mperlberg said:

I'm out. Heading to Chicago.

Ooooh, jelly. Check out the Intelegensia Cup races if you can. Fields won't be quite as deep as at ToAD, but same organization, so they should be well run races. Plus, if you are around for Downers Grove? That course is the bomb-diggity!

@ Marc - I'm doing Willow Springs RR this coming Wednesday, then the Elmhurst Crit Friday, and Chicago Crit Sunday. 

Dale, JP...just read the race bible. Prime every lap. Winner take all. $285. That's seven chances for some real money. Lets try and win a prime or something. Because 10th place overall is only $40. 3rd place is $300. So you know. Primes are the way to go if possible.

JP if you get in a break, if the group tells you they are going to split the primes, they are LYING. So go for it. I'll be okay/ready to counter any KCC moves that come back, but you know, don't go doing all the work in the break so Korff and Bezdek drop you when they start attacking the break. Field looks mostly local this year. A couple of VT kids on Cal Giant/Specialized. I raced against one of them in CT last weekend. He made the break and stayed away.

So JP and Marc--I'd love to get some primes, unfortunately they are on the flat instead of the hill, and that seems worse for us.  But I'm going to try anyway.  I think our best bet for primes would be an early break that stays away for a few laps.  Any thoughts on how this will play out?  

Just take turns following wheels, dudes. Especially if there's a Foundation or a Mengoni involved.

Any chance anyone can bring me a medium Rudy helmet and glasses? Late notice I know.

Also, who are the fast guys in the cat 3 field? I know some of those Montecci guys have been on a tear.

Dale Suttle said:

So JP and Marc--I'd love to get some primes, unfortunately they are on the flat instead of the hill, and that seems worse for us.  But I'm going to try anyway.  I think our best bet for primes would be an early break that stays away for a few laps.  Any thoughts on how this will play out?  

Getting in a break would be great for us. Especially if it was JP. However, with $285 on the line, winner take all, for every lap, I just don't see how anything is going to get away.

Maybe mid race, after the field is just tired from going single file chasing after the primes?

We just need to be in position to be in contention. That's step one. That stretch of road on the park loop is blazingly fast, with or without $285 on the line. So really if we're not 5th or 6th wheel as we carve the left turn bend into the finishing stretch, I don't think we'll have the juice to go for it.

JP doesn't fancy himself a sprinter, not sure if he's going to go for primes, or just wait for the post-prime counter attack? I'm interested in giving it a go as well. So...

crap too late...gotta go to bed. What am I DOING?

Results bros?

Cat 3 race had a hot K-team leadout into Cats Paw on 3 to go for a prime... that blew up just a smidge too soon. Maybe someone got a picture. In other news, Handsome Joe worked hard (for reals) and Mattie got boxed in for top 20. Solid team performance given the personnel and our experience together.

The Pro 1/2 race was 8 laps, and blazingly fast, and sketcheriffic for the first 3 to 4 laps. Then things settled down somewhat although, with $285 on the line for the prime every lap, it kind of made the first few laps dynamically, like the last lap of the race. 1/2 terrifying. And the 10 minutes of rain that dropped on the last lap of our race, that was fun.

Hopefully Dale and JP will write up their version of events. I'll get something wrong if I try, but I will say that

Dale rode like a boss, keeping up front all day. JPs faded hi-viz helmet was harder to pick out of the crowd from behind, but he was where he needed to be too. I managed to jump into a pretty serious looking break about mid-race when I zipped on the outside by Tavern, made contact with the group by Horseshit Alley. The group had with a few Foundations (including Bezdek), Mengoni and Lupus. But there was no working together, big surges, attacks, I was smoked and could barely keep up with the hotness. It was annoying, but not surprising. As we rounded the bend in the homestretch, guys were going for the prime sprint big time. I had nothing. After that, it was game over for this brief, but painful move. The field is on us and it's back to crazy pack racing.

With 3 laps to go, I believe someone was off the front, maybe solo, because the field stopped going nutso for the prime laps and it felt more like a typical park race.

A few crazy crashes kept things interesting in the last 2 laps, KCC managed to stay clear of them all. In the end, we all rolled in way out of the money. Somewhere along the way home from the race, after bottoming out my rim on a few bridge expansion joints, I realized I was riding a slow leak and wonder how long that's been going on.

p.s. passing like 3 fields was less than ideal. Although everyone was well behaved, it created enough confusion to where I just wasn't sure what was going on up front. I still don't know who won, or how he won. If he was off the front for as long as all that, then he maybe collected $900 in primes and $500 for the win? Yikes. If that's the case, the big teams should be embarrassed.

Nice race today-It still feels pretty nuts to me to be flying around Central Park at 40mph at 6:03 in the morning.     I tried to stay up front and active early on, which almost got me popped off the back on the first lap.  Luckily I started feel better as the race went on and I was able to hang out close to the front most of the day.  I followed some wheels in an attempt to get up the road, but with little success.  Both Marc and JP were able to get into much more promising moves, Marc early on and JP with maybe 3 to go.  I think both groups swelled to just too many guys to be a good move.  It seems that Central Park doesn't have enough consistent difficulty to really define a race, especially with teams that are happy to have a final sprint.  

FWIW, I watched the P12 finish. It was a field sprint. Adam Alexander pipped Scott Savory.

Thoughts: Race felt slow, although race results say we averaged 26.8 I had fairly little faith in any break sticking. Took a shot on the prime on lap 3, just jumped a bit long and early and got third. Mostly just floated around in the middle feeling sleepy. Started to move up with 2 to go, had to burn some matches to get up in the top 15 wheels coming into horseshit alley. We hit cats paw and it was like everyone decided to stop pedaling. Had to give a big fistful of brake halfway up to keep from ramming the riders ahead of me. This of course created a twitchy nervous bumpy group of too many people going into the sprint. Boxed in all around, felt like sprint never even happened. Very anticlimactic, results placed me 15th, never even was able to get out of the saddle for a real kick with all the implosions and people jumping lines. Overall, disappointing.

Kayt's got her game face on..

Courtesy of CRCA FB page.

JP, please post some race data that proves how studly (and handsome) you and Dale and I were today.

You guys might be more studly (arguably), but I think that this data proves that the 3's are definitely more handsome.

vlad said:

It amazes me how little effort is necessary to mix it up (/impose your will on the race) when you know the loop inside out and have a good idea of how the race is going to play out. This is making bike racing seem so incredible to me right now.

If we keep racing together, I have no doubt that we'll be quietly dominating these races in the very near future.

When I describe CP as very "crit-like," it is in part because of how the course flows and how momentum and position can be your friend in a way that's just not possible at Floyd.

For example, when I was still getting used to the pack's high speeds on the descent to Harlem Hill, and guys were zipping around me, panic-riding to hold a wheel, I chillaxed leading up to the climb knowing that on most laps there would be enough slowing for me to coast back into the draft.

There were a few times, when it was single/double file fun all the way down and up the hill, and then you've got to be full gas with no tricks. However, if you spent the last lap on a section coasting into position, then you should have plenty of octane to get you where you need to be when it's hard.

All that said, yesterday I spent more time with pressure on the pedals on that course than I have in recent memory. I was TIRED for quite a few hours after the race yesterday.

I was pretty sure when we started that Lupus and Foundation wanted a sprint.  Kind of figured that Foundation would have an interest in also going for attacks, as Adam Alexander would have a hard time dispatching Scott Savory in a sprint--so they'd want to make the race hard and burn up the Lupus guys so they'd have less of a leadout.  Lupus didn't show with their 10-man wrecking crew of last year (they did a ttt on the last lap at 30mph)  Mengoni, even as the host squad, doesn't have a rider for the sprint, so they could only hope to get in a break and place well out of that.  Wasn't sure what to make of the two Cal Giant kids; they probably had some legs, but wasn't sure how they'd use them.

Hey, look who got DQ-ed!

http://prtiming.com/crcamengoni2014results/#/results:&start_key=000001/OVERALL/0000000051/660&current_page=2&res_per_pg=50&sort_col=CURRENT&sort_dir=ASC:1405998838527

I saw a guy in the cat 4 field, toss a bottle over head right after engineer's gate. So pro.. not!

mugwump said:

Are there post-race DQ's when there's photgraphic evidence?

http://nyvelocity.com/gallery/image/12106?page=13

Let's not get too excited about photographic evidence... ahem...

Phillip Maronilla said:

I saw a guy in the cat 4 field, toss a bottle over head right after engineer's gate. So pro.. not!

When racing at Capitol Region, there's a legendary dude in New England racing Paul Curley, who, far off from the finish of his race, threw a bottle out on the course into somebody's yard. I've hated that guy for years for some jerk moves he and his teammate pulled on me on the way-way back. Now I have yet another reason to dislike the guy.

But like Granogue, everyone else loves him.