my weekly race log

because of best all around rider and team competition my team had me remain a 4 until i had well over req'd 25 points- i think i was in the 60s by late july. association has wisely discontinued this competition in 4s. even more ridiculous thing was i finished second to a teammate!

time trial - 7th place
road race - 15th place
circuit race - 20th place
criterium - 10th place

8th overall in the GC

currently ranked 11th in the country and 3rd in new york state. putting my cat 3 upgrade in today, let's see if it works.

plz easy. good racing.

This is fantastic, cutty. I've just been reading about Paul Kimmage's amateur riding career prior to turning pro in France and it gives me some idea of what your races must be like (though the bit about checking each other's shorts for actual syringes full of drugs is presumably a little outdated).

i was gonna ask about that - do tons of dudes dope? and what does '11th in the country' mean (i mean obv its awesome but 11th amongst whom?)

beware obsessive masters guys in midlife crisis who are doctors or are tight with doctors

i never heard of anyone doping in mid level amateurs. if you have to dope to reach elite amateur, or even domestic pro imo, you should really really rethink yr life at a fundamental level.

it means out of all the cat 4s in the US, i am ranked 11th:

https://www.usacycling.org/rankings/?org=USCF&sex=M&disc=RR&cat=04

you should all read tim krabbe's "the rider" for a dose of the amateur cycling mind!

11 out of 3,500+ sounds pretty impressive to me! How does the points system work?

no colorado, no legitimacy :)

i never heard of anyone doping in mid level amateurs. if you have to dope to reach elite amateur, or even domestic pro imo, you should really really rethink yr life at a fundamental level.

-- Hunt3r

yeah i was asking because i know even in HS & low-level college tons of kids (thinking football + baseball mostly here) get pretty deep into that sorta stuff even though they have nothing to gain from it career-wise because hey, they want to win & the pros do it

points are based on results and the weight of the races (how many riders in the field, length of the course, etc)

hey cutty, this might be an impossible question, but how quickly do you think you'd have completed today's Tour de France time trial?

ha, no idea. minutes less for sure. all i can say is some people in the pro/1/2 field had worse times than me at fitchburg...

awesome work cutty. :-D

MAN, I WLD HAVE DEF BEAT VALVERDE'S TIME!............ON FIXED GEAR, WITH ONE FLAT TIRE.

IM JUST SAYIN

tour of the hilltowns:

http://www.nohobikeclub.org/2007_profile.pdf

race number was 420 again.

coming out of that first climb massive climb, the field was completely shattered and there were 9 of us. we quickly formed up a pace line and started working pretty efficiently, echelon style.

after about a half-hour we were caught by 10 or so riders who were chasing since the climb. not a peep from the rest of the field, really. it got a little disorganized.

coming into that last climb, someone attacked (i learned later he was an ex-pro hockey player) and i jumped on his wheel right away because it looked right. a couple of minutes later someone was on my wheel... and everyone else was gone. we stayed away all the way up the last climb.

the guy who attacked was huge and obviously was going to have a nice sprint. the other guy was smaller than me. as we're chatting away i find out it's hockey players first cat 4 race. well then that means he really hasn't had a chance to learn how to time a sprint right, does he? he came into the last turn to finish line first, i accelerated out of his draft the second he stood up and hammered my way to victory.

it was my first cat 4 WIN and now a cat 3 is me! yesssssss

that is badass, i fucking hate hockey players

how do you manage to keep drawing 420???

i would like to thank jah but i think it has do with my last name starting with a CU which generally will put me in that area if they are distributing numbers alphabetically.

hockey player i outsprinted:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Weinrich

You rock cutty.

do they even have hockey in england? it's a sport where big guys beat each other up with sticks.

great!

The following request to change your USCF category has been approved and processed by USA Cycling:
mattcuttler - 2008-07-26 19:44
Member: M4tt Cuttl3r
License: Road Racer
Request to change category from Cat 4 to Cat 3

Rock. Are you going to find Cat 3 more competitive or will you glide on up to Cat 2?

i plan on hanging in cat 3 for a while i think... it will be more competitive. it might be very possible for me to upgrade to cat 2 by next season but then i definitely will not be competitive because i am a lawyer with a full time job, not some 21 year guy training 3 hours a day during the week...

i raced the green mountain stage race (http://www.gmsr.info) this weekend in vermont. 4 days of racing.

i didn't do too well in the prologue TT. my time was decent but it was pretty tight and i was placed at 35th.

stage 1 consisted of two 29 mile loops. mostly flat with some rollers. very fast race. i went for a solo move with 10k (6 miles) to go. and it stuck! i hit the finish line with 4 SECONDS on the pack. this put me in to 21st place in the GC.

http://www.velocityresults.net/images/873.jpg

stage 2 was the road race. 75 miles, three insane climbs, the last one being appalachian gap which hit 22% grade in the final kilometer. i bridged up to a break before the final climbs started. then i made the 5-6 riders in the break work their asses off to the base of the climb. i held on to 4th place. this put me in 4th place in the GC!!!

however, stage 3, the criterium, SUCKED. i had a call out and was at the front at the start, but i got shelled really quickly. it was hard and there was no way i could get back on. i got pulled from the crit because of the time cut. i hate crits. therfore my GC standing went down to 28.

however, i still held on to 3rd place in the overall points competition. and i really can't be upset with a stage win and 4th place in one of the hardest climbing races i've ever done!

podium pics (with race moustache) to follow as soon as they are available.

Woah, radical spokes dude!

cutty that is bitchin'

awesome

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=790&l=d82a5&id=306500098

also:

http://www.photoblog.com/thevermonter/2008/09/04/2008-gmsr--stage-2-cat-3-finish.html

great snaps!

bah, facebook.

James Dean, James Dean, seen you on the silver screen.

Can I gatecrash this thread, cutty?

My big comeback today: first race of any kind since 1991, and first road race since 1989. Did the 4th cat race at Hog Hill circuit, which is basically 40 minutes of racing plus one lap. There were about 35 of us. There's a nasty 1-in-9 climb up to the finishing straight every lap and today there was a vicious headwind for large parts of the course. The opening was fast: my best lap time when I came here to practice on my own was 3:48, my first lap today was 3:24. The field soon split up into a leading group of about 10, a chasing group of about 7, and a whole string of chasers getting stretched out (which included me, towards the front). I spent most of the race in all sorts of pain: even though there were people around me, we all seemed to have 5 second gaps between us, and most of the time I just couldn't close down the gap to get on a wheel. I was expecting to get lapped at any point, but the leaders seemed to be taking forever to appear. They eventually caught me with 1.5 laps to go (for them, technically 2.5 for me, but obviously you don't actually do that extra one at the end) and I managed to sit in with them this time. Even though the pace was higher it was much easier taking shelter. I'm not sure how many I beat in the end (probably about 6 or 7, including one person who I lapped right near the end) as I don't think they do any placings outside the top ten. It was torture, but I quite heartened by the fact that the winners only took about 3.5 mins out of me over 40 mins - that doesn't seem an unbridgeable gap (but it'll take a few more months to get there).

awesome!

Official report now in: http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/web/site/BC/roa/EventReports2009/20090131_EastLondonVelo_Winter.asp
Apparently I was 22nd out of 30 finishers.

this is rly great and congrats but i hope yr summer events are full cuz racin in January is sorta nutty.

I was hoping to do it again this weekend coming, but London is about 6 inches under snow at the moment and that really would be nutty to race in.

now hunt3r needs to make his comeback

Just phoned up and found out that the circuit is closed because it's covered in ice, so no race today. What an anti-climax. The snow's all gone from London now, so I thought it'd be OK, but this was the course earlier in the week:
http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/web/MultimediaFiles/20090206_REDBRIDGE_SNOW.JPG

Back in action again today. The weather was a lot better than last time (warmer, sunnier, less windy) and the field in my race was bigger (about 45). I'd set myself three golden rules for this one: 1) be bold when cornering, don't just slacken off, you've got just as much right to your space as anyone else; 2) fight as hard as you can to stay with the bunch - it might kill you, but it's still easier than riding round on your own; 3) if / when you do get dropped, sit up and wait for someone else (dropped before you) to catch you and then work together. I managed to stick right in the middle of the bunch for the first couple of laps - it was a bit hair-raising as it was breakneck pace (averaging 24 mph, but descending at 37) with people jockeying for position all the time and constant concertina-ing as you sprint to close down a gap and then free wheel as it all comes together. On the climb at the end of the second lap I had a rush of blood to the head: from near the back of the bunch I moved wide right and then launched myself right off the front. I crossed the line clear on my own, but got caught within 30 seconds and then found myself sinking back through the field. I lost contact with the bunch on the fourth lap, had a lap or so on my own, then eventually found other people to work with (a couple from behind, but mostly people from up ahead who had either been shed off the bunch after me or who were getting lapped). The bunch lapped me with 1.5 laps to go. Don't know my position yet, but it felt better than last time.

my first race of the season is tomorrow AM. just a central park race, but exciting nonetheless. it's my first time racing with a full team, i'll have 8 other teammates in the pro/1/2/3 field.

bona fortuna. they do not have p123 races here. weeellll, one of the weeknight training races allows 3s to race with "A's", so i guess thats sorta the same thing.

how do i shot racing team

win some races and make a name for yourself. the teams will come to you.

well?

well?

(thing is, there's at least a handful of med students who'd be interested in racing....including one ex-racer who spent a year in belgium. i know teams in chicago that just started up as a group of buddies wearing the same kit, and cheering for each other at races.)

my team got 3rd.

there was a crash early on coming into the second lap. we all avoided it, but that's when the break formed. one of our guys was in it.

our rival team is probably the best nyc racing team, we didn't know they had two men in the break. we should have bridged a guy across at some point to increase the chances of winning. the confusion of the crash didn't really give us a chance to size it up properly.

i was at the front mostly chasing down attacks from other teams, with 4-5 other teammates also controlling the race with me. my teammate took 3rd in a sprint from a 7 man break, which is a success for us. this is an entire club series that lasts all summer so we're after the team cup.

i really was putting myself in the red to make it a good training race. i'm not a huge threat in these central park races because i'm basically racing against the best local riders NYC has to offer.

but it was shitloads of fun and i totally forgot how much i love to race!