my weekly race log

Not the most thrilling footage, to be honest, but a brief clip of the bunch coming through a lap after dropping me. There was one guy out on his own 40 seconds clear of them. I didn't hang around to find out if he won.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTDdo-nVGVs&feature=channel_video_title

Dude in my 5s race was riding a Cervelo R5ca with SRAM red and zipp 404s...and got dropped in lap 2.

I was supposed to do two races this weekend... and did none.

Ah, ambition...

i ~watched~ a race this weekend, does that count

Won a snuggie prime (and 3rd overall) in the points race at the track tonight. Stoked!

Saxo Bank-SunGard

Alberto Contador
Jesus Hernandez
Dani Navarro
Benjamin Noval
Richie Porte
Chris Anker Sørensen
Nicki Sørensen
Matteo Tosatto
Brian Vandborg

whoops, wrong thread

Race two hour drive away today at 2:05pm. At 11am, I packed up my race bag, grabbed my bike, got in my car, got gas, rolled south on 101 about 10 miles when suddenly I noticed some increasing vibration coming from the back end of the car. Fuck. Took me 45mins to change the tire (to a spare that had a 50mph/50 mile range max) so that's that. FUCK!

Back out on the Velodrome for Tuesday Night Racing a few days ago. Finished 2nd in the 8 lap scratch, got one point in the 10 lap point-a-lap, sat in and rested in the unknown distance (turned out to be 11 laps) to rest up for the points race where I did not do as well as I'd hoped. Took the first (out of 3) sprints but wasn't able to hang on to contest the last one (I'd planned on letting the second one go) and ended up 5th (out of 14 racers) overall. This was in the 'C' class. The heartening thing is that this was after hardly riding for two weeks (car hit me 2 weeks ago, had nasty flu/congestion I was still getting over) and a bunch of guys I would regularly beat in training raced the 'B's and ended up finishing well. This gives me hope that I"ll be able to move up and hang once I get more hours in the saddle and my nose opens up. Track racing is really so much fun though. Such a tight-knit group of racers that all compete hard but really care for each other, and also a pretty dedicated crew of spectators that come out every week and drink and heckle. Just overall a great scene.

Wow, great work.

I raced on the track once and loved it, bunch of dudes built like me (big and fat) but the best was at the end of the day I was throwing away my garbage and when I peaked in the trash can I saw:
16-20oz coffee cups
dozens of energy drink cans
1/2 gallons of chocolate milk

It almost brought a tear to my eye, never in my life have I instantly felt like I belonged to a community.

Just wish there was a velodrome closer than 60 miles away.

My weekly race log:

I crashed hard a couple weeks ago in the last lap of a crit and am now missing large quantites of skin and flesh. If you happen to find them, please post to Steve Shasta, kthxbye.

Stitches, sutures, beef jerky scabbation, yellow/green/violet bruising, declining fitness while in recovery. Viva bike racing!

Ha, chocolate milk is one of my buddy's go to recovery drinks. We've finished hard trail rides in mega heat and he's just chugging milk in the parking lot

My weekly race log:
Have five-week period where I can hardly ever ride the bike, let alone race, feel fitness has dropped off during this period so target this week for my comeback races, get some miles in last week then go down with a throat infection which keeps me off the bike, cancel any plans to race this week*, have a foreign (bike-less) holiday coming up during which fitness will drop off again, now most of the late August / September races are looking impossible as well due to family stuff / work stuff / marshalling duties, might try one race at the start of September and that could well be it. Very annoying if my season turns out to have ended in June.

*well, I'm still hoping to do my club's members only annual circuit race on Sunday, but this doesn't really count

Raced a cat5 crit in Torrance, CA on sunday. 40 minutes long, Full field of 50 guys, I had two other teammates (one fast, one slow) with me. Course was nearly table flat, with six 90 degree corners, turns 1 and 2 being a right/left chicane style section. Pretty nasty head/right to left wind coming down the finishing straight.

From the whistle five guys roll off the front, including two from *big local team full of scrubs* and my (fast) teammate. Other teammate and I were coincidentally on the front so we slowed things down quite a bit, just chatting with each other. Incredibly, nobody tried to take over for almost two full laps, by which time the break was far enough up the road to be out of sight through the chicane section. Finally some other people started doing some work and by lap eight or so the break was within sight on the short stretches of road. At that point I was sitting about 4th or 5th wheel in the field the whole time, getting an easy free ride. Seven guys (one of which I recognized as a strong dude, cat-1 MTBer who had handily won a crit I'd done two weeks ago) jumped off the front at this point and bridged up to the break. I decided that was big enough of a group that I could go up to my teammate and made a well measured effort on the back (tailwind) stretch to get up to the front group, bringing 2 more people with me. That group of 15 rode really smoothly together, and I started pulling through in concert with MTBer guy and one dude from *big local team* hoping to let my teammate rest up a bit. The pace stayed high, the cornering was really safe and smooth for a cat 5 race (No braking! Everybody riding in the drops!!).

I crossed the start/finish line on the final lap in 4th wheel, when the three guys in front of me promptly pulled off to the side and stopped working. I had my teammate with me, and didn't really feel like contesting the sprint (my new insurance policy doesn't cover things for another month!!!) so I decided to just drill it from there instead of toying around. I led the final lap from there all the way through the final corner (about 250M from the finish) where I pulled off the front and rolled in easy as all the sprinting people jumped. My teammate had gotten a good easy ride on the final lap and was able to sprint into 4th place. Unattached Cat1 MTB guy easily dusted everybody and won it. The rest of the field that our front group had split off rolled in about 25 seconds later.

It was a very fun race, and felt fast and safe. It seems rare to have a field split like that in the 5's. I was really happy with how my teammates worked together, and with the decision I made to bridge up to the final selection. It was the right move at the right time done with the right amount of effort. I was also feeling real good at the end, and would have placed well in the sprint if I was feeling braver. I have enough starts now to move to Cat4, but am going to finish off the year in the 5's and make a solid campaign of it next year.

A lot of words about a flat cat-5 crit!!! :)

Chapeau!

SLP, I saw this and thought of you:
http://www.brentwoodgrandprix.com/course.html

Holy carnage.

I'm doing a nocturne crit series held on a boomerang shaped course but this looks far more wicked. Esp for a "state" championship.

I did that Brentwood race! It was actually fun as hell! Since it was the State (ok, ok, 1/2 the state) championships, it was laid out PRO as hell. Full barriers down start/finish, SRAM Neutral support wheel pit, cool arch over the start/finish line. Through a cool downtown part of the town, not some industrial park in the middle of nowhere. I raced OK, had only my slow teammate with me. The same cast of characters from last week's Torrance crit were up at the front, and again we split about 25 guys off the front (or I guess I should say the chaff in the back half of the field couldn't keep up). On one pull I took I ended up rolling off the front with one other guy and when I flicked the elbow for him to come around he kind of laughed at me, so we ended up rolling back to the pack. I came into that last right/left chicane (which was uphill) in about 6th wheel when some guy came flying by across my line and I got close enough to the inside barrier to swipe the outside of my left shoe against them. That lost me a bunch of positions. I passed a few dudes on the finishing straight and took 14th. Definitely had top-5 legs, but just can't mentally hang through the closing risk-taking part of these races just yet. Also, staying in Echo Park with my girlfriend and her sister, and going out to a show at some punk house the night before was probably a bad call....

In the 4's race a dude (from another team) that I train with from time-to time got away in a 2 man break which was only caught by 3 people out of the field (one of which was a teammate) in the finish sprint, so that was exciting, and one of my teammates won the 3's race (and thus, "State" Crit championship jersey). A good day. No crashes in any of those races!!!

Fun aside: when I was warming up for my race my route took me down Bundy drive and past OJ Simpson's old house!

Nah dude, that was Nicole's condo on Bundy!

Nice job dude! Glad you survived.

there used to be a street sign like this on san vicente near bundy that someone drew a knife in the guy's hand and wrote 'oj did it'

http://www.exchange3d.com/images/uploads/aff186/Cross_Walk.jpg

I did my club's annual members-only circuit race just before I went on holiday. There were 12 of us in it (including some people at the not terribly competitive end of the spectrum) and the race was about 50 minutes. I had a couple of attacks early on and whittled the front group down to six and then four once people came back to me. We (the four of us) then stayed together for the rest of the race, gradually lapping other groups. My lack of racing (my last proper race was back in mid-June) started to became apparent to me after a while and my legs were feeling worse and worse. Whenever I took a turn on the front I tried to subtly slow things down. There was one guy in our group who wins this every year - in fact he had just won the bunch sprint in a 'proper' race on the same circuit immediately before our race. I was basically watching him the whole time and trying to make sure I would be on his wheel as we got near the end. When we got the bell for the final lap we all started freewheeling and watching each other. Then the strongest guy suddenly attacked just before a really tight 180-degree bend that nobody else could accelerate round and opened up a healthy gap with about 800 metres to go. With about 500m I was in third, trying to close a gap on the guy in second who was trying to close a gap on the guy out front - I caught the guy in second and he sat up, then suddenly the fourth guy (who had been lurking on my wheel) attacked past me and left me for dead but couldn't quite catch the guy in front. I tried to get out of the saddle for one final desperate chase but my legs were completely fucked by this point and I trundled in for third place.

Nice one! I wish there were more circuit races around here (even though I'm way more crit-sized)

I won two races (burnout, tempo) and got second in another (points) on the track last night. It was my first time with my new 14tooth cog, was riding 48 x 15 before. Definitely harder to spin up to respond to quick attacks, but once up to speed its way easier to hold. That's why I did well on the tempo race, which used to kill me, I think. I'm moving up in category next week, so it'll be.back to the rear of the field.

Hey SLP, do you know who Ethan Suplee is? He was in your race btw.

NB&S: "Whenever I took a turn on the front I tried to subtly slow things down."

Yessss, the best tactic imho. I try to bounce my shoulders up and down to pretend like I'm really killing it too.

Nope don't know him. Is he a UCSD Guy? How old?

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0839486/

Ahaha wow. I totally dropped that dude. lmao.

Another crit yesterday, Ladera Ranch GP 30+ 4/5 race. It was on a .8 mile course in the ultimate South Orange County Stepford town. The place looked like it was beamed down, fully-formed, by some alien space ship. I expected to catch one of the highly gym-toned and made-up OC moms hanging around the course sticking out a long lizard tongue when she thought nobody was looking. Anyway, turn 1 was tighter than 90 degrees and went from two lanes to one, and when I was walking up to the course when I arrived, my first sight was of a teammate in an arm sling with a broken clav from a crash in the earlier (cat-4) race, so I was pretty spooked. Held top 10 the whole time, kept my position, even fought up the gutter on one lap. With 4 laps to go the field slowed a bit, waiting for the finish, and people started going 5-wide and swarming through the corners so I decided I didn't really want any of that. I rode easy and smooth through the corners on the 3rd and 2nd to last laps, and then attacked across the start/finish line from about 15th place with one to go and got a (very small) gap through corners 1 and 2. Held onto the lead through 3 and kind of gave up on the uphill stretch between 3 and 4. The field strung out into a nice safe single-file behind me, though, and two teammates were able to secure good finishes. Need to work on 2-minute power if I want to make those kinds of moves.

http://app.strava.com/rides/1238563

Or I could get better insurance and then have the confidence to bump elbows through the turns and sit in and contest the big field sprint...

Request went through, am now officially a Cat 4. If I was a hurricane I'd be weakening. Can't wait to crash in the huge fields and get blown the fuck off the back in the Masters 35+ 1-4 race.

Last race of the year today. Finished 7th overall, 3rd out of the pack.

Today's race finished on a long flat, then a 90 degree corner with 250m to go and then a slight ramp at the end into the finishing chute.

Those of you who don't know me know that I am more of a 800m guy than a 200m guy. I like to take my chances when things start getting tense and people start looking around.

http://i.imgur.com/KRFYl.png

This tells the story. There's about 25 of us left at the end with a break of 4 up the road. I jump with about 800m to go and rail the outside at 35mph into a 10mph crosswind. It's a race for the corner, and I hit it first with a big gap. I hold 32mph through the corner and then into the final stretch into the headwind. I hold on for whatever I can get... two guys pass me at the line. Shit. Good race though. Really intense and hard on every hill. Wish I had a little bit more at the end. Final 800m = 610W, 31.6mph, left my heart rate monitor at home.

I did a 25-mile time trial today, my first time trial since March. It was a chilly start (I was off at 8.24am) but soon got better in the freakish October heatwave we're having. The course is, broadly speaking, just over 12 miles south-north then just under 13 miles north-south, with more climbing on the return leg, and for some reason there always seems to be a wind from the south, so the return leg is always slower than the first leg. Despite my lack of racing, I felt comfortable today and got to the turn at an average of just under 24mph. It was a bit of a slog on the way back, but not as bad as many other times I've done it, and I managed to keep my average above 22mph (which was my target):
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r299/crunchydog_2006/tempgraph.jpg
My time was 1:07:24, which is a little over a minute slower than my PB, but my second fastest time on this course and my fastest time this season (although I've only done three time trials). That's it for road racing and time trials this season: next comes the dreaded Catford Hill Climb (assuming my entry has been accepted).

Question for you NB&S, how are race registrations handled in England? Do you normally pre-reg online or do day-of?

Time trials are run by CTT (a completely separate organization from British Cycling), there's no entry on the line - you have to send your entry in at least 2 weeks in advance. Most races have a maximum of 120 competitors, so two hours at one-minute intervals. If it's oversubcribed only the fastest get in (based on previous times submitted on the entry form). The races on the 'dragstrips' (i.e. flat dual carriageways with lorries that suck you along) are always full, but I have no interest in riding a bike on a virtual motorway, so I mostly enter events on 'sporting courses' (quieter, twistier, lumpier roads) that only get about 50-70 entrants.

Most road races are run by British Cycling. You need to have a racing licence to take part. For circuit races on a purpose-built circuit or an airstrip or similar you can normally enter on the line (but it costs a bit more than entering in advance) as there's no limit to the number of riders. Well, there might be, but it's never reached. For races out on the open road the police normally put a limit of 60 or 80 riders - these are always oversubcribed so you have to enter in advance. You also usually get about 6 or 7 'reserves' who turn up and take the place of anyone who has dropped out. Again - only the strongest riders within the specified categories get in - usually. However, the road races I've done this year were part of a league, and each member club that puts on a race is guaranteed at least two places for its riders if they enter, so I've managed to get in despite never picking up a single point.

I see, so when you're registering for a popular event that you know will fill up, you do so online via a third party company? or does the event handle the registrations themselves? or does British Cycling handle all the registration transactions?

It's still pretty antiquated for the most part. You generally have to post an entry form together with a cheque directly to the race organizer. There are a few road races where you can enter online, hardly any time trials. Most cycling clubs are very conservative (small 'c'), small-time organisations - it's a world of paying 50p for a cup of tea and a biscuit in a village hall while you wait for Old Ernie to handwrite up the results on a board. Sportives, which are a relatively new phenomenemenemenem, are comparatively modern: it's all online registration and timing chips and feed stations and full results up on the website and stuff. One problem with online registration, I suppose, is that if the event is oversubcribed the rules are that the strongest riders are those who get in, not the earliest to apply, so it could get complex trying to refund all those who thought they were in but are now out.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/audioslideshow/2010/oct/11/catford-cycling-club-hill-climb-classic
^ An audioslideshow thing about last year's event

So, this morning, the oldest continuing bike race in the world - running since 1887, the Catford CC Hill Climb on Yorks Hill near Sevenoaks in Kent. I think to go in for competitive cycling you have to have something of a masochistic streak, and I've always been drawn to the idea of hill climbs. There's something pure about it: just you against the clock and the gradient - no fear of crashes, no need for tactics, just two or three minutes of pain and the winner is the one who can dig the deepest, suffer the most, and has the mental and physical strength to keep on going.

It wasn't raining by the time I got down there, but it had been so the road was slippy (not what you need when it touches 25% in places). I was feeling distinctly nervous: I'd only been up the hill once before and it was as much as I could do to keep riding then, and that was on my winter bike with a lowest gear of 34x25, whereas my racing bike only goes as low as 39x25. I really didn't want to humiliate myself by failing to get up the hill (especially as I'd invited my parents and brother to watch me race for the first time). Beyond that, my targets were to a)finish within a minute of the winner, b)break the 3-minute barrier, c)beat somebody.

I was expecting the start to be on the easier gradients lower down the climb, but the start line was already a fair way up the hill where the gradient was already 8%. I started on my second-lowest gear, changed up as I picked up momentum, then the road twisted round and sickeningly lurched up to >20%. Straight away I was down on my lowest gear and had nowhere lower to go. I was fighting the bike - just desperately grinding and hoping to keep going. The spectators were dotted in ones and twos lower down, but as you got to the final 150 metres or so there were hundreds of people, many deep, lining the steep banks on either side. It was a fantastic feeling (even though physically it was terrible) having hundreds of people all roaring for you at once and it really does help you to dig deeper. It was like something out of a Tour stage: at one point a woman tried to run alongside shouting encouragement, then when the crowd got really thick you could scarcely see any road ahead of you: people lurked with cameras right in front of you and jumped out of the way at the last second. The crowd was so thick I only saw the checkered flag when I was about 20 metres from the line.

I managed 2:46, which was faster than maybe a quarter of the field (the full results aren't out yet) and is less than a minute slower than the all-time record, so I safely met my targets. If I do it again next year I reckon I'll be able to improve on that. My problem was that it was just sooooooo steep that I was scared of committing too soon - if you blow up, that's it, there's no chance of recovery. Next time I'll know that when you hit the thick crowds you can give it everything because the finish isn't too far away.

Bad ass! That sounds really fun, even for a fat trackie/crit guy like me. Crowds like that rule.

Great video here:
http://vimeo.com/30273999
My gurning face makes a brief appearance around the 2:13 mark, but it's not really the high point

fantastic. is pre-race alcohol considered cheating?

On the contrary, you have to down a pint of Guiness before you can start

Nice work dude, did Germaine Burton win it? He's the son of the owner of de vere cycles in norbury and looks like quite the prospect, 15 I think and won a fair few of the crystal palace crits (and one of the hill climbs last year)

No, he wasn't in it, but he won the Bec CC Hill Climb (on Titsey Hill, which I think is just inside the M25) in the afternoon:
http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest/530407/burton-scorches-bec-hill-climb.html

I got 60th place out of 103 starters :-)

that's really impressive, hat!

Monsal Head climb this weekend too, I cycled that when I was 16 and nearly died. Hills are not my friend (though we are steadily becoming acquaintances)

Nie work NBS, that's awesome! You're living the dream.

That sounds awful, but great job.

On the contrary, you have to down a pint of Guiness before you can start

Might have a chance of finishing then.

Thanks, all. Not terribly flattering professional photo:
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r299/crunchydog_2006/catfordresized.jpg

That's a brilliant photo!! You are a fucking MAN.

I AM A TIGER