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bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

This is a thread for all flavors of competitive cycling, including and especially boring liveblog updates about how your ftp is up by the exact same amount as your weight during coronatimes.
Race goals, race reports, training plans, or questions about how to get in to racing in the first place [hint: wait until the pandemic is over].

If you're looking for how to buy your first bicycle, you may be better served by the bicycle megathread.
If you're looking to chat about pro racing instead about how you totally could have gone pro if only you could figure out the right training periodization, take it to the pro cycling thread.

Placeholder for actual content.

I would've finished this post first but I was too tired from closing down gaps for all the other threads.

bicievino fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Jul 25, 2020

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bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

A placeholder

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

For anyone in Washington state, your next opportunity to try out track cycling is August 16th, at my velodrome in Redmond. https://www.velodrome.org

It's also one of the relatively few public, open tracks, so if you're so inclined you can ride whatever the hell bike you want on it as long as there aren't fixed geared bikes using it at the time.

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

WA state status:

We had a timetrial and one road race in March.

Last three Sundays we've had road timetrials - relatively well attended (~50?). I haven't been so can't speak to how well covid-procedures are followed, but they haven't been shut down yet.

We got approval from the County last week to start planning timed events on the track. I feel like we're being appropriately conservative: capping participants at 5 per hour, no team events, no spectators, warm up in the parking lot, etc.
We'll see how it goes next weekend.

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

poo poo, sounds pretty accurate to me.

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

A year ago today. I miss bike racing.



bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

Nerobro posted:

We're about to hit cyclocross season here.... I dunno if that's gonna go down at all.

Your photos remind me how much I miss the velodrome. My track bike is sitting in the rafters of my garage either crying from disuse, or quietly worrying my tubby body will try to ride it again in anger.

There's nothing I've run into that lets you dig quite as deep as riding at the velodrome.

Yeah, both our cross series here have already been cancelled.

We got three days of track "racing" at my velodrome this year - time trials only, plus a day of folks doing hour record attempts (barf!). Not my jam, but at least it was something for people.

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

jamal posted:

Our organizer has been floating the idea of small "bubbles" of racers. The regular A/B groups are generally against racing at all. but guess what group has about a 75% "yes" rate?

I'm ok with a year of not racing but it does suck for the kids/juniors. Ivan for example is a 2nd year UCI 17-18 racer so it would have been a pretty important season. I think they're considering just sending him to europe.

Man, the idea of reduced group or bubble racing is just so utterly antithetical to what CX is about for me.

I hear ya on kids - it's been such a rough year for our junior program.
If it's viable to send him that's could be the right call for his racing long term regardless.

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

kimbo305 posted:

If track cycling were suddenly modified so that tracks were ridden clockwise instead of counterclockwise, how much shakeup would there be in performance? How much muscle memory helps cyclists lean left and move up and down a left-sloping banking?

Interestingly, most tracks would actually have to be rebuilt. The entrance and exit geometry is not symmetrical.
My track is old enough that it is, and it's still weird to ride the wrong way. I bet folks would figure it out after a month or so, though.

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

kimbo305 posted:

Let's say most tracks were capable of being run both ways. Would you rather have a version of the sport where riding both ways was possible? Like either the direction was announced well ahead of race day, or determined by coin flip?

Oh it'd be massively unsafe to switch it up regularly.

Track racing is one of the safest disciplines precisely because of passing rules and habits - while folks *could* adapt to a change to it going the other way, the habits/reactions need to be second nature, and switching that up would take away from that.

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

TobinHatesYou posted:

Let's just make tracks really, really, really long straight lines.

What about... really really short straight lines?

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

e.pilot posted:

Run ‘em in figure 8s


What if we just used runways?

https://www.tetongravity.com/story/bike/red-bulls-nyc-figure-8-velodrome-race-is-freaking-insane

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

VelociBacon posted:

Cool thread! I'm a 95% park DH rider that did a lot of DH/Dual Slalom racing growing up but fell out of it for years before returning to riding in my mid-20s. I was never great, haven't won anything and only had sponsorships from a shop I worked at when I was racing.

I'm now at the point where I feel comfortable competing again, signed up for the first race this year actually but it was obviously cancelled with everything else. I had tried an enduro a couple years ago but I couldn't manage the climbs between stages.

My 2021 goals are to hit at least one BC Cup DH race (I'm lower mainland based), maybe some local Canada cup DH races, and whatever little local races happen at Whistler, which is primarily where I ride. Hope to have lots of photos etc for the thread in the spring/summer when it all kicks off!

I floated the idea of making some Goon Factory Racing decals in various sizes/colorways/configurations last year. Would anyone be interested?

Sweet!
Out of curiosity, how does DH racing work in terms of... what's a race day like? Are you on trails you know so it's kinda just show up, do a few runs, compare times? Is it initial times and then finals like a worldcup?
What's the vibe like?

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

That sucks, man. Bummer.

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

First race of 2021.
A mtb time trial.

I'm not a mountain biker or a time trialist, but it's 2021 and I'm in the US so mass start racing ain't a safe thing.

The event felt pretty good from a covid-protocol standpoint. Everyone masked until 10s before they started (folks queued in a line at the trailhead, vaguely self-seeded based on expected speed). Went off one-by-one at 15-30s ish intervals (not a strict time since it's all based on timing chip).
I was worried about passing on course when folks weren't masked, but everyone was both courteous and quick about it - never spent more time around someone than passing on a MUP.

Course was very twisty and undulating, not much in the way of flow at all. Only a few sustained sections where I could just put power down.
Ended up feeling very reminiscent of a PNW-style cyclocross course. No jumps or that sort of thing, which probably plays to my strength.

Ended up having a good time, getting second in the Cat 2, and looking like a huge dork. What more can I ask for?



bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

I love reading this poo poo.
I don't think I ever want to have a day like that, but goddamn bravo.

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

MrL_JaKiri posted:

First TT of the year :toot:

Coming off a knee injury so on the road bike in the road bike category (ie no deep section wheels, etc), just went the whole hog and raced with a saddlebag so I could go straight home (and did, without unclipping until my back door). Rolling course, caps out around 8%, 13 mile course



Went ok - averaged a little over 350W, which is well under I'd have been targeting 2 months ago but getting through it without my knee swelling to the size of a balloon was a big win. 1st race of the season down, next one on Saturday!

Nice! Race season has started up for me here in Seattle, too.

First road race of the year for me here yesterday. More of a crit distance (1 hour) but on a course too boring to be called a crit.
We're doing field size caps for covid reasons, so only 30 folks. I was not feeling particularly confident and signed up for the masters 1/2/3 instead of open 1/2/3. In retrospect I should've just gone with the 1/2/3 because despite just doing yolo fun efforts with no real goals, I ended up taking a prime and the win. Surprised with how good I felt.

Up next is our first night of pre-season racing at the track on Friday, and then a 60mi mtb race on Saturday. Wheee!

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

Literally Lewis Hamilton posted:

Pinning numbers on my skinsuit when I don’t have a teammate is a pain. Anyone used the racedots on a bike?

Use a pillow.

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

bicievino posted:

Nice! Race season has started up for me here in Seattle, too.

First road race of the year for me here yesterday. More of a crit distance (1 hour) but on a course too boring to be called a crit.
We're doing field size caps for covid reasons, so only 30 folks. I was not feeling particularly confident and signed up for the masters 1/2/3 instead of open 1/2/3. In retrospect I should've just gone with the 1/2/3 because despite just doing yolo fun efforts with no real goals, I ended up taking a prime and the win. Surprised with how good I felt.

Up next is our first night of pre-season racing at the track on Friday, and then a 60mi mtb race on Saturday. Wheee!

First night of track racing was fun. Low attendance because we're being very strict about covid (mandatory vaccine or follow the UCI testing protocol) and also because the weather was quite threatening. Ended up cutting warmup short as the track dried, but actual racing went off in the dry.



Pre-season is usually pretty mellow, but with so much pent-up-angst it was a quite spicy affair. Our track's juniors have clearly been training way hard. Hoping fitness builds quickly with racing so we can more thoroughly put them in their place.

I ended up taking the overall with two wins and a second, and one of my teammates took second. Plus we finally got to race in the kits I designed back in winter 2019.


bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

Shamelessly triple posting because then today was my third ever mtb race.
60 miles, 4 laps of a roughly 15mi course (give or take some start/finish stuff). All new trails to me.
Got barely any sleep cause of track racing and failure to prep well, but made it out the door in time to catch the ferry to the race. Didn't even forget anything!
I brashly lined up second row, despite knowing that the first bit was a big fire road climb to shake things out, and as you can see from the pics in the prior post, I don't have a climber's physique. Started off hotter than I should've for the first 5-8 minutes, until we hit the singletrack, at which point I was a bit off the front group, but well ahead of the only other trackie, so, mission accomplished.
After that I settled in to learning the trails, trying to shake the race adrenalin jitters, and wondering how on earth I was going to find time to eat/drink.
Ended up being fairly challenging to do either - I was glad to have half my bottles with carb mix instead of just electrolyte. There were two big fire road sections on the lap, and that ended up being where I crammed in most of my eating and drinking. Not ideal. Definitely need a better system for eating - jersey pocket was a hassle to access.
By the third lap I was feeling reasonably confident in my pacing and starting to recognize the trails. I also had just a glimmer of cramping on a really steep section, which I was able to ride through and told me I was at least not slacking off.
I didn't stop for food or water on the fourth lap, which ended up biting me when the finishing section ended up being significantly more challenging than the downhill cruise in that I had thought. All in all feel quite happy with my pacing and time. Don't know results still but I think somewhere in the top 20 for the Open men.

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

tylertfb posted:

I want to race my local crit (barrio Logan Grand Prix in San Diego) next month. Can I still race on a 1-day license if I’ve had an upgrade in the past? I haven’t had a USAC license in 6 years, was a cat4. I want to do the 40+ cat 4/5 race.

Yep, they added it in 2020. Can't accumulate any new upgrade points but you're fine to do a 1-day "experienced racer" license.

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

Love this race report.

How did you feel your hydration/nutrition plan worked out? Anything you'd change?

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

Bike racing with frens is so loving great. I'm over the goddamn moon.

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

MrL_JaKiri posted:

First ever dual carriageway TT!

Ominous signs were had when I was picking up my number, as the chat at race control was them working out which of the early riders was being taken away in an ambulance*. Weather conditions were good, though - nice and sunny, very little wind, great visibility.

Like the other day had difficulty getting power out - looking at my shadow, I think it's because my front end is too low impacting the hip angle and also making it difficult to get my head in the right position. Must have put it back in the wrong place when I was fiddling with the headset. Finish time was 33 dead for the 15, which I think was a bit up on my minute man but honestly difficult to tell. Saw nobody around me the whole way.

Lots of lovely kit on show, too - guy in front of me had corima wheels on his old edition P5, and they were just absolutely gorgeous.

*This later turned out to be because he fell off his bike on his own, rather than due to a car.

I love reading about the UK TT scene, but this aspect of it has always seemed a bit odd to me.

Hope you get the position stuff sorted.

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

It was season kickoff weekend for us at the Jerry Baker Memorial Velodrome here in scenic Redmond, Washington.

Friday Night was a more sprinter-themed program: a short points race, keirin, and scratch.
My team is more on the sprintery end of things - we've had four folks in the 1/2s, one in the 3's and also the son of one guy racing juniors.
I normally go for the points races, but my legs were feeling rough, and I am always pretty marked in a points race, so I didn't manage to make much happen. Got countered hard on the second sprint and let a break get away, rolled in for 6th, just out of omnium points.
We had a reasonable amount of time so I decided to get goofy and throw a big gear on for the keirin - not as big as one of my teammates who went 57x14, but one tooth off which is still huge for me (especially since I haven't been in the gym since the pandemic started).
My teammy in the 3's won his heat tidily https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGmFu2J81m4&t=5214s.
And then my teammy in the 1/2's heat 1 won his heat even more dramatically https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGmFu2J81m4&t=5466s.
And then my teammy in heat 2 made a big move from the back draw to take his heat, too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGmFu2J81m4&t=5773s.
After that I really felt obligated to follow suit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGmFu2J81m4&t=6068s


For the final we all made pretty good draws, and managed to go 1/2/3 (with me bringing up 3rd by a whisker). Super fun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGmFu2J81m4&t=7818s

Last race of the night was a 20 lap scratch - not too long, but plenty long with a lot of big efforts in the legs.
For whatever reason I was feeling better than I had all night, though, and decided to just race spicy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGmFu2J81m4&t=10408s
Any time I got to the front or folks started slowing down I surged it to make the folks sitting on big gears hurt. Super fun way to race, but I was too gassed to cover the winning move with 3 to go - fortunately a teammate was in there so I didn't feel bad looking around. Sat in and forced one of the fastest finishers into leading me out, then came around in the last 15m for second, enough to get 2nd in the nightly overall. My big sprinter teammate's keirin win was enough to put him in 3rd.


Wrapped up the night with shakes and burgers at a 50's style drive-in spot (pandemic friendly dining!), because we ain't roadies.

----

Saturday morning was timetrials and a sprint tourney, but I was too fried from how late I got home (whoops) to bother.
My big pursuity teammate crushed his 4k, though, going sub 5min for the first time on a windy day with heavy legs, and my sprinter buds clocked up the two fastest 200m times in the tourney.

--

Saturday evening was an International Omnium (Scratch, Tempo, Elimination, Points Race, with points scored in the first 3 and added to what you earn in the final points race for the overall decider).
I love this event - it's such a good mix of different flavors of tactical racing, and you have to be extra aware of who is watching who, who thinks they can make up enough to win, or who is just trying to consolidate their current spot. Sadly they don't run it for masters, so I don't get many opportunities to do it.
Still feeling pretty frazzled, I decided to try to race a bit smarter instead of pure spice - didn't want to write any checks I couldn't cash.
I figured the Scratch would be raced fast, but it's too short for anyone to let a break go. I was right, and instead of kissing wind I rode mid pack, let the right people drop in front of me, and then forced them to close down moves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5DBfDgEs7E&t=739s.
The tempo gives one point to the leader each lap around - nothing for second. I got pretty worried in the first few sprints of the tempo - I kept getting used and missing out on the one point on the line. Without really intending to, me and one other fellow got off the front. We worked together a bit and then I rode in alone - with only one point on the line the field was too busy looking at eachother to dig deep and pull me back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5DBfDgEs7E&t=3803s

That race was "good luck" because the osprey that nests in our floodlights hit me square on. Oof!
I felt pretty gassed in the elimination - couldn't hold the front, got dangerously close to an early elimination in the box, and had to get a little aggressive to push out of the box because I didn't have the energy to back all the way out and come around. Worse, I screwed up and wore my aero helmet which I can't hear well in - total brainfart, and got pipped for fourth when I thought there was still one more person back. OH WELL.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5DBfDgEs7E&t=6253s
A brief moment of foolishness.
I went in to the Points race leading by 1 point, with another fast guy 3 points behind. This is where the tactics get turned up to 11, because folks in 5th or 6th would need to lap the field in order to be in contention, so I could let them up the road without worrying too much. That's the theory, at least. With only 1 point lead it was pretty hot right from the get-go. I didn't end up securing a healthier margin until 10 to go. After the penultimate sprint, though, I had a 3 point lead - with 10, 6, 4, 2 on the line, as long as my nemesis didn't win the final and I finished right behind him, I had it sewn up. Luckily for me, three folks went up the road, I locked myself onto my only opponent's wheel, and shrugged. Didn't end up taking him on the line, but I didn't need to. Zero wasted energy, taking the Omnium by 1 point.

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

It makes me crazy happy to be reading race reports.

Bike racing, y'all. :3:

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

Congrats!!

What was the race?

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

Those aerocoach bars are hot as gently caress.

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

I got some new bars, too.

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

Nice!!

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

Love hearing about racing at other tracks.

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

Literally Lewis Hamilton posted:

Finished my road season (maybe?) by doing a 40 mile, 3,200ft course. 4 laps, with the 1st and the 4th being the same while the 2nd and 3rd were each different. Marshalls directed you each time at the turns which was surprisingly well done considering there were 3 different race distances going. Each lap had a sprint prime and a KOM prime for $10 each.

Roads were wet to start, rain started again on the 2nd lap, wrath of god rain for the 3rd lap which subsided on the 4th, and stopped by the finish.

The first lap two guys got on the front and seemed happy to pull nearly the whole time, although they pulled off before every prime for some reason. On the start of the 2nd lap a 16 year old kid attacked hard up the one big climb, so my two teammates and I went with him. He blew up about 3/4 up the climb and I looked back to see a decent gap already. My teammates and I hooked up and did a TTT for the remaining 30ish miles, collecting every prime. Nobody wanted to do a full gas sprint in the wet so we rolled 3 wide across the finish line and only found out who won at the podium. Exact same recorded time for everyone in the end. Very wholesome way to end the season. :3:

This owns.

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

It's day 2 of masters track nationals. My first event day.
3k pursuit on deck this evening. Have always said I'm not a pursuiter, but we'll see what happens.

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

VelociBacon posted:

That's not what you were telling me, didn't you just spend like $2k and have it custom tailored to you and everything?

e: ohhh pursuiter, sorry

Skin is slow, but maybe fur is fast?
New frontiers in aero tech.

Realtalk I think the next purchase is a custom speedsuit. In stock sizing I'm an XL at the thigh and butt, but a small at the chest and waist. Got a lot of wrinkles on the sleeves I could stand to get rid of.

bicievino fucked around with this message at 12:26 on Sep 16, 2021

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

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.

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

kimbo305 posted:

> 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.

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.

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

Hell yeah. Congrats. That looks super fun.

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

That's a fun/brutal looking course.

bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

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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bicievino
Feb 5, 2015

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?

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.

Mandatory upgrades only happen if you get ratted out.

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