Hermes

To flatten your back, try to think about lifting your chest and have a light touch on the handlebars. I have the same problem and Lee Povy gave me the visualization and it seems to work. I will never have a naturally flat back.

MrGibs

Fun night in Frisco on Friday; 8-lap danish, miss-and-out, and a 28lap scratch race. Didn't do quite as well as I would've liked unfortunately. I let a break go early on the danish that I could've hung onto and saved myself a few laps around the track. Set the pace for over half off the miss-and-out, which made it easier to box people out to place a bit higher. Should've spent more time on someones wheel to save myself for the higher places, but I treated it like a workout to get myself into better shape. More of the same for the scratch race. Kept good position until the last 5 or so laps, then I fell off a break and rolled in around 5th.

After messing with my fit a bit, I've noticed that I'm using the inside of my quad a lot more than I used to? Not sure if this is contributing to feeling like I'm burning my matches earlier than I used to or what. I'm in a lower position that is more aggressive and allows for better power transfer into the pedals (feels that way, I mean), which I like. Just need to sort out the quad issues and work on my strategy / explosiveness in the gym.

queerpunk

what's a danish?

MrGibs

It's a race where, after a pre-determined amount of laps (in this case, 8), the lead rider from each lap 'finishes' and is pulled. For example: after 8 laps, the first rider to cross the line finishes 1st, then the next person to finish first on the next lap finishes 2nd, ect, until all riders have finished and been removed from the field.

queerpunk

ah. a variation on a win-and-out.

Velocirapture

not quite the right thread for this side-track (apologies to the moderators), but I'm interested in your observations about your muscle-use, since i'm always trying to learn more about bio-mechanics; when you say the inside of your quad, would that be running from the inside of your knee up into your groin, or from the top of your knee on the inside, to the front of the hip?

also, is your lower position lower at the saddle, or lower at the bar? Do you feel there is a change in power from the position, or too early to tell?

thanks in advance to contributing to my quest for data

MrGibs

Since it has to do with the Race, I'd imagine it's fair game.

The feeling is more inside of knee to groin, though its concentrated closer to the knee and dissipates as it goes up the leg. I blieve the saddle is in the same height, the stem was flipped and the bars were lowered however. I don't recall what the exact angular measurements were of the fit, but I recall them being 'within an appropriate area'.

As far as feeling goes; I feel faster, though that may be because I've also begun olympic lifting to supplement my track time whereas previous seasons I relied solely on the track/road to get my conditioning/strength in. I think the seat may be a bit far forward and could stand to move back a bit. I'll post a picture in the appropriate thread this evening.

VanceMac

Can I plead the fifth? You know how spoiled we are here, right? But seriously, there is some kind of icebox vortex going on there... standard line I hear every time from the local racers: "This is the coldest spot in San Diego." The forecast said the low that night would never get below 60. So even with some odd pocket or inversion, it was high-50's at the worst. There was a little wind, which wasn't helping. But I'm at a loss to explain it. Everyone was freezing. Standard temp for the early morning rides almost all winter have been low- to mid-50's, which seem perfect to me. I think the track was built on an ancient burial grounds.

Lew.

Is the track 'sunken' into the ground or have panels around it?
Our track (outdoor tarmac) is stupidly cold in the center, even when it's quite mild. The cold are sinks (or warmer air rises, if you're into physics), so the cooler air is all in one place and requires more energy to warm it up (and the energy from the sun isn't good enough, especially when overcast) and because it is 'windproofed' the wind doesn't blow warmer air into the 'bowl' or cooler air out of the 'bowl'.
(Will look to add to this thread when our local weekly league starts up again later this month)

jmikami

At our track we just call the danish a win-n-out, it is the Belgium win-n-out that always causes a bit of fun with the first rider pulled in 5th place, then 4th until the final sprint is for 1st. So much fun to wait and put it all on the line for 1st or nothing.

MrGibs

Ohh, I think that would be fun. Maybe I'll ask about that next time...

theblackbullet

Finally racing my way into shape. Last night was pursuit night at the DLV and I decided to ride aero bars for the first time ever. Surprisingly wasn't too bad! First attempt at the 1000m I pulled a wheel then unclipped and went over the bars. I got to line up for a second attempt at the end and ended up taking 4 seconds off of my previous (slow) PR even with what I felt was a horrible run. haha

Next was the 4000m pursuit. I went into the first kilo relaxed, upped the pace a little for the second kilo, held the pace for the third, felt too good going into the final three laps and upped the pace a good bit. I ended up dropping 17 seconds from my previous PR for that one.

Last event was a team sprint. All three of us were toasted from the 4k, but we're on a mission to take the track record for this one. Smoothed out our start from last month and dropped 3 seconds from that attempt. Still 2 seconds off of the record, but we are going to change the order a little bit next time around. There's a lot of smoothing out to do, so there is still plenty of time to drop.

All in all, my first time on aero bars was success. Wouldn't mind getting some aero wheels on in the future. I think I'd do well with the stiffness of a rear disc.

gtrob

Those are some massive times to drop on those distances, congrats! The more time you spend in the aero bars you will only get faster.

carleton

Congrats!

I'd suggest practicing starts in aerobars where you start, then get up to speed, then get into the bars, then shut down. That should take most of a lap of DLV. That will get you used to the start and transitions to seated and to the bars.

Also do full speed flying laps with a flying 200M type windup then transition into the aerobars as you dive down to get used to using them at high speeds.

D:

Whoa, whoa, whoa....don't get carried away now. That Team Sprint Track Record is fine JUST the way it is


Seriously. You guys shouldn't even try for that one.

jmikami

Pursuit night at Alpenrose tonight. For some reason even with nice weather we had a pretty poor turnout, not sure what is up with that. I had a decent ride and was able to match my PR from last year, so much better than last weeks kilo ride where I was off my target by over 1 second. I did a bike fit review last week and found my saddle 1 cm low and 4 cm forward from my road bike, I am sure that was part of my issue.

So I moved my seat back almost 3 cm and up about 1 cm and felt much better at speed than I did last week. My opening pursuit kilo (1:16) was only 1 second slower than my actual kilo and I felt very good and relaxed at that point. My second kilo also felt good, but my pace was starting to fad and I ended up with the same time as the first but as a flying kilo. I really felt my legs in the final kilo and lost close to 8 seconds, if I can find a way to extend my 2:32 pace one more kilo over the next 3 months I will be very happy. I think if I could have manged the pain cave a little bit better I would have been able to save a few seconds today, so really I just need to find another 500 meters of fitness and then 500 meters of better pain management.

Velocirapture

Nice.

Mikey58 

Finished 5th in the Cat 5 Omnium at T-Town yesterday, just missing the B Feature qualification. Beautiful weather - a great day to be on the track.

VanceMac

Friday Night Racing at Carson continues to gain momentum with larger fields each time. The 1/2/3 had the usual assortment of gunslingers (ex-Olympians, aspiring pros, etc), as well as poachers from both north and south (Hellyer people will know Daryl and Neil; San Diego people will know Lucas and Hans.) Motor Scratch (25 laps, first 20 with motor, dropping us off about 50kph); Miss-n-Out; and 60/10 points. That last one was the toughest race in a long time... not only due to length, but the pace never let up like it often does in points races.

shrinkboy

MrGibs, were you in A or C group? if i recollect, C group had the 28 lap scratch...i was there with you, somewhere in that pack.

MrGibs

I was in the C group. Pretty competitive field that week, I think our scratch avg was 26+mph.

queerpunk

First track night of the year was last night! I was really intrigued to see how the 1/2 field would go down - there's been some major team reshuffling (my team went from stacking the 1/2 field to being underdogs), and, would my winter's worth of squats help me finally get around two monsters who I have a hard time beating?

The first race was a point-a-lap. These tend to disintegrate and the winner is just the person who keeps going when everyone else can't. I got impatient and bridged up to the Rider of the Year, who won way too many races last year, but I couldn't come around him two or three laps in a row, and it was too early anyway; fortunately it was my teammate and training partner who jumped away after we were gassed, and soaked up the last four or five points for the win; I was marking wheels and there could be no chase. He was super pumped. He'd never won a race in the 1/2 field before.

Next up were keirin heats. Just my luck, I drew the moto, my teammate was in my heat, and our heat was stacked. I faded then punched it into the moto as it was pulling off, and then with 1.5 to go had to punch it to match an acceleration. Wound up 4th wheel, yelling at my teammate to go faster so I could pip the rider in 3rd. I did - but they didn't call it my way. Bummed. But, my teammate went on to win the keirin final. He was even more super pumped.

He was leading the omnium, but if either of the two aforementioned monsters won the points race, they'd win the omnium. So just to be safe, I had to win the points race. Well, I won the first sprint, coming around one of the monsters. And then the second, coming around the second. And things were going really well, I kept getting points, had a really stable lead, everybody was good and tired and it looked safe until a former teammate snuck away. Not a problem. No problem. Nope. Half a lap. It's fine. We can do this. I drove the pace. Oh, everybody else was gassed and had no incentive to keep the pace high? Oh ****. 2/3rd of a lap. Oh ****. Gotta go. Oh, everyone else still gassed? I'm gassed? Crap. Jeff is yelling "oh no you don't!" Official is twirling his hand in the air. Jeff made the lap. He gets a big lead. I just lost another points race. I've never won one. I'm gutted.

Saved my teammate's lead in the omnium, but lost the race. Lost the race that I was going to win.

Super bummed.

Good thing there's always next week.
And good thing I can come around those two monsters this year.

VanceMac

Ha, good night of racing, QP. So guy who lapped field was neither of the "monsters"?

queerpunk

no. but he is a master's nat'l champ in the IP.

the two monsters are these guys who can sprint fast enough to win keirins and have enough endurance to win points races - one is the reigning Rider of the Year, and the other is the former Rider of the Year.

i'm pretty sad to lose that race. I am Mister Second Place, for real.

Velocirapture

Real bummer on the points race. Seems like you had a great night of racing overall, though. Sounds like Next-time Mister First Place, to me.

Hermes

Queerpunk, Great racing and bridesmaids get married too. Keep it up.