I'll be racing for lashings of tea and biscuits on the lawn.

Craig London, Aaron Blum, Brendan Rigby....c'mon down, you've signed up for the 3/4 race!!!

What's your general plan? Aaron and Brendan will have already had a cat 4 race in their legs. Craig's looking for new shoes but is coming in fresh...he also has the most racing experience of the trio. Discuss pls!

I will not be riding or racing in the snow.

weather.com is shows clear for all of Friday night into Saturday morn...

Hi Marc, Aaron, Brendan. I'm just sitting in until the field sprint. Not doing much work. I'm still in base training so I'm taking it easy. First time doing GT so avoiding crashes is my big goal.

FYI if you guys want to attack or whatever I'll block. I imagine most guys will be beating their brains out bc it'll be their first race of the yr and this is a larger city race. Again crash avoidance is key. It's a long season

Sadly, too late in the day for me to race and make it to work even remotely on time. I've always been able to take huge chunks of places by taking the hill on the inside of the apex, and just hitting it up the hill, it's usually strung out at the top, so you can slot in pretty easily without getting boxed.

Mattie, thanks for that tip. Sounds like a good line tomorrow. 

Very possible the schedule will run behind because it takes forever to tow the cars. If you have a sec, please post re any delays to this thread.

re: dave's image; is it just me or is that finish line different than last time?  looks like it occurs before where it did last year

WHOAH, the men's 5 and women's 4 course has zero corners! It's just an oval! This drastically lowers the chance of a breakaway succeeding. Drastically, massively. Bertucco, it's time to chime in for those fields (unless y'all have known this all along, in which case, uh, yeah, sounds good, keep it up).

Nope... same place. Just you.

Brendan Rigby said:

re: dave's image; is it just me or is that finish line different than last time?  looks like it occurs before where it did last year

Okay, all. Good luck tomorrow! Please take advantage of me being around all day. For those who don't know me, I've got a bushy beard that makes small children cry.

I put in a full 12-hour day on my feet in the ER today, and I'm not getting up before 6am tomorrow to be around all day because it's going to help my legs race well tomorrow afternoon.

Those who went to the Grant's Tomb clinic, will recall that we reviewed both long and short courses. Go us!

We also covered the line that Mattie mentioned in his earlier post. It is indeed a great place to move up, but will take some extra juice depending on your entry point and speed. A steeper entry point will allow you to carry some speed up the left side of the road and as everyone gets jammed up on the right corner/apex, you just take the wide line on the outside. But if you are really in the pack, you may simply have to let folks get by you on the inside and ride straight up the hill instead of following the pack to the right corner. Because unless you are off the front, you generally have to take the line you are given...to a certain extent.

I'll be around to ride hot-laps with you for refreshers and tips.

I'm disappointed that they are having the Men 5 and Women 4 do the short course. Because in some ways, it's actually HARDER. That's right harder. Turn one is essentially a 180 degree, and there will be dramatic slowing/stoppage the further back in the field you get. Seriously, these are going to be hard races. We'll see when we get there tomorrow. But basically, if you are doing it right, you will end up narrowly missing hitting the curb on the RIverside Church side of the course coming out of the turn.

Aaron, I don't think the ride up to the course is going to be too much. You are going to want to be sure to give yourself extra time so that you don't have to ride 50 minutes of tempo just to get to the race in time. This way you are tooling along at easy to moderate pace, put in a few harder efforts of a minute or so, then you'll be fine. But if you are doing sub-TT type pace to get to the race on time, chances are you won't have the snap in your legs you need to race well.

Anyone want to meet up in brooklyn and head up together? I'm good with MB or BB.

I'm gonna be at BB at 6:30 a.m., which should put me at reg around 7:12. I'll get my number, ride two laps of course recon, and promptly retire to the one nearby bodega to pin up, slurp some utterly essential shitty coffee, and mind to any other utterly essential shitty tasks in the serviceable bathroom in the rear.

Womens race started at 8:50, pretty close to schedule. Brendan takes 4th or 5th, waiting on results. Erika looking strong.

John takes 5th in masters

Pictures!

Post-nap update on men's 4 at Grant's.  I got 4th.  Everyone did great, but I will single out Wes.  Wes was in the right place at the right time and put in a lot of the effort that allowed me to sprint from where I did.  I began my sprint a bit late (I saw the guy who won go and decided he went too early and held off--woops!) so I wasn't able to get us a podium spot today.  It was a tremendous experience and I was happy to spend the morning with my teammates.  I hope everyone had fun!

Just back from the P123, Bertucco and I DNF'd, but we got JP up the front and pulled back an early break. JP got in a break, ended up 21st. Decimated field as the wind picked up, a crash (I heard), maybe half the field finished.

MOAR race reports please!

Haven't raced yet, new to the sport/club, but already suffering from cycling-induced FOMO after seeing a blur of elite women on my way home from GWB. Props to anyone who raced today.

There was just so much awesome today at Grant's Tomb. Team Kissena was ON FIRE. I'll write more later about what I saw and remembered, but hopefully the men and women of KCC have time to type up some reports for you to feast on. Because there are some juicy stories to be shared from inside the peloton.

Briefly, because I'm guessing he won't have time to write a race report for a few days, I'll say JP rode like an absolute beast. In a race where AT LEAST half the field couldn't finish, he not only hung tough, but he was visible at the FRONT of a field filled with ex-pros for easily 3/4 of the race. Unfortunately, the winning break went late and that was that. Foundation with Chabanov, Bedzdek, Murphy, etc. missed out and couldn't make a dent in it, among others it had former Team Type 1 professional Will Duggan in it. Last lap shenanigans saw JP roll in twenty-something place. JP later reported that his normalized power for the first 25 minutes of the race was 320 watts. Yeah, so...you know. Also John Malcolmson lasted A LOT LONGER than a lot of the other dnf-ers. Mad respect to him for an awesome second race of the day!

Some snaps I took.  I've got a few more I'll try to get to.  Not the greatest quality, I'm afraid.  Erika in the women's 3/4, men's 3/4, Kayt, John sprinting in the master's, some familiar faces regrouping after a long winter.