tour final TT, Bauer, etc).

In a more pertinent example the Kermis race we did a few weeks ago has a 180 turn into a bike path. It's a tactical choke point. Last year I zipped up the side, went around the turn in 2nd or 3rd, and put myself in a super strong position. I gave it all away when I followed the guy in front of me in the middle of the road, ironically enough, and the field zipped by us on the protected side. Wide open and vulnerable.

Anyway this year I figured I'd do the same thing. I was a bit sick so I felt pretty bad the whole race and I didn't battle much to be up front. I figured I'd just zip up on the last lap. Well, on the last lap a team went to the front, 3 teammates leading out 2 more. I watched helplessly as they roared toward the 180, I couldn't move up, they were going so fast. They used 2 guys just getting to the 180 (I'm guessing 20-30 seconds for the first guy, maybe 15-20 seconds for the second guy), then used one more guy between the 180 and the line. The last two guys got 1-2 in the race. Super impressive.

carpediemracing 

That's a bummer. I can't see what happened but the race doesn't seem as smooth as it could be, but then again it's not as nutty as some of the other clips I've seen.

I can't get over how wide the course is, and how smooth. Also the camera guy sees so much wind, I'd be done in a lap or less. It tightens up at the end but jeepers.

collin2985

Last cat 4 race

.be

burger0014

This is the sprint from the Mount Joy Cat 4 race. Nothing much else happened, we'd surge and then slow WAY down, no one willing to pull or string it out. I couldn't decide if I should go early or wait, in the end I got stuck and rolled in for 12th.

.be

collin2985

It looks like you had a great position and just didn't jump with the riders passing you. Were you tired? I was one of the few that crashed in the first lap as you can see in my video. I managed to keep pace with you guys about 400 yard back for 4 minutes but I couldn't catch up.

burger0014

Wasn't overly tired, just second guessed myself when I jumped out into the wind. When I went next to the guy in the black kit/orange bike I should have just gone but decided to tuck back in which was dumb. Two guys next to and in front of me kind of got together and that killed my momentum.

Doge

Ladera GP. First two are short and the finishes of the WP123 and MP12. Then from a spectator's (me) walking the course in reverse a long 13 min version. There are some good locals that come to this with some 33 1s that started including Williams, Bahati. Men's average speed was 28.4mph, elevation gain of 1,000ft total about 50ft/lap on a technical course. Daniel won this as a Cat 3 at age 14 so likes the course. There was a break off the front started by another junior that held about 10 laps all the way to the end. Daniel managed 8 and road the front most the race.

MP12
https://vimeo.com/129441014
WP12
https://vimeo.com/129443390
MP12 Long
https://vimeo.com/129402401

furiousferret

Ladera Ranch 3/4

The whole Redlands contingency got taken out on the last corner. One teammate has a few scars, another has a busted collarbone. Someone took off and couldn't make the corner; I'm not a fan of this race, narrower as a bike path and there always seems to be an issue with people going down in the turns.

https://youtu.be/drwp-vGH_eY?t=3m37s

Doge

It is not a race the whole team does, as there are few complete teams in the P12s - I think because of this. Last year SmartStop was there, this year a few from KHS. It is so technical and there are crashes each year at that corner, less so in the P12. This year there were also crashes at corner 1. As usual, when Daniel rides with the men he burns more matches than "normal" so he can stay up front out of trouble. That, of course, only reduces risk.

The Domestique

Thoughts? (Yes, I need to shrink my sphere.)

Ygduf

how long is that course?

tell your teammate to not chase you. if you don't get a gap, make sure your effort is working against someone not on your team.

Otherwise you seemed to do alright. There seemed to be a lot of times you could have hugged the edge of the course more and ridden a shorter line.

The Domestique

It's a half mile. Sorry, the editing makes it hard to tell. There's always a balance between keeping it interesting and being descriptive. No one wants to watch my whole 25 minute race, not even me.:-)

I will be having that chat with my teammate prior to this one. But, he's relatively new so it didn't really surprise me. I will look for shorter lines tonight. That's actually very good advice.

kleinboogie

I forgot to post this awhile ago. I think it demonstrates why the throw is so important. If you look close, the 2nd finisher's front wheel comes off the ground. I'm doing this thing where I inset pics with the video. I'm holding two DSLRs, one with a gopro hero3+ black on top. It's a handful.

https://www.facebook.com/13011747221...4/?pnref=story

kleinboogie

Nice work Doge! I don't feel so guilty not being there anymore. Cheers