aaronmcd

Did the same race as matt on Sunday but it was my second race back to back, it was hot, and it turns out I was starting to come down with a cold.

So I spent my time trying desperately to stay with the pack. 7 cat 2s who were doubling up got dropped. a few others managed to hang on the whole race. I was gapped off with 3 of them with 15 minutes to go, tried to rotate and blew up. They caught on and I rode around at like 220 watts trying to not get lapped by 2 of my teammates who were off the front.

The first race also kinda sucked for me though. No energy to follow anything. Teammate went off with one other dude, and every time someone bridged I didn't follow. Until there were at least a dozen guys half a lap up. Dammit. I still had no energy so decided to try my hand at a field sprint (something I haven't tried in FOREVER). There was a jump after the 3rd corner, I followed, got on a wheel patiently (usually my brain says "AAAHHHH SPRINT!" and I eat wind for 45 seconds). Managed to finagle my way to 3rd wheel, I should have jumped before the last corner but either didn't have time or didn't know how to dive the corner in the heat of the moment. Didn't pass anyone. I know most people wouldn't be happy with a top 5 field sprint for 14th but for me that's a decent sprint lol.

Radish_legs

Any of you Cali guys in vegan cyclists racing vids? It would be amusing watching some of you being the guy who torched him.

furiousferret

Yes, but its not me and I'm not sure if he wants to be known!

aaronmcd

Yeah I have no clue what "whistletipped" means... And this "Turin"... I think its a bastardization of Terun? But yeah matt was in that latest vid. VC does a lot of our races. Pretty strong dude actually.

spectastic

and if it were a pinch flat, it would've been a totally different outcome. makes total sense..

aaronmcd

I agree with you. And the rules don't necessarily disagree. But otoh, most flats are random crap while most dropped chains are misaligned derailleurs. So...

Ygduf

yes

Radish_legs

In my last crit I got a flat. I didn't have spare wheels. I actually changed my tube out and they let me back in, but it was too late to get a free lap. Any of you done that before?

aaronmcd

No. How would I change the tube? I would have to walk back to my car, find a tube (I always bring one in my car in case of pre race issues) and change it there. That would be at least 3 laps, more likely 5. Or more depending on the crit.

Back as a cat 5 I did a training crit and I did bring my spare. Flatted and changed the tube in a couple laps. Didn't even try and get back in. Afterwards they were all "its a training crit, you could have just jumped back in". Made sense for a training crit I guess but didn't even consider it. As a cat 2 tho, no way.

spectastic

spectastic

i was at this college race, and got a flat. was already dropped, and in a chase group with the stragglers. they didn't have neutral wheels, so the mechanics changed out the flat for me. 3 laps later, I got back in. after a while, the officials pulled me after they realized I got out, sat out, and then got back in. I didn't even care about the result, I just wanted to get some training in tbh, and we weren't really in the way of the lead group.

Radish_legs

My truck was very close to the finish. I rode across the grass infield to my truck, grabbed my toolkit, headed to the officials. Asked for neutral wheel, none, then said I was going to try and fix my flat. They said okay. Wouldn't fly for a weekend high profile race, but okay I guess for a weeknight crit.

mattm

Yup, that is me in that video.

We "whistletipped" the F out of VC that day.

Radish_legs

I'd never heard the world "whistletipped" before. I am impressed that VC is reporting FTP above 350w now. That's certainly in a different league than my meager fitness.

hubcyclist

So I did a 65 mile road race today, in which I was with the main group for 45mins and then dropped on a climb, as has been my past experience. It was really good until then, I was surfing the pack, was in 3rd position for awhile. I think there was a break trying to go and everyone put in an effort, because before I knew it I was slowly drifting back (I guess it didn't help that it came soon after I had put in a good 3min effort near vo2max). I don't have video to see if I could have possibly gotten back on, but I got nearly knocked off when a younger rider slowed suddenly in front and to the right of me while simultaneously moving left, hitting my front wheel, and I had to unclip quickly and stop, so that might have ended any chance of catching back on. In my past experience I was usually good to pass a few other dropped riders, but only passed one, to my knowledge. So I'm sure I finished quite near the bottom.

There's gotta be some positives, right? So for nearly 3.5 hours, my intensity was 87%, and I did an hour at 95%, 258tss total

furiousferret

Anytime you stay upright is a good day in those circumstances!

gsteinb

Agreed. I'd take it over second in a hard road race followed by a broken hand!

spectastic

yea it sucks that happened, but it could've been worse. were you working for a teammate? what category was this?

hubcyclist

cat 5, one other teammate, a 17 year old who I believe got 2nd. Just looking at the power of the 3rd place finisher, apparently similar weight, AP and NP was similar to mine, but on the climbs he'd produce big power, and on a few I compared he was a minute faster than I was. I really gotta get my sustainable 8min power a lot higher

spectastic

we had a small field of 5 in the 1/2/3 today, so they combined us with the 3/4, to get a ~30ish rider peloton. it was kind of nostalgic racing with the cat 3's again, seeing some familiar faces that were competitors last year, but I don't miss it. lot of inexperienced riders. attacks don't have as much punch as i'm now used to. lots of leaving gaps open on purpose, and people refusing to work. teammate, myself, and the other cat 2's basically took turns attacking the field. pretty much all the guys in the 1/2/3 ended up in the winning break, and there was this other masters racer who dangled on the back. then entire time. the rest of the field pretty much gave up, I think, as we never saw them again until maybe 2 minutes after the finish. I won the race, teammate second. not a big win or anything, but good training and tactics practice.

Ttoc6

Bad race yesterday. Dropped on the start of the 3rd lap. I'm just so awful at racing in the wind. Getting guttered in a crosswind then having to immediately chase and tailgun hard for two laps in the tailwind destroyed me.

ntnyln

American Velo Club RR 35+ ¾: 13/33 – 5 laps of a ten-mile loop on mostly narrow country roads that features a quick run to the Mt. Nebo Road climb, a .5 mi step climb about 5 miles in that averages 6% but ranges from -1% on one of the steps to 21%. Not enough to launch anyone but enough to work the legs. The next 3 miles are rolling before the last 2 miles begin to slowly work their way back up in elevation. The course flattens out about 1 mile out and runs into the finish which is an uphill sprint from a 90-degree right hand turn at about 225 m.

The race was at 1:40, so I had the morning to play around with before driving to Poolesville. I’m glad I had the morning because I was still feeling the 21-hour day I had on Thursday thanks to a Board meeting that drug on into the late night. I packed everything up and headed over to Poolesville paying attention to all the speed cameras I missed when I did this race 2 years ago. Thankfully, I had my bike covering my plates that year and no tickets came my way even though everyone one of them took my picture. I made it to the course with an hour to spare and got ready to go. We lined up and it looked like the pre-reg numbers were going to hold true with about 30 guys. Looking around, Artemis, NCVC, SEAVS, Bike Doctor and VeloLabs all had 3 or more guys in the race. I wasn’t excited about going to the line with that many teams, so my plan was to see if I could sneak away early and be forgotten. 50 miles is short enough to have it happen, but just long enough to make it hard to pull off.

Soon after we started I found out I wasn’t the only one with that idea. My legs were a little heavy still, so I followed some wheels in the first 5 miles to see if we could get something going but as expected no one was really letting anything go. The rest of the first lap went the same with everyone getting reacquainted with the course. The second lap saw a twosome get up the road and open a little gap, not big, but enough. By now my legs were starting to lighten up. Everyone had been following all the big attacks, so when we hit the start/finish straight for the third lap I took a chance that no one would want to chase with the head/crosswind in that section and I could slip off the front and TT up to the break. I put in a solid seated dig to open a small gap but that was quickly closed. This held pretty much through the third lap until we started the false climb back towards the finish. An NCVC guy shot up the left side to bridge. I really wanted to go with him because that would have meant Artemis, NCVC and DVR would have someone up the road, but I was pinned in on the right-hand side. We finished lap 3 and it looked like it was going to stay away until some of the underrepresented teams organized a chase as we started lap 4. I stayed out of the chase and let them do the work. They did a lot of work and brought the break back with about 3 miles or so to go. I was sitting in the top 5 +/- until about a mile from the finish and then the wheels started coming off my racecraft. The last little bit of the rise towards the finish ends with a right-hand turn. I came through the turn 4th wheel but then the guys in front slowed to a crawl and we go swamped from the back. I was pinned against the yellow line and quickly got shuffled back about 10-15 spots. This was a huge problem because the roads are narrow, and we weren’t going super-fast, so everyone was bunched up and there was no where to go. I managed to work my way over to the right side and get on the NCVC 3-man train hoping they would work their way forward for the sprint. We were working our way up when, with about 1k to go someone sits up right in front of us with (I hope) a flat. Result was losing all the spots I had just gotten back. I try and fight my way up but now we are fast approaching the turn to the sprint. The speed has picked up and everyone is lining out on the left for the turn. I slide up the inside to pick up some spots but only get to the top 10 before the turn and I’m still stuck on the inside. I get pinched in the corner and must scrub some speed and in a sprint. Knowing who was left in the race, I had little chance in the sprint to begin with, I now have none. I sprinted it out mostly to keep those behind me from getting jammed up, but I turns out I was bringing up the rear of the first group. Knowing I had little chance in the sprint, I should have just attacked when I went up the inside before the turn and let the chips land where they may, but I hesitated again. This has been a recurring theme for me and I must keep getting better at racing my bike and being more aggressive in the finishes. One of these days I’ll figure it out again

MDcatV

Hi - I was out there in the 35/45 race that went off right before yours. This was the 2nd race I've done since 2015 and I forgot (well, in practice anyway) how nervous and sketchy a big pack can be on narrow roads with centerline in effect - even if it is mostly Cat 1s and Cat 2s. I honestly couldn't handle it and allowed myself to be shuffled farther and farther back until I got dropped near the end of the first lap. One of my former teammates from the early 00s was in same predicament as I was so we traded pulls for the next 40 miles and picked up lots of stragglers along the way - our primary goal was not to get caught by your field - great success!!!

One of my teammates won the 45+ jersey - I like to think that my pre-race enthusiasm helped, because my actual racing performance certainly did not!

for your race report above, things to think about wrt your finish - with the wind conditions in the afternoon (from the SW) the place to go on that course was on the transition between edwards ferry and westerly until the top of the rise on westerly. if doing poolesville rr in a couple weeks, which finishes on westerly (at least did recently, it used to finish up by the HS), keep the wind direction in mind. you'll approach westerly from the other side (you'll make a left onto it instead of a right). often there is cross or headwind along westerly, which was the case earlier in the day on sat, but if you have the quartering tailwind that we had in the afternoon and you're not a bunch sprinter, that's your go point because you can hold that kind of effort to the line.

ntnyln

I debated on the 45+ but I need to chip away at points so I try to balance the 45+ and 3 races out and figured I had a better shot in this race. That's where the NCVC guy took off and where I got shuffled back on the last lap. I'm not a fan of that part of the road at the moment.

I'm planning on doing Poolesville and haven't done it in the past due to other stuff on those weekends. Thanks for the advice. Are you going to head out? If so, let me know.

MDcatV

probable, but i have a few moving parts that i need to sort out before definitive.

poolesville has always been one of my favorite races. i'd be in the 45+ as I have a cat 2 license and am in no way physically prepared for a 1/2 race (or a 45+ race, but wth).