Weekend of March 1-2

[Andrea]

If you race this weekend, post your results/reports here!

I'm getting antsy... I've got my first race of the season tomorrow

[equus123]

I have my first race this Sunday. It's a new series...low priority...kinda like a training race but still a real one (if you know what I mean). I hope there are more than 3 of us in the women's 3/4 field. lol

Good luck this weekend!!!

[Brandy]

I have my first race EVER...tomorrow. I'm a long distance girl and I'm trying out the crit, road race, time trial thing this year. I'm so anxious. Nervous. Anxious. Just want it to be tomorrow RIGHT NOW!!!

[Andrea]

I won the Pro 1/2/3 road race today!

However, there were only 4 of us, but 2 of the other 3 women were very experienced cat 2s, AND we had to race with a HUGE group of obnoxious, fast category 4 men! I never want to race with those again- they broke the yellow line rule repeatedly and were picking fights with each other and telling each other that they were going to fight after the race. I normally don't have issues with the usual testosterone levels, but this was ridiculous! At one point, I told them to put their penises away and race

What about the rest of you?

[Ticia]

I have my first race EVER...tomorrow. I'm a long distance girl and I'm trying out the crit, road race, time trial thing this year. I'm so anxious. Nervous. Anxious. Just want it to be tomorrow RIGHT NOW!!!

How was it B?

[Starfish]

I won the Pro 1/2/3 road race today!

At one point, I told them to put their penises away and race

Way to go, on both counts!!

[Eden]

First road race of the season on Saturday and second TT on Sunday (the first TT last Saturday was well, messed up. They did not put in the turn around cone until about 45 riders went off..... )

The road race went quite nicely. It was also the first of the CAT 3 only races for the year! We had a good field of around 20 cat 3 women come out. Our team had the best representation there so we put in a lot of attacks and finally at around the beginning of lap 3 one of our riders got off for good with one other person, who happened to be from the team with the next largest number of riders. That meant tempo for our two teams and there were few takers to get up and try to push the pace from any of the other riders... One unattached woman tried, but without teammates she was pretty well out of luck. Around 1/2 way through the final and 4th lap we decided that our gal up the road had plenty of lead and we could play again. We started putting in attacks and really pushed up the pace going in toward the finish. I'm not sure how many we shelled coming into the sprint, but I know a few went. I picked a nice big gal and let her give me a lead out (which even though she didn't know it, she did an admirable job) and took out 4th or 5th in the field sprint. Someone started the sprint waaaay early... its a long 200m in the first place and someone chose to go before the sign - OUCH baby. We didn't wait around for the final results, so I'm not totally sure yet.

The TT today went well also. I wasn't pre-registered so I probably did get a bit more wind than the one woman who went nearly first thing in the morning (it's a pretty typical in this valley that it will be very calm early with building wind during the morning, changing directions right about noon!)- but heck, I got to sleep longer... I think all of us who were there today, also did the road race yesterday, so no fresh legs in the field either. It definitely took a toll on some people - I beat a few that would probably normally take me. I took 6th and a minute off of my best time on this course (and I am not by any means a TT specialist - I'm small and light, not too built for raw power...) so I am quite pleased. I finally have my TT helmet now too - I think I need to make sure I'm positioned well for using it... I'm finding its difficult to hold my head up as high as I'd like, and probably as high as would be ideal for taking advantage of the helmet.

[Brandy]

Okay...did my first crit today!

I'll preface it by saying I was SO nervous and anxious. We were there at 7:00 a.m. to watch the Cat V race and my race didn't start until 11:31

Seeing this (Keith is a BF member) from the Cat IV race didn't help the nerves.



I was able to get a good 45 minute warmup in, along with a pep talk from my 7 year old daughter.



I was feeling pretty good and stayed mid or front pack most of the race. With less than 1.5 laps to go I'm feeling great and our race gets neutralized on the slight incline for the elite women to pass. The race promoter who was riding with us tells everyone to stop pedaling, but only half of the field listens so I go from 4th or 5th wheel to mid-back of the pack coming up on the turn. Totally confusing and I had no idea when he was going to tell us to go again, but by that time there were women ready to take off when he called it at the line with one lap to go. Pretty strung out after the first corner but I managed to latch on to the back of the lead group, definitely lost steam on the incline before the last turn though. There were some STRONG women out there!

17th or 18th out of 30...the results were messed up, someone contested after the results were official and then they had someone listed twice, so we'll see.

Anyway...I didn't get dropped! I never felt like I was going to get dropped! Two good things.

I definitely learned a lot today...mainly...

• I need more intensity work!
• I need to get some better group riding skills so I'm more confident staying on a wheel...spent way too much time in the wind on the outside.

Avg speed w/o cool down lap: 22.29 mph
Max speed: 30.42

After initially being disappointed, I got over myself and remembered that I didn't plan to start racing until June when all of my ultra-distance events for the season were done and I could train specifically for intensity. I made a last minute decision last week to register for this race because I wanted to get at least one crit under my belt before San Dimas at the end of March. So...not too bad and I think that with some work, I could do better.

[Eden]

Wow - we never have more than one group out on a crit course at once. Road races, yes, but it would be crazy to try to neutralize a crit....
Good job staying with the pack!

[Brandy]

Wow - we never have more than one group out on a crit course at once. Road races, yes, but it would be crazy to try to neutralize a crit....
Good job staying with the pack!

Thanks


The 1/2/3 women started a minute ahead of us. It sucked that we got neutralized with less than 1.5 laps to go and their race was ten minutes longer than ours. I heard several people say that if anything, they should have been neutralized instead of us that late in our race.

I don't know...new to all of this. Some of the elite women from our team came to talk to me afterward and assured me that this was not a normal crit. "Dash 4 Cash" with the $10 prime on every lap caused huge surges on every lap.

[Andrea]

Glad to hear everyone had good weekends!

That crit situation is weird- I've been in crits where they combine us with the older masters men. If they start us all together, they'll tell us that we can work together during the race and will just be placed separately. Occasionally, they'll do something like what you experienced and start one field a minute ahead. In that case, they'll say we can't work together, and that we are responsible for neutralizing ourselves if one group is trying to overtake another. It gets hectic. I wish we could all just race in our respective groups by ourselves!

[Eden]

I guess we are fortunate to always have fields that are large enough to merit their own races... We do usually have a combined women's 1,2,3 and they do not score separately in Washington when this is true. In Oregon there are sometimes completely combined races where the 1,2's are scored separately from the 3,4's - but ORBA has purchased some of those very fancy finish line cameras (the same kind they use in the TDF that sometimes when there is a close finish they will show the camera image) so they can place every rider very accurately.

This is our first year with any separate 3's races and they are trying out putting the 1,2 women in with the master's A/B men and scoring them separately. I guess they figured that it would break out naturally, but the slower men ended up with the women and everytime one of the women would attack, one of the guys would pull it back (and drag the pack along too...), until one of the more senior women gave them all a dressing down that their race was reallly over and that they needed to let the women have their race.

We are really hoping that having some 3's races will enable more women to become 2's, growing the 1,2 field enough to justify always having our own fields, the same as the men. The only problem then becomes that there starts to not be enough time in the day, or officials to run so many races... I think it is inevitable though. We have huge 4's turnouts, so the 3's field will grow, and in turn the 1,2's will grow to the point where it will be hard to not give us our own races.

[Brandy]

[ehirsch83]

Well I played support this weekend :-(

My shoulder is really bad and the BF didn't let me take my race wheels with us, I put them in the car, he took them out. I did take my bike, but I only rode it one day at that was to the feed zone and back for the road race(so only about 6 miles). I wish I could of raced, the 3/4s at Georgia looked weak. It took them an hour 39 to finish a 34 mile road course, and the crit was SLOW. Would of been a good weekend to pull out the sprint and the breakaway,hehe.

But anyways I played support for the BF in the CAT 3 men. He got 5th in the road race on sunday, out of 50 or so guys!! He was slightly dissapointed but he was the only one there without a team, and about 4 other teams were playing huge tactics with guys in the break and guys back in the pelaton holding off the field, so he is the only one who had to work the whole time(he is funny, he said he felt like a drill sergeant out there, making the other guys work because they were letting the pelaton close the gap, he got them to open it back up)

So I got to drive 16 hours this weekend and play support, and I have to say it wasn't to bad:-) But now hearing how everyone else did I wish I had raced.

Good job everyone!! And congrats Brandy on your first crit :-) you look awesome