dstokes said:

Could be mine. Karl was supposed to give it to the judges table and Hubbard was supposed to pick it up.
Blue sleeves? Slight tear in a seam at the top of one shoulder?

Marc Bertucco said:

If it's not to early to be posting stuff in the Battenkill thread, then it's definitely not to early to mention this hot update about the Grant's Tomb course.

Remember the craptacular pavement sections? Well, they are no more. Totally re-done, buttery smooth. Which is good and bad. Good because, well, good pavement is always good. Bad because it effectively takes away my secret racing lines, privy to only KCC members in good standing (i.e. the folks who show up to pre-ride the course with me as I break it down).

David Yang said:

SUFFERING...

http://www.oneimagingphotography.com/Cycling/Grants-Tomb-31012/Cat-4/21877238_SSgZpG#!i=1744344030&k=Ntvcz3g What a rag tag bunch of misfits. We look so much sharper now. We had some good eats after that race. A proper sit down breakfast in our kits and all.

• Key is going to be good placings and the ability to attend all or most events. Even if some sledge hammer wins everytime she shows up, if she only shows up 3 or 4 times, and you are there all 8 and placing top 5-ish every time, you will generally win out. That said...
  
• Be sure you know the specific rules of your series regarding points and missed races etc. Some series allow you to drop your lowest score or only count 6 races towards the scores, while there may be 8 races total in the series.
• Be sure to stick around for results and protest periods. They will screw up your results...they always screw up the results. Get things right before you go home. Because good luck trying to get anything changed via email a day or two later.
  

Now which category at Grant's Tomb? That's a tough call. Women's racing is, unfortunately remarkably inconsistent. As such, it makes it difficult to recommend doing this race over that race because this or that is likely to happen. I will say, that it would not surprise me to see a HUGE range of women in the Cat 4 field. You would be on the one end of the spectrum, strong and comfortable riding in a pack, while at the other end, you'll have weak riders way off the back, strong riders who don't know how to ride in a pack way off to the side but keeping up, and who knows what else.

Whichever race you choose, you'll have to evaluate the dynamics of the field, the course and race accordingly.

If you are in a sea of inexperienced and wonky racers in a cat 4 field, you might be better off making your move off the front early, draw out the stronger riders and cooperate for a little TTT action until the last few laps.

If you are in the 3/4s and find yourself, "middle of the pack" in terms of fitness and skills, then you have to look for the strong riders and teams and play off their moves. I'll be on course all day, shouting from the sidelines, so if you hear me say something like, "You have to move up!" or "You have to bridge up to that group NOW" then you gotta move.

Grant's Tomb is an honest to goodness real deal crit and like a very technical cross race, it requires explosive power, bike handling skills, the ability to accelerate quickly out of corners. If you are racing the course correctly, you may get away with only having to do 2 VO2+ max intervals per lap, if not you may find yourself suffering through 4 or more lung/leg busting max efforts EVERY LAP. Fortunately, unlike most cross races, there ARE places to draft and recover. I'll go over those spots during our course run-through on the weekend of March 1st/2nd.

This is to say that you or  anyone else considering doing more than one race including a Grant's Tomb race in a single day, may find yourself living in the pain/exhaustion cave. Just because it's physically possible, timing-wise to pin on race numbers for more than one event in a given day, doesn't mean you should.

Or shouldn't? If you just want to get in a really hard day and you don't particularly care about the real possibility that one or more of the Grant's Tomb races you may DNF, then go for it. But if you think that one race is going to be a warm-up, while the next, is the one you HULK SMASH, then I would reconsider your options for the day.

To answer your question more specifically about doing CP then GT, yes, you'll have plenty of time to ride from the finish of CP to the start of GT. It will take you around 15 minutes exit the park at 110th at the base of Harlem Hill, ride west a few blocks then turn right on Morningside.

Again, the women's events might be different. It may be possible to use the Cat 4 as a warm-up for the 3/4 "main event." It just depends.

I guess what I would say, is that if your goal is placing well overall in the omnium, then focus on the race that matters for the omnium points. Remember when you mentioned having been forced off the bike for almost a week because of work travel and when you came back to it, you were fresh and killing it harder than when you went out day after day after day after day of hard training rides with no proper rest?

That said, whichever race you do, if you are still feeling like you need more miles, then it's easy enough to head on over the GWB for a quick river road ride.

Jules said:

That clanging sound was @Marc dropping an imperial ton of wisdom.  I had to bust out a "Mentor" badge for that.