Bump.

Lots of KCC racers in action today. Although a bunch of folks who had pre-registered decided to make this an off weekend. I might miss some of the players, but at this moment, I recall:

Cat 4 40+
Harry and Dan and Jim N. Harry best of the bunch, got 10th.

50+
Stokes in for 8th.

Cat 3
Todd 12th, Nelson 18th, Bertucco 27th

Cat 4
Wes, Patrick, Vollbach. Not sure where they finished. I think Wes was the best of the bunch. Patrick was breaking in a brand new FTB.

Cat 5
Adam Fabian, I think cracked the top 10.

Missing some of the food options from last year, but tomorrow I intend to treat myself to a Dairy Queen Blizzard just down the road. There's an orchard/pumpkin patch kind of place pretty darn close to the course, if any of you family men are on the fence here. If they run the course in reverse, the climbing, I think will feel harder tomorrow.

LOVE IT BRUCE!

As an addendum to Bruce's comment about he and Harry shouting conflicting advice to me, it's worth explaining I think.

They were positioned on the top of one of two significant climbs on the course. Earlier Harry gave me the encouragement I needed to catch the guy I had been steadily bringing back over the course of a lap. I caught him just at the top of a climb, leading into a pretty fast, straight descent. Later in the race when I was holding a somewhat tenuous lead over this same rider, Harry advised me to use the descent as recovery, and at the same time Bruce countered that descents are NOT for recovery. In this case, Bruce is right.

(Harry later explained that he thought that with the next big climb, coming not too far from the bottom of the descent, with competition bearing down on me, that I needed a rest so that I could really punch it up the climb.)

Too often, (or maybe not often enough, because it gives me an opportunity) I notice riders using downhills or flat stretches as their chance for recovery. But really, even if you are not cranking out a full VO2 like effort on a flat, or downhill, you STILL NEED TO PEDAL pretty hard. I have often caught riders "napping" on these kinds of stretches.

Yes, to Harry's point, you need juice in the tank for the climbs and other heavy pedaling sections, but you still need to crank out some wattage on these easier stretches. And for me, personally, in this particular section, I knew I was gaining significant time on him on all of the "out of the saddle" hard pedaling sections like the climbs. I knew that was my relative strength against this particular competitor.

(I knew it, because I spent a lap chasing him and saw where I was better than him, and kept those visuals in my racing computer" after I passed him and continued racing the course in front of me.)

 And while this gave me some comfort, I also know that it's easy for me to let up on those descents, or flat stretches, and didn't want to come to the base of the final climb side by side with him. And so I kept the power on and while he was maybe faster than me on the descents, he couldn't make up for the gap I had created on the climbs. My relative advantage was bigger there. But if I had let up and he got back to me on a descent of a flat stretch? That just leaves more room for a error that lets him beat me in the end.

In my mind, in general, the only time, really for cardiovascular and neuromuscular recovery in a cross race is during tight twisty-turny bits where you have a forced speed limit anyway. The rest of the race, you are at LT, high LT, VO2 and more.

PS. Love having KCC out there, Bruce, Harry and all cheering. It really does help. Thanks to all you loud mouths!

Rumor has it that someone from Kissena picked up my wind-vest after Saturday's race, which I left on the start line. Hopefully, there were also knee, arm and ear warmers bundled inside. Please contact me off-list if you were the benevolent soul (stokes@nyu.edu)

thanks Harry

http://www.sergiogphotography.com/p1049388352/e2fc2ac1a

Marc Bertucco said:

PS. Love having KCC out there, Bruce, Harry and all cheering. It really does help. Thanks to all you loud mouths!

Agreed, the KCC cheering section was very helpful.  My races this weekend were hard and competitive.  It was a battle for every inch of ground.  Each day I finished with a reasonably large group and every inch mattered.  Having Harry, Bruce and everyone else yelling at me actually did make me ride harder, and, consequently, do better.  Thanks everyone.

BUMP

Coming this SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY!

Dan, Patrick, I see you guys are signed up for the 40+ Open race. I'm deciding between the Cat 3 race and your race. Any opinions on which I "should" do?

Bertucco 40+
// Altho I confess, I can probably do only one race this weekend, and still not sure, might be Whirly might be Marty. Should know by tomorrow, will depend on work.

Trying to figure if I should do 40+ or the open men.  I figure I could get some good points for the team standings, but the Murphy brothers will kill me.

I'm not able to make Marty this weekend due to family obligations. Too bad because it's usually a great course and so close to home. Have fun out there

Eloy and I are going to be doing the 40+ so join us Marc & JP. we can have a Kissena Club Team Race.

mugwump said:

Trying to figure if I should do 40+ or the open men.  I figure I could get some good points for the team standings, but the Murphy brothers will kill me.

I haven't tracked our results for NJ Cup races, and I don't think they actually reward winners (individual and team) with anything at the end of the season? But since this is NOT a MAC race, my previous post about team competition and points does not apply here. That said, the one race I am SURE I am not doing is the A race. Why?

Because it's not so much about the Murphy Brothers winning, which they will, it's more about the fact that there are like 5 guys in that race including the M-Bros. So, you know, that's a different kind of "racing." Last year, watching those goof balls ride off the front, smiling and laughing all along the way wasn't particularly entertaining either. But whatever, those guys are super road studs and mad respect to them for that.

On the other hand, in the 40+ race, more guys, teammates for some old school fun (remember that time at band camp Bubble Cross?) plus, for me, the guy crossresults.com predicted to win? A nice guy for sure, with good crossresults points, but I beat him by literally 3 minutes at HPCX on Sunday. Which is exactly how much Roger Aspholm beat me, FWIW.

Of course, I've also been itching to race head to head against Bryan Banducci (he and I used to battle in the 4s) to see how I stack up in an even deeper field of 27 or so guys in the B race. Of course with order of reg call ups and a historically terrible holeshot at Marty, that means I'd have to come from the 4th row to compete. Which is not out of the question. But given my terrible "Katie Compton-esque" starts of late...

Well, I'll definitely be in the 35+ at Whirlybird, I'll post here as soon as I decide about Marty.

I just signed up for the Cat 5 race at Marty at 10. Looks like I am the only Kissena out of 51 riders and will have big pack ahead of me at the start. This will be my first CX race.

If anybody needs a ride or room to carry a bike on my rack, let me know. I'm planning to head back to Brooklyn around 12. 

What time would you guys recommend leaving Brooklyn to arrive with time for a preview ride?

Eloy, I'm reading your pre race prep script,  great advice.

Avi, glad you found that useful! 

Have a great race!!

Unfortunately, I wont make Marty's this year. Will be at Whirlybird Saturday.

Registered for the 40+ Looks like a few MAC series hammer heads added their names to the fray.

So, a quick scroll up reveals that last year, at least, this tended to be a popular cross race amongst the club. I wasn't there in the early am, so I don't know how Avi's race went, but for the afternoon club, it was only JP and I in the 40+ race.

Got to the race course nice and early, primarily on account that Peter's kids' race was at noon, and hell if I am going to let him race without a proper 1+ hour warm-up. Haha. Just kidding. Kind of.

Cloudy skies and damp ground began to dry in the few hours that I was there pre-riding the course. Marty's scheduling allowed for nice big chunks of time for course recon. This course was largely the same as in previous years, but a couple of accidental tweaks (one of the course designers was in my race and talked about how he had no idea he basically added a giant amount of climbing on the "upper deck" section after a blazingly fast sweeper until he pre-rode the course today!) made this one HEAVY watts course. 

But really, it's a tale of two cities, because there are some fast descending bits that are basically free speed if you can manage the corners.

I ended up going, not with full muds, like I was considering around 11am, but the Challenge Chicanes. Clinchers. 33/32 psi. I paid for that high pressure on many of the bumpy grass and single track bits, but...you know I wanted to finish this race without a tire incident.

Lined up second row behind some guy on a MTB who ended up on the podium and apparently used to be New Jersey's best MTBer or something. Solid start, better warm-up today, so wasn't totally winded after the hole shot. Which is good, because after a brisk descent a bunch of climbing hits the peloton. One of the lessons I learned while pre-riding is that after every descent, follows a climb that is strangely heavy and slow. And that meant if you weren't careful, you could find yourself overgeared in the blink of an eye. But that wasn't my problem today. I worked that out in pre-ride.

Strangely, I'm not taking the corners as well as I was in pre-ride. And it's not the speed either. I'm just oddly gun-shy and cautious during the race. It's a reminder why I preach staying in your category until you get a chance to race at the front. Because it's different. The pressure, the choices you make.

Sure enough after zipping up one of the steeper climbs to about 5th wheel, we hit a STEEP switchback off camber descending section. Again, I was totally fine in pre-ride. But on that first lap? That's right I decide I haven't tangoed with enough course tape this weekend, so I head straight for it.

I'm swearing up a storm in frustration. The field of 16 or so zooms past me. I get going just in time to battle around a few corners with JP. He was close to my wheel for a while, but he lost contact, I assume, when he rolled a tubular (which I later learned).

From then on I was cranking out mega watts (or at least that's what it felt like) and getting back to almost where I wanted to be. Which, honestly was podium. But after a couple of laps that dream poofed away. I passed one of my local nemeses, a guy who beat me yesterday by 15 seconds. And caught and passed a dude on the steepest climb of the day. It was the only place on the course where I will give myself an A. Steep, punchy, low gear, high cadence. It's my favorite place to pass. In part because while briefly on the pavement it continues to climb and if you get a little separation with megawatts on the grassy climb, then settle to must regular ouch watts on the pavement, it's a nice place to get and open a gap. Especially since a long fast sweeper followed that you didn't actually need any brakes. I was pretty good on that section too.

Except the guy who I just passed on the climb, was better and he go back to me. I turned up the watts on the secret 450-watt climbing stretch in efforts to drop him, but he later told me how much he enjoyed my draft there. Doh!

And that was my undoing. I kind of cooked myself trying to drop him there and on the following whoopty-do off cambers. He pulled in front of me after the barriers and he was never to be seen again. Well, actually I saw him a lot, but he was out of reach for sure.

But that didn't mean I stopped trying. And it's a good thing, because my Boss Racing buddy from the last few weekends was hunting me down pretty good. I held him off, but just by 10 seconds in the end. Phew.

6th place. Again small field, but I emptied the tank today. Have to eliminate the mental errors, take of the restrictor plates in the corners that I know I can take faster. But overall, I'm not sure I could have done too much better than I did today in the overall results. I definitely had that, "I'm never racing cross again" feeling with about 2 laps to go, which means I was going hard.

Best part of the day though? In addition to seeing/hearing Peter cheer me on with Marty's (yes that Marty) grandson (they became fast friends apparently). By the end of my race, the sun had come out and Peter and I literally rolled around on the hill, cheered on other racers, ("Daddy, you stand there and clap and I'll stand here.") enjoyed the great sight-lines, Sarah took some time to visit a local farmstand for apples, nice local dinner, found a crazy good chocolate shop where we bought all manner of products (pretzels, waffles and apples; #dadbodforlife). It was a great family day. 

Even my rental car return was smooth and problem free tonight. Life is good yo. Life is good.

Nice effort Marc. Way to go!

My thought after first cross race - a lot tougher than I expected. Can't remember when my heart rate last reached these levels and thought I was going to throw multiple times. Great fun! Hope to make bubble cross next week. Finished 36 of 54.

avizukerman said:

Nice effort Marc. Way to go!

My thought after first cross race - a lot tougher than I expected. Can't remember when my heart rate last reached these levels and thought I was going to throw multiple times. Great fun! Hope to make bubble cross next week. Finished 36 of 54.

Congrats, that's a fantastic way to start your cross adventures. Marty's course is hard. They're not all like that, but honestly, the short intense efforts of cross are among the toughest things you can do on a bike. Bubble cross is a fun course. Diff't, but the same.

Results:

https://www.usacycling.org/results/index.php?permit=2015-3492&bypass=1

Avi,

if you don't feel like throwing up, you've not really raced cross. Welcome to the brother/sisterhood of cross, where the potential to vomit on your shoes is something you look forward to.

I had it at the end of my race.  

Yes, I rolled a tire about four minutes into the race, while following Marc. The rear. Probably about 45s lost.  I figured that since the course was pretty soft, I could continue racing, so long as I held back a bit going into turns.

On the penultimate lap, I saw a guy from NJMTB moving pretty slowly. I thought I caught up to him pretty quickly, and blew by him on the barriers.  Then, on the last lap, I dropped my chain on the first rise of the course.  That probably helped the guy close down on me.  He caught me on the steepest rise.  I thought I distanced him on the straightish, fast descent.  But he came back on the next rise, and passed me into the narrow sidehill section.

I thought I had him beat, having seen him struggle over the barriers the previous lap.  So long as he didn't block me into the barriers, I'd be able to pass him there.  I accelerated, jumped off my bike, blasted over the planks, and back on, pulling slightly ahead. But then it hit.  That chain reaction starting at the stomach that leads to a a good barf.  I tried to keep pedaling, but it was still coming.  I backed off and lost 10th place.  

I'll be fuming this week: adding a coat or two of glue.

Great effort JP.  Just 45 sec bc you had a spare wheel in the pit? Thanks Dan.  The practice cx course in PP that "nobody from this team" ever organized was a big help, especially the barriers.  That and watching "Joey" in slow motion a dozen times for what not to do.

avizukerman said:

Great effort JP.  Just 45 sec bc you had a spare wheel in the pit? Thanks Dan.  The practice cx course in PP that "nobody from this team" ever organized was a big help, especially the barriers.  That and watching "Joey" in slow motion a dozen times for what not to do.

Well, I had a spare front wheel in the pit.  I rolled the rear.  So I kept riding the tire hoping it wouldn't roll again.