Now I know you are waiting for my view of the 4's championship race in hagerstown. Well it blew for me. I will have to say that I helped make the race compared to a lot of you fella's who went along for the ride. Yeah you guys who like to sit in and watch what happens.
Here a coversation many guys have during the week. You know the ones when your coworkers seem moderately interested in what you did. If it was talking about a baseball game then hey that spurs conversation but here is what I imagine gets said.
You: Yeah, I raced this weekend.
Coworker: Wow you sure race a lot. Anything happen.
You: There was a lot of crashes. It was pretty hectic at times.
Coworker: Yeah so how did you do?
You: I placed midpack but I could have done better, I just was not placed right for the finishing sprint. I pretty much saved myself the whole race.
Does that sound familiar. Well it should. Yeah I know I am bitching and complaing but there was only a few attacks in the race and I was in a couple of them. Do you guys always have to chase this guy down. Gosh darn it. Just let me go because I am not interested in riding in a group. When you catch me you never do anything. You guys should attack because as soon as you catch me I can not do anything about it. I am spent and need to recover but do not wait too long or I will stick to you like an annoying kid brother. Yeah that was me and my team mate who broke away and put a decent sized gap on all of ya's for a few laps. I could not believe you just let us just ride away like that together. You should have let me go. When you caught us it would have been brilliant for you to then just lay down the hammer and attack. That would have resulted in my overtrained ass to pop out the back but I was warmly recieved and allowed to recover.
Now I was an idiot and attacked on 2 laps to go only to be chased hard by Matt from Abrt. When I saw him chasing me down I was like shit it is not going to work. I was stupid but you can not blame this guy for trying.
I am happy that a few strong guys have upgraded to 3's but in there place they have been replaced by newly upgraded 5's. I have to say I am soooo happy I stayed in the top 5 for the first 3-4 learning laps of the race because there must have been a crash every lap. I was stupid for telling the guys on the front "hit it" when they happened because crits get a freelap rule so those guys could rejoin after we work hard trying to shred the field, oh well live and learn. And the other stupid thing I had was with 6 laps to go I completely lost my cool and just freaking yelled. I very rarely yell but there was a lot of knuckle heads who could not ride a straight line if they were on a trainer. Come on guys do not cut over in a middle of a turn. When I had to jam on my brakes for the 7th time in a corner because you wanted to change your line I just could not handle it. Be predictable for heavens sakes. Do not be the bastard on the freeway who does not use his blinker or check over the shoulder because that is how you are riding your bike. Soon you will see the error of your ways. I will let a few times slide because we are not perfect but a few of you had done it more than one time.
Other than that the rest did me good. I felt better than I have in two weeks. Legs still felt sore in the warm up but did not seem to have an effect in the race. I felt really good in the race except for an abnormally high heart rate. Will have to pay attention to that.
Congrats to Greg on Coppi for his win. The guy was on the front all day and is a great guy. Lucky guy gets to save money on crits next year.
AVC did another great job hosting a race. I am happy a club like that does a lot for this region. It was a beautiful day and a very nice course. I like the finishing corners. Corner 2 was a blast. The houses around the course were just beautiful. My wife got some good shots of the kids race that are just awesome. I will have them posted in a few days after she edits some. The new camera has close to 1,000 photos so it will take some time to go threw them.
But to lighten up everyones mood I am doing a survey. Which podium girls would you want to kiss. If you were Big George you could marry one of these women.
Stage winner:
Youngest rider:
Climbers Jersey:
Most Aggresive rider:
Yellow jersey:
Points leader:
Monday, July 14, 2008
WTFM 7.14.08
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The crashes in the Cat 3 race were sillier only becuse you dont expect it. In the 4 race I think out of 5 ABRT guys in it, 3 of the them hit the deck. Shaun bit it twice. Only the Women's 4 race was crash free. The Womens 1/2/3 had one crash. All the other fields had 2-3 crashes. Remarkably, everyone who hit the deck, got back in the race or walked away. The wheel pit was very busy.
First off, I wouldn't kiss any of those women from the Tour de France. I cannot believe they cannot find better looking women than that for the podium. I'll have to stick with the women from the Giro. LOL
As far as the race is concerned, I pretty much stayed in the top 15 the entire race, let George and a couple other racers in that were stuck out there in the wind, attacked once only to have the entire group on my wheel so I sat up, and then was in the second seat behind my teammate with 1 lap to go. Problem is that my teammate was giving a leadout to a guy from another team, so I was stuck out in the wind. LOL My teammate got third anyway, so no harm and kudos to him.
I saw your break up the way, but it also seemed like it was just hanging there and I had enough teammates toward the front that if it started to get dangerous I would have gone up there and asked for all of us to put the hammer down. I didn't counter attack when we caught you because I like you. LOL Until the sprint, I never hurt once during the race. I just have to get my sprint into a little better shape. Nobody passed me and I think I only passed one guy. That just isn't normal for me in that long and wide open of a sprint. However, it is only my third weekend racing this year and I have done zero sprint training this year.
As far as how everybody races, to each there own. Jose and Brigham are fortunate to have a strong team to help them during the races. So, their team can launch attack after attack, and chase down anything that tries to go, and neither Jose nor Brigham have to do anything but wait for the finish to win the sprint. Guess what, that is how the pros actually race. ABRT isn't far behind from what I saw on Saturday, and I'll be sending out a thank you e-mail to my teammates later today for helping me with my placing.
As far as the crashes are concerned, the entire group needs to learn what to do. At one point, I was riding beside 4 other guys as we were headed into turn 1. At that point, I decided to back down because it probably would have been a mess going into that turn 5 wide. Usually, I can back down a spot and then make it right back up if I'm feeling good, which is what I was doing. I find that the guys that are struggling are the ones always trying to make up ground in the corners. When I find myself in that position, I quit.
Regarding my teammate Sean, he went down pretty hard on corner 2 of the last lap. Luckily, he wasn't hurt. However, his bike was totaled. The fork and top tube on his Cervelo were cracked in half and the rear derailleur was bent all the way up and into his rear wheel. The bike looked like crap, but I was happy to see Sean walking around and telling stories.
As a side note, don't use 3M Super 77 to glue your number to your skinsuit. It is too strong and half of my number is still stuck to my skinsuit, which will be making a trip to the dry cleaner today to see if they can do anything with it. 3M had no suggestions other than to take it to the drycleaner. I looked at 3M Super 75 yesterday, and it looks like it might be the way to go per the directions. I'll be testing it out on a POS jersey I have in the closet.
Thank! Fabrisio, you understand my point. When you have a strong team and you know your teammates and you can put a plan together that work. Is not about attacking all the time, how are you going to attack and the want to sprint for the win you have to be extremely super strong to do something like that. During Ride Sally Ride and Wilmington my job was to cover all the attack and bring everybody back and it work we had great result plus we knew who was the leader that day. I understand that Kyle does not like that but at the same time you have to have a good team number. It's ok I'm done with CAT.4 for what I know Cat.3 it's going to be nasty so people are going to be suffering. About my collarbone Im doing very well is about 50% and I'm ready foe my honeymoon so the next time I'll see you guys I'm going to have the ring.... Have fun, Kyle you have to follow my advice be patience. Fabrisio thank you for understanding and have fun...
Jose
Jose,
I'm glad you are feeling better. As far as the ring is concerned, it ain't a big deal. I've had one for 3 years now. Granted, if I'm not wearing it, my wife thinks it is a big deal.
As far as racing is concerned, my team did a great job at Hagerstown. I barely had to worry about a single thing, and knew that I had the fire power present on my team to chase almost anything down that didn't include one of us. I just screwed up the sprint. I'm not at Jose or Brigham speed yet, but I'll be trying to get there in the next couple of weeks. LOL
Enjoy your honeymoon and I'll see you around in September.
Your race and my Cat5 went similar Kyle. I fought to stay top ten the whole time. There were a few crashes in that tight turn. One on the 1st lap...the guy either rubbed my rear wheel and fell, or his bike slid into my rear. After that, I made sure to be near the front entering that turn.
Also seemed like everyone was content to sit in until I rode up to the front...or maybe I'm just paranoid.
As much as I want to stick around at C5 and eventually sandbag, I may be putting in my request sooner to try to avoid some of the mess.
Yeah the more and more I talk to people it sounds like I might be upgrading at the end of the season.
Jose at the race just my team mate and I kind of just rode away from the field so the oppurtunity just kind of presented itself. I did not really try on that one but when we were already 15 feet off the front we just kept it up. Yeah I am an impatient bastard. This weekend will hopefully be fruitful to me.
Roman, I took my number off without a problem but will say the glue lance gave was really strong.
John I will happily race in a cat 4 woman's race.
Anon,
Be careful about deciding to upgrade to the 4's to avoid crashes. Based upon a MABRA report that I recently read, there are actually more reported crashes in the 4's than in the 5's. So, unless you feel really strong in the 5's and ready to race at the front with the 4's, think twice about upgrading. When I was racing the 5's last year, I barely saw any crashes. Then, I upgraded and raced the Silver Spring Grand Prix right after my upgrade and I counted 6 crashes in that race.
Think about what it takes to become a 4. All it takes is 10 mass starts, not even finishes. How can people have great bike handling skills after starting all of 10 races. For all you know, they might have been riding solo after lap 1 and been pulled 5 miles into the race.
Kyle,
I'll send you a pic of my skinsuit later tonight. Essentially, the backing of the number separated from the front of the number, so I have what looks like a bunch of white strands on my skinsuit.
Fabs,
Not just the crashes, but some of the other stuff that goes on, including someone yelling "inside" when they clearly don't have position to stuff you on the inside of a turn. It's one thing if you're yelling it to make me aware and then get in position before we reach the turn...but don't think i'm supposed to get out of your way.
As far as the requirement for upgrade, I've got that and the bike handling skill (ex-motorcycle racer), but I'm clearly not strong enough yet to stay top half of the pack with the Cat4s...thus my hesitance.
I should have stuck around in Corner 2 and done video.
It would have given me plenty for a good bike crash video.
You would have missed the fun because a lot of guys were crashing in turn one if you can believe that.
it not the type of glue that i used,its because i was a little heavy handed in using it lol.i used a cotton ball and goo-off rubbed over the glue and pieces of number and it came off no problem.
for your next hump day:
http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l89/mlmyers0617/12737hnmre3y2wn.gif
Thanks Anon. That is going up. I was thinking today man I got to start looking and you giving me that helps out a ton. That is fantastic.
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