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Well, it's here. This year I got a new cross bike, and am building some tubs for it. The rims appear to be finally showing up this week. Between our new junior dev team and the race organizer's weekly practices I've actually been out jumping on and off my bike and such a good amount and have even done some workouts. I'm relatively optimistic about doing ok in our local series and also having an actual cross season. Yesterday we had a skills clinic and practice race. I worked at it, so had to be there really loving early since it started at 8am. I don't like getting up when it's still dark out. We had 25 ish people at the clinic and split them into 5 groups and rotated them around. Training/nutrition, starts, barriers, cornering, run ups, all out at the course. I wound up in the cornering station and hopefully was helpful and there were a good amount of new people who stayed for the race. 11 of us in the A race, including Andrew, who's been out racing road in pro fields, Shaun, Kory, Brian, and Jake from previous race reports. Andrew takes off at the start to never be seen again, Shaun is 2nd, and I'm right behind him. I notice my HR is really high right away. Too high. But then I pass Shaun at some point and am leading all the rest of us for awhile. Few laps in (I think we did 8 or 9 for a 40min race), Brian gets past Shuan and then past me and gets a little space. I can corner better than him and run the barriers faster but he's just pedaling harder. Then Kory finally catches up and it's the same deal. I followed him for a little while and almost ran into the back of him through the two fast corners in the gravel parking lot but then it was a short paved climb and some thick grass so off he went, catching brian. Then a lap or two later they get tangled up in the 180s on the grass and Brian falls down so Shaun and I are back in front of him for awhile. He gets by again, builds a little gap, but then I feel like I'm getting closer. Shuan is on my wheel the whole time but by now it's just us. Brian falls over again in a slow 180 on grass and Shaun and I are past with 3 to go. 2 to go on the runup near the end of the lap Shaun sprints past me, then gets a little more room on the barriers because he's really, really good at running them, and holds it through the last lap. Kind of a usual result, Shaun and I have been going back and forth for years now, Kory has always had more power. Brain was really strong. I was hoping for a little better. HR was way up there the whole time and I was over lthr for too long, too early. Gettting up before 6am and having no warmup probably didn't help. And maybe I'm better off just not looking. I spent a lot of time mid race thinking "oh poo poo this is bad you have to slow down" but did manage to stick it out and go 40min. 15-20 more minutes would not have gone well though. I still feel like poo poo. That tends to happen after the first cross race though. Also first time racing on that bike and those tires (maxxis speed terrene, seems good- fast, good grip in the corners) and even tubeless tires. Not too different from the old one but definitely better. First wednesday is this week at a new course at a winery so that should be interesting. I also have to work at these doing course setup and take down and stuff which is a little less than ideal when getting ready to race. Plus side I get paid to be there, and it will be less work than climbing up and down and all over and XC race course like I was doing this spring. Little gallery here, I think this is public https://www.facebook.com/groups/1586490781420592/permalink/4251394321596878/ jamal fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Sep 19, 2021 |
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Sep 19, 2021 18:04
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I did Dirty Water 500 this weekend and James Ebert won it, and looks like he won Iowa Wind and Rock, too. Dude’s a monster. Crumps - what does SCR stand for on the results? Scratch?
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Sep 20, 2021 12:20
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TobinHatesYou posted:What a dumb race. Saw the title of that race and thought you'd come over to the UK to ride. We have a Winchester circuit race just down the road from me! In other UK based hilarity, the national 10 mile time trial championships still don't have an announced winner of the Men's category over a week after the event finished because the timekeepers stop watch ran out of battery and the spare didn't get started.
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Sep 20, 2021 12:44
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Yeah, SCR is standard for Scratched
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Sep 20, 2021 13:06
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 I had signed up for this race last year, however I bailed due to COVID. This year I was lucky enough to have a friend who is insane enough to tackle this with me, which made the long stretches of road tolerable, as well as providing a degree of safety for the really gnarly descents. Day before: I started off by riding my bike to get a rental car from the airport. Drove it across the state and dropped it off at the Huntington Tri-State Airport, one of the tiniest ones around. We re-assembled the bikes in the airport parking lot and set off, secure in the knowledge we didn’t have a car and were 5 hours away from our families if we DNF’d. We had to ride the long way to find a bridge across the Ohio river that wasn’t a 1 lane, 55mph bridge, so it took us 18 miles to go approximately 5 as the crow flies. We arrived 5 minutes late to the mandatory rider’s meeting, but luckily nothing critical was missed. We hitched a ride with another buddy who had a car there so we were able to get back to our hotel a little quicker. I was in bed at 9pm and fell asleep pretty quick. Race day: Waking up at 3:30am to crush some pop-tarts and coffee, we rode the 5 miles to the start. Dipped my rear tire into the river. At 5am the race begun with 46 starters, and a neutral rollout until the first turn a few miles later. After that turn, drafting was still allowed until we hit gravel, which was about 20 miles into the race, but you were free to attack. My buddy and I got on the front and set a decent clip, and by the time we hit the gravel we had thinned the herd down to about 8 riders. At this point no drafting is allowed, but it didn’t matter because the course was immediately into a 20%+ climb on grade 4 gravel. It was here that I was worried I was undertired with Donnelly Strada USH WC 700x40s, but we managed to make it up the hill. My easiest gear combo was 28x36 and I was definitely glad to have it. We kept up a good pace of around 16mph for the first 50 miles, and stopped at a gas station to refill bottles. During this brief pit stop we got passed by some riders, so we were sitting in 6th or so. I wasn’t sure how these guys were going to manage without stopping for water until the 100 mile checkpoint and it turns out it did some of them in later. We got back on and continued at a solid clip. We managed to pass those riders along the way and arrived at the first checkpoint just 15 minutes after 3rd. I knew 1st was likely out of reach since the guy had 35 minutes on us already. We pressed on to our next water stop, which was about 60 miles away, at mile ~160. It was getting really warm, almost 90F. We came out of a climb to a flat stretch to find a guy with his bike upside down trying to fix it near mile 150. His RD cable had blown up and he doesn’t have a spare. Neither of us do either. We make sure he’s good and roll on. Back on the podium for at least one of us. I’m out of water as we roll into our water stop. My core temp is up, and I’m not doing great. We got to our stop only to find a sign saying they’re closed due to staffing. We had called earlier in the week to make sure they’d be there. We tried their hose out back and got nothing. Tried a small commercial building across the street, nothing. If we didn’t find water soon it’s likely we’re going to DNF or have to backtrack awhile to a grocery store. I pulled out my phone and found a sports bar a few miles off course that said it was open, so we decided to give it a shot. We start heading down the road only to run into a tiny grocery store. It’s not on google maps, it’s not online anywhere. As far as I can tell it doesn’t exist so I may have hallucinated the whole thing. I fill 3 bottles and crush the rest of the water. I check the tracker again and it shows someone has passed us. I curse, and get back on the bike. Now we’re pressing on to around 205 miles, where the next mandatory checkpoint is located. We arrived a little after 8, so it’s almost completely dark. We’re told that we’re in 3rd and 4th so nobody had actually passed us at the grocery store. I’m stripped down to my bibs laying in the grass. I can feel the water sloshing in me, and I’m so tired of sweet foods. They’ve got nothing but Untapped maple syrup products at the checkpoint. I’m yelling at myself for not bringing enough salty food. Luckily it’s beginning to cool so it’s back on the bike and into the final third of the course. The final third starts off great. You do a little climbing and then are greeted with sweeping paved roads for about 10 miles. Home stretch you think. The worst is behind us, just have to power through to the finish. Wrong. As you roll into the Mohican/Glenmont area it is a succession of nut punch after nut punch routed by someone with exacting knowledge of the worst roads in the area. Every climb is steep as poo poo gravel, the roads are destroyed and you’re trying to do it in the dark. There’s deep sand, huge rocks and off camber poo poo so the descents are super slow and all that energy you burned going uphill is lost through your brakes. I had to walk my bike twice because I couldn’t get any traction. 60 miles to the next checkpoint took us 5.5 hours, and that was with about 10 miles of nice paved road coming into the checkpoint. We had set a course marker telling us when the worst of the climbing was over and I couldn’t have been more relieved when I saw it popup. The last check point is at the bike shop putting this on. They were open at 2am when we arrived. Same story on the nutrition front, nothing but sweet foods. I’m debating hitting the bar across the street to see if they have anything, but it’s packed with drunk college kids and I’m not looking to deal with that. I’m also looking around the store to see if they have a vest, which they don’t. It’s now around 60 and dropping and I’m wearing just bibs and a jersey. I’m a moron. We’re at mile 265ish and I know it’s the now really the home stretch so I tell myself to toughen up. It’s essentially flat/downhill with a couple short punchy climbs, I can do this. Spoiler: I get to mile 280 and I’m completely falling apart. The water is just not getting processed by my body, it’s sloshing and I’m nauseous. I can barely fathom eating any food, let alone anything sweet. I check my Garmin and there’s a course point for a gas station. I asked my buddy if this place was added because it’s 24 hours, and he said confirmed it was. I’ve never been happier than in that moment, it was like Christmas. We start talking about getting hot dogs, loaded with relish, maybe a slice of pizza? Definitely some coffee. It keeps us occupied for the 5 miles or so to the gas station. It’s open. There’s no hot food, but there is hot coffee, and a big bag of cheetohs with my name on them. I eat the entire thing and pound a coffee in the parking lot. My buddy gives me his spare jersey to layer over mine. I’m immediately revitalized. We get back on the bike and we’re into the final miles. There’s a couple of sadistic flashes like the short 18% climb with just a couple miles to go but it’s otherwise uneventful enough. We rolled in just before 6am. It wasn’t quite the sub-24 hours we had aimed to do, but we held on to 3rd and 4th. 1st place was the guy who won Iowa Wind and Rock this year and appears to be a general monster. Dipped my tire into the lake to finish the course. Rode a few miles to get breakfast and ordered two breakfasts, and ate them both. 46 Starters/2 DNS 20 Finishers/26 DNF Chased by a lot of dogs, saw what we think was a black bear, and a ton of other critters. Not sure I’ll do it again next year but if not I’m volunteering for the finish line and I’m bringing a big rear end cooler of PBR and grilling some hot dogs for the finishers. Nobody should have to end a ride like that without a beer.
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Sep 21, 2021 21:25
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Literally Lewis Hamilton posted:I check my Garmin and there’s a course point for a gas station. I asked my buddy if this place was added because it’s 24 hours, and he said confirmed it was. I’ve never been happier than in that moment, it was like Christmas. We start talking about getting hot dogs, loaded with relish, maybe a slice of pizza? Definitely some coffee. It keeps us occupied for the 5 miles or so to the gas station. It’s open. There’s no hot food, but there is hot coffee, and a big bag of cheetohs with my name on them. I eat the entire thing and pound a coffee in the parking lot. Live by the trash, die by the trash.
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Sep 21, 2021 21:49
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Incredible race report. This thread is so good.
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Sep 22, 2021 14:46
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Great report! Killer riding out there.
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Sep 23, 2021 02:40
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drat that's a long way, nice. Week 1 cx tonight. New venue- a winery. We were supposed to get out there at like 10, I showed up maybe 20 minutes after that, and then Shaun wasn't there yet. I start wandering around, and it appears the course is going through this giant field of rocks. poo poo. On the email with the plan for the day it was Shaun and I set up the course and pull rocks. gently caress. He shows up as I'm wandering around the field getting fairly annoyed. Then we start putting up some stakes and tape and cones and ez-ups and timing mats and all that poo poo that goes along with a bike race. Thankfully the course only goes straight through the lumpy field once, and after everything else is set up and we eat some lunch I go out there with a pick axe and start pulling out rocks. I'm sore and drenched in sweat and then suddenly it's like 4 and people start showing up, but at least now the field is mostly just lumpy and the rocks hidden in the grass are gone. I change, and then it's time to take the kids and juniors through the course for pre-ride. My first full lap at slow speed with children and I slice open my rear tire. Have I said "gently caress" yet? I consider patching it, or putting in a tube, but with how lumpy everything is I just drove home and got my hei hei. Take two laps, and it's time to go. Thankfully I get a front row call up because it's based on the overall results from the last series in the before times. There are a bunch of people there, all the usuals plus Howard Grotts, who I guess is a usual now since he lives here and was at the xc races. He's on the back row of men's A on a singlespeed cross bike. The front row is me, Toby, Robert, Dan, Andrew, Shaun, and that's as wide as the road. I have a decent start and get to the first corner fairly near the front which is nice because it looks crowded back there behind me. A and masters all started together which was like 45 people, looks like 19 in A. Howard got up to the front in a hurry and then dropped his chain in the lumpy part. Dan, Andrew, and Toby seemed to be the guys up there at the front. Then I was in the mix with the next group, which started out big, and then got smaller. There was only about one spot where the mtb lost time, the dirt road start/finish straight. Then it was good through the corners, except wide bars mean you have to take a wider line, and significantly faster down the lumpy back stretch. I could actually ease up through there a bit and recover and still rode away from the cross bikes. Then Andrew dropped out due to a sore back, then Cory got a flat when he was still close enough to me that I noticed. Brian was the next guy back, and maybe Howard had passed me again, but then his saddle broke off. Then on the last lap he's back there again, and well, despite having to stand the whole time and remount really slowly I couldn't hang on through the last lap especially with his really aggressive passes through lapped traffic. But I got 4th, so pretty good. I was pretty concerned after how bad I felt after saturday, and then tried to do some openers last night that went real bad, then was out there all day working on the course. This whole season is going to be the race for 4th-5th for me and it's going to be tough. Next week is the same course, I think we're going to try to avoid that lumpy field and make it more cx bike appropriate. Then we're at a golf course. Also my rims finally showed up so I should have my tubs ready for the next time if I want to use them, although I'll probably stick with the tubeless file treads. some pics https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=jsieberphotos&set=a.211380054316733 jamal fucked around with this message at 01:41 on Sep 25, 2021 |
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Sep 23, 2021 05:35
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Last week was Masters Track Nationals. This was my second time going, after my first in 2019. Like everything this year, this was different. Part of it was the wait - almost 20 months of training, but also the weight of expectation. Titles to defend. A dominant season at my home track. All that changed how things felt. Less pure excitement, more pressure, more stress. As with 2019, I decided to race everything. I love racing, and, hell, worst comes to worst, by racing everything I've got good odds of taking home the Best All-round Rider trophy. For those of you who don't know track racing, "everything" in this context means: Wednesday: 3km individual pursuit Thursday: 1km individual time trial Friday: 10km scratch and 30km points race Saturday: Match Sprint Tournament Sunday: 4km team pursuit and 28km madison Okay, technically there's *also* a 1km team sprint on Sunday, so I skipped one event. 3km Pursuit I don't really consider myself much for individual events - I do best when I can push myself to make someone else hurt, not just make myself suffer. That said, I had posted a very strong time (for me) at our regional championships a month earlier, so I at least had a good benchmark of what I could expect for myself. I had scouted out a few of the folks in my category, and knew one of the local riders had posted times that were likely well beyond what I could hope for. In a pursuit the events are scored by overall time (like a time trial), but you start opposite another rider. I was paired up with the likely favorite (a compliment or a curse?), which meant I had a choice: race for a PR, or race for the win. I decided what the hell, might as well see what I'm capable or incapable of, and started out on a pace to match the other guy - far faster than I've ever attempted. Turns out: no, I can't go that fast! I realized after a kilometer that I was going to blow up hard on that pacing. I managed to dial it back to a sustainable level, get back on top of things, and then drive hard home in the final kilometer. It's amazing how an event that only lasts less than 4 minutes can feel like an eternity. I hung on for a solid (but distant) silver medal, and still managed to get a PR for the event with a time of 3:37.255 (just under 50kph). 1km TT The kilometer is the worst event possible. It's too short to pace, and the start is too important for you to hold anything back, but at around 70 seconds it's too long to rely on pure anaerobic power. You *will* completely exhaust your anaerobic energy stores, and will be left trying to hold on for dear life, keep your vision from blurring, and stay on the track long enough to finish. It doesn't matter how fast you go, it's always an awful event. My power profile should make me good at this, but I've always had trouble fully committing to the pain that I know will come if I go all-out at the start. After a teammate showed me how much faster than me he had gone with less average power, I think it finally clicked what I had to do. I was still over a second slower than him on my opening lap, but I faded less, and managed to come home with another PR (1:08.946) and another silver medal. 10km Scratch Race For those who don't race track, a scratch race is just a race - first across the line at the end wins. A 10km race is a bit odd: it's long enough that attacks will go and all that, but unless someone is just massively strong or gets ignored outright (unlikely at a national championship), it's likely coming down to a sprint. The race isn't long enough for endurance to really become a major determiner. With that in mind, gearing strategy is a huge component of success - you want a gear that favors your best shots of winning, but if the rest of the field has picked differently you could be in for a world of hurt. A big gear is great for the final sprint, but if the race consistently slows down that's a lot of effort to re-accelerate every time. If you gear smaller for a surgey race and it ends up in a sprint, though, what's the point? There gets to be a bit of a gearing "meta", and at my track we've gone big this year. Like... real big. Scratch races of this distance start fast, stay fast, and end faster. My age group was combined with the next size up since numbers weren't huge for either field, which I figured meant even better odds that we'd be able to keep things rolling and not let folks get away. I slapped on the same gear I'd use at home and hoped for the best. The combined field meant dynamics would be odd - we race together but are still scored separately, so you're not *really* racing everyone. The race started pretty quick, and with about 15 laps in (of 30) laps a breakaway formed. I ended up having to put a bit of a big dig to get up to it, but we had 2 of each of from each field working together. After another 10 laps or so four more folks had bridged up, but only one was in my category, so out of the group of 8 I only had to mark two guys. Going in to the last few laps I did just enough work to keep the pace moving - sitting up is dangerous (both in terms of potential crashes and also for having to respond to attacks). One of the guys from the other age group attacked hard with 3 laps to go, but that wasn't any issue of mine. I floated about 5 wheels back, wound things up from the back of the pack, and attacked hard with 400m to go. I was pretty free and clear, with the only issue being that there were lapped riders in the way as I came down the homestraight - flashbacks to 2019 nats when I crashed because of a lapped rider in the way in a sprint. I ended up just praying they'd hold a straight line, sprinting through them, and came away with the win. 30km Points Race Masters racing is all about compromises. We've all got lives, day jobs, whatever. Who wins often comes down to who can even make it to the start line. In this case, a local 3-time Olympian on the start list had already taken my expectations for defending my 2019 title away, but I was damned if I wasn't going to race my heart out. My excitement was somewhat defused by weather delays in the session causing our race to get bumped a day - overlapping with the sprints I had on deck! Things started out spicy again, but I continued my approach of planning to just mark the folks in my field. That plan got less important when, after the first few sprints were through, it was clear that myself, the olympian, and one other highly decorated local (former pro, national team member) were not only the only people in contention in our field, but overall too. By about two-thirds of the way in I shifted focus from trying to race for the win to making sure I secured silver. It was closer than I had thought, and ultimately came down to the final sprint, which I managed to win in convincing fashion. Not a win, but this one felt great - racing against someone of that caliber and being able to not just get downright embarrassed was seriously gratifying. Match Sprints I'm not a true sprinter, but I signed up for it just to secure the Best All-round Rider competition, and figured I might as well give it a shot. Having 30km of hard racing in my legs from moments before took off any pressure, though - I was doing to this to have fun and that's it. With that in mind, I was pleased as punch with my qualifying time - 11.581s. Not a PR, but close to an outdoor best, and certainly my best with that much hard racing fatigue! Unfortunately it still left me qualified 4th, with quite a few rides ahead of me. I raced relatively smart in my quarter-final rides to progess, went home and took a far-too-brief nap. Unsure about whether the nap was smart, I returned, facing a set of semi-final rides against the guy who qualified fastest, who also happened to be my teammate. He frankly styled all over me - didn't even try to make it let me look good. With that, he was on to the gold-medal finals, and I was on to race for bronze against the guy who had qualified about .07s faster than me. My final-round rides were some of the best I think I've ever sprinted - I had good track position, clean attacks, and rode my own race instead of waiting for my opponent to dictate things. He ended up letting me make the same move twice, and my speed-endurance carried me to a bronze. Pretty good for an enduro! After that I got to watch my teammate go to a full three rides, with two relegations (one either way) on his way to winning his first national title. A great but late evening. 4km Team Pursuit So I'm now into the fifth day of this track stage race, and this is Team Event Day. Team event day is odd - sometimes folks just make teams with randoms based on who is up for it during the preceding days. In my case, I had a group of three other guys from my track, and we've spent the last six weeks or so drilling things. Looking over the start list, there's only one other team that looks to all be from the same track, which, regardless of how strong you are, is a huge differentiator in this event. This is the one that I really want to be successful - we're all tired, one of us has a cold (just a cold, but the stress of many covid tests didn't help), and morale isn't super high. Fortunately we're going last, so we'll know exactly what kind of schedule we need to ride to in order to win. Each team posts a time ahead of us that sounds pretty solidly slower than what we have done in training. The team right before us has some hitters - one guy who won the individual pursuit, but they end up having a choppy run, losing a guy early, and blowing up pretty hard in the final K. That left us knowing that we needed a time 4 seconds slower than we did a month earlier to win. Ride smart, don't blow up, and we should be golden. We went out early, and were hitting times. Instead of just calling splits, we had someone calling splits plus our delta to the other team. Unfortunately, in the heat of anaerobic brain death, I got confused as to whether "up" or "down" was a good thing or a bad thing. I heard "up two" and thought we needed to lift the pace by two tenths, when actually we were two seconds faster than the other team.  Whoops. I lifted and burned my teammate who had a cold so hard he had to bail before his pull. Fortunately we had discussed this kind of craziness, the remaining three of us were able to recover, get back to pace, and close things out (albeit with an extra pull for two of us). We rolled home with a PR time of 4:45.062 - not quite as fast as we hoped we might turn if we were all healthy and fresh, but plenty fast to take home a very gratifying win.  Madison After the Team Pursuit I felt like absolute poo poo. Now, I love the Madison - it's one of the events I won in 2019, and it's just a drat hoot. But it took me about half an hour to stop coughing, and the week's efforts and lack of sleep left me not motivated at all. I went out for lunch with my teammates, and as I walked out of the track I yelled to the officials that they should scratch out names from the start list. By the time we were finishing lunch we'd gotten a few texts cajoling us about needing teams to make it a good race, and the burger, shake, and champagne had gotten me in a better mood. By the time we got back to the track we were ready to let ourselves be talked into it, but with an agreement that we weren't racing for gold - the same olympian I'd battled with in the points was in this, and we just didn't need to punish ourselves that way. Sure enough, from the first exchange his team set out for taking a lap, and we blithely watched it go, resolved to be the best-of-the-rest. This made for a genuinely fun race for us - with the pressure off we could sit and sprint, and were fast enough that we ended up with no real threat from third. I won't ever know how close we could've gotten to pressuring the winning team, but we had a blast together. How happy do we look to be done racing??  Anyway, overall it was a blast, both personally and for my group. I came away with two golds, four silvers, and a bronze. The group from my track came home with 9 jerseys - six for the first time. Obligatory bike glamor shot, since I'm a masters racer that bought speed instead of training. 
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Sep 24, 2021 03:21
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bicievino posted:Last week was Masters Track Nationals.  It's so much fun reading all of these extensive trip reports. Congrats on the successful week!
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Sep 24, 2021 05:02
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bicievino posted:Obligatory bike glamor shot, since I'm a masters racer that bought speed instead of training. I was getting to the end of the post and was ready to start chanting "SHOW THE BIKES SHOW THE BIKES"
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Sep 24, 2021 10:55
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> but I continued my approach of planning to just mark the folks in my field Do you just have to remember jersey/helmet combinations of the riders you care about? I have no idea if the races are chaotic enough that you can't spot the numbers.
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Sep 24, 2021 12:06
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Track racing sounds like such a riot. Great work. I love to read the trip reports.
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Sep 24, 2021 13:21
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kimbo305 posted:> but I continued my approach of planning to just mark the folks in my field They gave a different number series to the different age groups, and I spent some time before the race started figuring out who was in what kit.
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Sep 24, 2021 14:37
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Week two cx. This time I rode a cx bike and then did worse. But at least I had a cool new skin suit Last week's course was bumpy as gently caress so this time we cut that section out and tried to stretch out what was left into a little longer race. But it was still shorter than last time, plus mostly narrow and twisty, and that meant really crowded by like lap 3. I'm actually looking forward to the golf course next week, because despite the soul sucking grass it's a big, wide open course and we have like 100+ people out there at the same time. I felt like I was a little better rested but did get kind of hungry while setting up and also didn't get in any sort of a ride the day before. At the start I kind of just slotted in and was feeling pretty comfortable in a big group of like 5-6, then Howard, Toby, and Dan were out there off the front somewhere and finished in that order. But then I just started losing ground. My average HR was lower this week compared to last week but I generally felt kind of bad, and the traffic didn't help things. I was near the back of our group and then would not get around a lapped rider with guys in front of me and then there's a gap to close, which eventually you can't do any more, plus you feel kind of bad constantly like cutting around people and passing them in corners and stuff when they're new and just trying to make it around the course. Being nearer the front of the group would have been helpful. So I wound up like 8th, or 9th, and am now convinced I'm just fat and slow. Hopefully just was on the wrong side of the accordian effect and traffic, guess we'll see next week. Won't have to do as much setup and summer season is over at the shop so I'll have time to do a workout this weekend, practice monday, openers tueday, and chill out a bit more before the race. Oh also my tubs are built but the tires aren't glued yet. I probably should have put a layer of glue on the wheels and tires today since I didn't have much to do, but the shop owner was going to get started on it for me and then decided to wait for another set of tires to show up so he can do two sets at the same time.  light bicycle rims, 240 hubs, cotton team edition baby limuses. Why did I spend all this money on wheels I'll use like twice this year? Oh right the spirit of cyclocross. I even have rotors for them and we have a cassette in stock that will work that I might buy so I can more easily swap wheels even though I don't technically need it and the shop would probably rather sell it at retail. They'll be ready for next week but I think the speed terrenes will be faster on the grass. Was happy with them last night- good cornering grip and fast rolling and I made it through without getting a flat. Went 33/38 I think. With lower I noticed some sealant getting out so I might have been close to pushing the bead off the rim. Oh also there are some pictures https://www.facebook.com/jsieberphotos/posts/215690723885666 and a short video here, camera was on my bike, I might grab that video card and put more of it on youtube https://www.facebook.com/jed.zilla.5/videos/1723971217794032/ jamal fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Oct 1, 2021 |
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Oct 1, 2021 05:21
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Two more cyclocrosses, this time at the golf course.  Not sure what my problem has been this season, could be spending hours setting up the courses before the race or maybe I'm just a little slow right now. I felt like I was doing a good job at workouts leading up to the season but now I'm questioning that, feeling like I should have done more and gone harder. I've even been getting good starts, yesterday I was right behind Howard into the first turn and then 4th wheel in the spiral of death. Then I made some mistakes, just like last week. I made this super nasty off camber around a corner on rough grass, and had practiced the high line because it was shorter and you didn't drop down. But thought I'd probably run it on lap one. Then everyone in front of me went low, so I stayed on my bike, and slid out.Then I got hung up coming out of the back sandtrap and lost the wheels just in time for a headwind section on cart path. This week I made the off camber go the other direction, came into it in the same situation, and did the exact same thing. Then slid out again on another tricky corner and there went everyone I wanted to be racing with again. I felt better at least during the whole race but it's hard to stay motivated when you're by yourself. Next week is the big race at the brewery, with wed night being on the same course. So I'll be out there working all week, but hopefully will be able to relax a bit on friday and saturday and try to put together a better race. I'm doing a big mtb ride tonight, then will get in one more workout this weekend, and that will have to be enough. I'll also finally swap to the tubs. The brewery course also has grass but a baby limus should be a fairly appropriate tire for the big hillside and chewed up wet grass in the back yard. Sort of questioning that investment into a set of wheels and tires I'm going to use a handful of times a year... Then we've got a hill climb the weekend after so I can find out if I'm actually slow right now or just am tired and riding bad.
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Oct 14, 2021 22:36
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jamal posted:Two more cyclocrosses, this time at the golf course. This sounds more like in-race mental state and less about anything you did preparing. I'm definitely not an accomplished racer but I remember things like this happening a lot when I was racing DH, I'd practice a line every session and in my qually run I'd do it, but then in my race run I'd be almost too frantic and I'd be offline and then would be forcing lines that I never practiced, make mistakes and lose time everywhere. Do you think you're doing that kind of thing?
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Oct 15, 2021 01:54
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I won my first race of the year and it only took until mid October. No call ups today but got on the front row. 2nd wheel coming into the hole shot with a 16 year old guy leading. We had some driving rain with the wind so I was happy to get a little advantage from being out of the wind. A couple minutes in and we had a big gap. I was losing time on some of the really gnarly muddy sections with my MXP tires but consistently catching up quick on any of the flat sections. I went around him a few times on the flats and he’d immediately go into the red to get back around me, so I did this a few times and stepped it up on the last lap to get him really working hard at threshold. Last lap we rolled through a baseball field infield and were about 60 yards from the finish when I saw him kind of catch a rut and do a little wobble so I launched my sprint. Came around him with a bike length or so. 2 minutes to third. God I love muddy cyclocross. The course was super wet when I was out there but dried out a bit for tear down. Wish I had taken more pictures.    Buddies bike. Wound up using mine as a pit bike.
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Oct 17, 2021 00:22
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I really dislike muddy CX  Grats on the win tho 
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Oct 17, 2021 01:20
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Is that chain off the ring in prep for washing?
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Oct 17, 2021 02:13
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kimbo305 posted:Is that chain off the ring in prep for washing? I think he dropped it due to the mud and then used my bike in the pit. The cranks feel like you’re churning peanut butter once the chain was back on.
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Oct 17, 2021 02:39
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Hell yeah. Congrats. That looks super fun.
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Oct 17, 2021 07:19
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Holy poo poo, I only just discovered this thread. Thank you all for all the effort you're putting into these posts. Truly having a blast reading all your reports
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Oct 17, 2021 09:05
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Wed week 5 - thunder week. Finally got to use my new tires This weekend is our biggest bike race of the season, well, for the regular people if you count missoula pro xc. Cross season usually consists of our wed series of like 6 races and then our weekend race called rolling thunder. In addition to thunder there has been a wild west series of races, in places like sandpoint, id, kalispell, bozeman, helena, and even down in victor, id. But there hasn't been much of that lately. Bozeman did put on a race but it was a weekend of a local nica race and then there's a sandpoint race on the 30th. But no series. We've kept our race going though and it generally has good attendance, with the fastest groups going at night. I think the men's 1/2/3 race start is at 8pm. It's at a brewery, there's free beer all day, so things get pretty wild. As I work for the organizer, I've been out there all week setting things up.   That left down there is a tough one. Today I didn't have to do too much. Get the course markings set up on the closed street where we have the start/finish, build a little ramp to get up a curb, finish a bit of taping. But I've been walking a lot this week. My watch says 24k steps for 14mi on monday. Plus side, I got a good night's sleep last night and took some laps yesterday to get an openers ride in. And have my new wheels on  The baby limus is a bit much for that grass infield but they're nice on the big hill and those off camber corners. Also, bike went from 19lb 8oz with the stock wheels and speed terrenes to 18 6 with these. light bicycle rims to 240 hubs, 11-36 pg-1170, and cotton team edition baby limuses. I went 26/28 f/r tonight because the front felt a little iffy at 25 on one of the fast downhill corners. I thought my tubeless speed terrenes were decent but yeah nah. I should have just tried these on the golf course last week anyway. Dropping over a pound just on wheels/tires doesn't hurt either. I almost missed the start, 545 instead of 6, and then was pretty far back going into lap one. A 12 year old closed the door on me in one of the first corners and I had to put a foot down, which was a little annoying. But then I pulled it together and started passing people instead of getting passed like in all the recent races. Got Rob, got Garrett, got Brian, stayed ahead of Alex and Jake, all guys who beat me the last two weeks. Almost caught Cory. Then Howard, Toby, Dan, Landon were out there on their own, so I got 6th. Don't need to do anything at the course tomorrow which is good, then more setup friday, then not much Saturday before I actually race. Will probably help out a bit with the jr dev team I guess, but mostly try to sit around and eat snacks. A picture of me 
jamal fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Oct 22, 2021 |
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Oct 21, 2021 05:06
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That's a fun/brutal looking course.
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Oct 21, 2021 05:42
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Are the stairs a permanent feature that get packed up and rebuilt for races?
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Oct 21, 2021 05:45
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jamal posted:A picture of me Is it a rule in CX that you have to get off your bike for stuff? Those seem like it'd be faster to lift your front wheel onto them and just hop your back wheel on as you go over. I know there's stuff like the stairs where you can't do that.
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Oct 21, 2021 05:52
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VelociBacon posted:Is it a rule in CX that you have to get off your bike for stuff? Those seem like it'd be faster to lift your front wheel onto them and just hop your back wheel on as you go over. I know there's stuff like the stairs where you can't do that. Those look uphill on grass which can make it slower to bunnyhop than run.
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Oct 21, 2021 05:55
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Oh yeah fair enough that does look uphill now that I take another gander at it.
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Oct 21, 2021 05:56
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The flyover is just at this race, gets put together a week or so ahead of time by a racer who's a carpenter and then disassembled and put away after. If I could bunny hop those barriers it would be slightly faster. A couple of guys were last night. They're not our full height (40cm) ones either which makes it easier, but I haven't been practicing that at all and if you don't make it, it's not going to be pretty. I can probably do it. The lip out of the sand the last two weeks was about the same height but that was something you could just kind of roll up too and you weren't going to eat poo poo if you came up short. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=jsieberphotos&set=a.228497722604966 trying to stay aero in the headwind on the start straight 
jamal fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Oct 21, 2021 |
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Oct 21, 2021 15:54
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Another day at the race course. Today we set up the start/finish area, tents and stuff, and all the lights. Then made sure they were pointed in the general right direction. There are 8 of them. A couple of spots are a little dark but overall it's pretty good. we all were getting ready to take a lap in the dark to see how it works and my bike fell over and bent the derailleur hanger which is pretty annoying. However, soft hangers are a known issue on these bikes and I have a wheels mfg one already. Unfortunately it's at the shop so I have to get over there at some point to get it/put it on. I'm apparently the 7th callup tomorrow night, so uh, pretty cool to be on the front row of this one. I'd better not gently caress up my start or crash in the first corner (which is a loose 180). I think my goal will be to stay as far forward as possible around the infield and up to the off camber and then try to find a sustainable pace once we're through the sketchiest part on lap one. 11 laps probably. Howard was doing 4:55s the other night, I was clicking off consistent 5:20s. I think that means I get lapped. Also it's raining right now, but I have those fancy baby limuses. And if anything it will firm up the off camber.
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Oct 23, 2021 04:22
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VelociBacon posted:I know there's stuff like the stairs where you can't do that. Really? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0oGMix5X44
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Oct 23, 2021 18:52
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I know what you linked and I'm not going to click it  You need long platforms on the stairs to hop like that quickly!
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Oct 24, 2021 10:19
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Well that was a long week and I'm tired. Got out there early saturday morning to make sure the course was ready, but then was pretty free all day. Went to the bike shop and replaced my derailleur hanger then tried to relax for a bit. But I had to fix things here and there and had to wrangle the children a little bit and could really have used a little more sleep. We had a trailer and tents setup for the shop and dev teams and plenty of snacks which was nice. My callup position got bumped back due to some later signups, which was kind of annoying, especially since it was "sign up by wednesday to be considered for callups":, and then they didn't actually get done until friday morning, and then 4 people signed up after that and got on the front row. And then I didn't clip in cleanly and I'm like 20 guys back in the first turn. Not the start I was going for. But I was not doing too badly after that, moved up a little, got on the group with the usual guys, didn't feel too terrible, and came in a few seconds behind Cory and Shaun. Howard won, and lapped me and most everyone else. Andrew was 2nd, Toby 3rd. 15th (out of 37) was not what I was shooting for but it was ok after all the work this week. I think I was capable of being in the top 10 (Jake was 9th and I wasn't that far back from there) if I'd actually been fresh and rested and had a good start. But this has been the story of my season. on the plus side I do get paid for all this and race for free. So yeah, fun at least, it's really cool racing under the lights in front of the big crowd. Ellen and Gilly, two of the juniors on our dev team, went' 1-2 in the women's race which was awesome. They also won all of the nica races this season. Off camber/runup on the first lap https://www.facebook.com/MissoulaUnderGround/videos/1297510810709584 I think I got home before midnight, and then we were back out there Sunday for day 2 of racing. Much smaller turnout and combined starts. Juniors went at 11, which Gilly won, all the women next, which Ellen won, then 4/5 and single speed, then 1/2/3 and masters. After another bad start I actually got myself in the mix and was leading the race after attacking Brian through the start finish with a tailwind, which then allowed me to build space in the twisty infield and around the fast corners on the hill. But he caught me after about a lap and then at some point went by and got some space then it was 3 of us chasing him. Shaun is really fast at running and got a gap on the runup and then Luuk, a younger guy from Bozeman did too after I didn't get clipped in cleanly at the top a lap or 2 later. The runup was definitely my weak point on this course but getting a break on the way down the hill and the short hard efforts up it and the twisty bits all helped me I think. So I was 4th. But not too bad, the first couple of laps were my fastest of the week but then at the end my HR wouldn't go above about 160. Then it was a solid 4 hours of course cleanup but at least some volunteers took care of all the tapes and stakes so I mostly just had to deal with the lights and packing trailers and poo poo. Which I'm still dealing with because the one trailer has no working lights so I'm completely re-wiring it while it's empty and then have to get it to wednesday's venue. We're not done yet. 4 more wed night races, and I have a hill climb next weekend so I guess road bike comes off the trainer. jamal fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Oct 28, 2021 |
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Oct 25, 2021 18:51
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Another wednesday. This time I was actually racing for a bit After last week and two weekend races and all the work that went along with it i've been feeling pretty tired. Took monday as easy as possible but did have to go build a wiring harness for one of the race trailers because everything in it was hosed. Yesterday I rode my mtb up a hill and it wasn't great. Today I got there at 11 and made the course, which took longer than I expected. It was like 5 and we race at 545 and oh poo poo I better get ready and take some laps. Forecast was a lot of rain all day, so I brought everything- especially lots of gloves and a towel and dry clothes for after, expecting to possibly race in my full tights and a jacket. But it was pretty nice and stayed mostly dry. Dirt was a little wet, runup was slick, but I had spikes in the shoes. Good start. Dan led it out, then Jason chased him, then Brian, Cory, me, then Howard. Howard gets by me taking a ridiculous line into the downhill berm and then goes by like everyone else on a short straight. Jason blows up and I sit behind him for just a touch too long and there's a gap to Cory and Brian. Landon comes by me and is pedaling so hard that I don't even want to try to follow that, I ride with two jrs and Shaun for a bit, then leave them behind and those next three are still close. I keep on it and few laps later actually make contact. I feel like it gets slightly easier for a bit then Landon goes to the front. I was right behind him, and thought about following but sat on instead. Then we're in 2 to go and coming up on a lot of traffic and I'm on the back and don't get around some of the lapped people with them and there they go again. Being 2nd wheel instead of 4th might have helped there. But I felt pretty good about this one, actually turning some laps a little faster than those guys and then riding with them instead of the usual watching them get farther away. Went 26/28 in the baby limus tubs but that might have come down after a couple of practice laps. I probably should have checked. Felt good but I bottomed the front rim where we crossed a ditch and some pavement almost every lap and didn't really like doing that. Still possibly an overkill tire for the season so far but with one set of tubs you kind of have to play it safe. I'll probably build another set next year and then have a faster tire on them. I didn't mind the tubeless file treads but they're not the same. Course was pretty good, I tried to make it as different as it could be but this venue only lets you do so much. Shaun mowed out a lot of tall grass yesterday to give us some more options and we had a few things that were actually kind of new after like 10 years of racing here. Solid mix of turny parts, fast open, some technical bits, and we mowed and raked out the whoops section. Plus put candy and halloween decorations out there. I didn't wear a costume though. jamal fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Oct 30, 2021 |
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Oct 28, 2021 05:21
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Are USAC mandatory upgrades initiated by USAC or is it a “you must request an upgrade at x points/wins” sort of thing? Went from CX 5 to 4 and then got the mandatory upgrade points as a 4 that require me to go to 3 this season. There’s only the championship race left so ideally I’d like to finish this season as a 4.
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Nov 1, 2021 13:01
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Literally Lewis Hamilton posted:Are USAC mandatory upgrades initiated by USAC or is it a “you must request an upgrade at x points/wins” sort of thing? Mandatory upgrades only happen if you get ratted out.
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Nov 1, 2021 14:31
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Thanks. I figured that was still the case but wasn’t sure if USAC got their act together a bit more when they rolled out the changes to upgrades last year.
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Nov 1, 2021 15:24
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Literally Lewis Hamilton posted:Thanks. I figured that was still the case but wasn’t sure if USAC got their act together a bit more when they rolled out the changes to upgrades last year. It took 6 weeks for my friend's voluntary upgrade to get processed.
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Nov 1, 2021 16:02
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