Everybody is doing it...time to race bikes!

Registered for 5 and 4/5. Sorry for my absences, work and school has been kicking my butt!

im starting a new job, in a week. Will be doing 3/12hr night shift, which will give more time to train. Wife thinks I did it for more family time 😂. God bless her heart!

This Sunday (possible switch to Saturday if forecast changes from rain) 8:30am at Grant’s Tomb we’ll preride course and discuss tactics, skills and winning strategies. Practice a few finish sprints. 9:30am we’ll ride over GW towards Piermont. Post here if you’re joining.

I’ll be there

I'll be there if the weather isn't too crappy. If it's on Sunday I have to bounce after practice to take my kids to swimming. 

In 

Just signed up for the earlier Cat 5 race. 

We would get a few rides in and do some race prep. 

Technical Guide. https://www.crca.net/grants-tomb-criterium#techguide
You have to plan to win this race. This is a race that people with great form get dropped in the first three laps.

@JohnMalcolmson Wow. Memory Lane. Lots of good nuggets in there. Hoping to make Saturday, but Sunday was easier. Regardless, taking the people through a few sprints to the finish would probably help--and I think the finish line is about 50  15-25 meters farther away from the U-Turn than it was when that case study was written.

You can pedal through all the corners at GT. We'll practice a lot of pedaling through corners tomorrow.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3ynGnUmLzc

Via Cycling tips:

Good cornering technique can save a LOT of energy and put you in the proper winning position in the final straight. Knowing how to corner properly can also give you what we call “free speed“.  Many people have difficulty cornering so here are a few simple tips to help you along the way.

1. Always look where you want to go and don’t fixate on the wheel in front of you.  Never look where you do not want to go.  It’s a sure way of heading in that direction.
2. Anticipate the speed for the corner and brake before the corner if necessary. DO NOT brake while in the turn.
3. Approach the corner wide, cut to the apex , and finish wide. The apex is straightest line through a corner and allows you to maintain the highest amount of speed.  A common mistake is cutting to the apex of the turn too early.  Approaching the corner wide also gives you more options when exiting the corner in case something unexpected happens.
4. Quickly scope out the 2 or 3 riders ahead of you who have already entered the corner. Note if they are pedaling safely through it and judge whether you should do the same. If it happens that your inside pedal hits the pavement, don’t panic and don’t over-correct. Over compensation is how most crashes happen.
5. Put all your weight onto the outside pedal if you stop pedaling.  This pedal outside pedal should be facing down towards the road.  Lift your weight off your saddle slightly to get that weight on the outside foot, get over the front of the bike (see photo below), and roll up behind and into the slipstream of the rider in front.  It’s amazing how much speed you can keep and energy you can save by ducking right under the wind.
6. If you are not pedaling through the corner and need to coast through (as in #5), once you have passed the apex of the corner begin to pedal again as soon as possible and accelerate out of the corner.

Random Cornering Tips

Concertina Effect

When riding in large groups such as criterium racing you’ll experience what’s called the concertina or accordion effect.  This happens when the front riders slow down to enter a corner which compresses the pack together.  The last rider in the bunch has to slow down the most.  By the time the front riders are accelerating out of the corner the riders at the back are still slowing.  This means the riders at the back have a lot of catching up to do and have to go faster than the riders at the front in order to catch up again.   The further back you are, the more this surging effect is propagated towards the rear of the bunch.

The trick to avoiding this constant surging is to find your position at the front quarter of the bunch.  You don’t want to be at the front doing all the work but you want to be close enough to the front so you can carry your speed through the corners and respond to any attacks or surges.  This also enables you to read the race and see what’s going on up front.

Coming Underneath

This is an etiquette and safety thing.  What “coming underneath” means is when someone passes everyone on the inside of the corner while going through.   This is a mistake on two counts:

1) You could get cut off very easily by the rest of the group apexing the corner and you won’t get through.  Your exit line will be over before it’s begun. 

2) If you do manage to come underneath the through the inside of the corner you will disrupt the pack’s fast moving line since you will most likely swing wide through the corner.  You’ll have the riders say a few colorful words to you at the end of the race.  Hard to explain but hopefully you get the picture.  Do it once and let the guys you just “chopped” politely explain it to you.

Countersteering

You may not realize that you intuitively countersteer every time you enter a corner. However, once you are aware of this concept it’s much easier to control and perfect.

To initiate countersteering, momentarily turn away from the direction you’re turning. This increases the lean of the bicycle into the turn. This method allows for greater steering control and makes it easy to affect a change in direction during the turn.

If you have 5 minutes, the following video does a great job explaining countersteering.

I forgot to mention a couple of things at today's clinic:
- if it's cold you need to do a big warm-up, either on a trainer or 5+ laps, do some a few high cadence sprints so you have a feel for the conditions. Also keep your thermal jacket on until the last minute and dump the gear over the barrier. 
- Get to the line and try to get to the front. It's a bit of a dance as you don't want to line up too early and get cold, but you definitely don't want to start at the back. Keep on top of the race officials to find out when to line up. 
- Someone needs to volunteer to be captain now. Captains rally everyone around goals: both pre-race (assign roles, go over strategy/tactics) and during race (move up! Chase that break down). 
- Ride the course every chance you get, know the 200m to go mark (just after the stone columns on the right side of finish straight).
- Make sure you start some speed work two weeks before, 10 x 20-10s, 10 x 40-20s 

@JohnMalcolmson I can volunteer to the cat 5 captain.

peoples,
     First, trying to set up a place, then a time for a tactics talk ahead of this race.

     On Saturday, we talked about recognizing crosswinds and taking advantage of them.  

     Usually, but not always, the wind is coming from the southwest off the Hudson, and the wind is most apparent on the finishing stretch, from the u-turn at the top of the course to the finish line.  

As such, if you want to help the pack ride fast or chase down a move, if you're at the front, you want to be toward the right side of the road, so there is more shelter for everyone behind you.  

However, if you want to hurt the field, split the group, or set up a teammate, the place to be is toward the left side of the road, where few can shelter and you're forcing others to line up on the gutter, with little draft.

Conversely, watch for these phenomenon's from others.  It's one of the ways the race can chew you up, even when you're strong.  

here's a relevant video  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wmGp2pKF60

Is anyone interested in practicing a bit at Grant’s Tomb on Saturday morning, especially Cat 5s? It looks like the weather is going to be very nice.

Interested - would go out afterwards over the GWB anyone wants extra miles....

@RichFreeman I can head to the Market afterwards. I don’t know if I have time to go further.

@RichFreeman would you be up for captaining the Cat 4 team? 

JohnMalcolmson said:

@RichFreeman would you be up for captaining the Cat 4 team? 

Sure - very happy to do it. 

This is a bit of a multi-thread message but does anyone have an extra S-M vest/jersey that I could borrow for next weekend?

I've got a medium wind vest you can borrow @Nathaniel Picard Busky

@JohnOlsson Awesome! Potential snag that I should have mentioned: I'm racing the Cat 5 at 7am so unless you'll be there that early I'd have to grab it earlier in the week.

Come to the KCC social Thurs. @Bruce van-Schalkwyk where we going for drinks Thurs?? 

We're going back to 61 Local in Brooklyn, 6-8pm.

@Nathaniel Picard Busky I've got a SM jersey that was loaned to me by @eloy and I can pass it on if you want. Not sure how I could get it to you before though 

Thanks for the help guys! @JohnOlsson and @Bruce van-Schalkwyk, I'll see you on Thursday! @RobertMullen thanks anyway for the offer!!

Calling all Cat 5s @Nathaniel Picard Busky @Joshua Wilson @Kyle Panton @Matt Budofsky. Did I miss anyone? I think it would be a good idea if we all met at the race on Saturday to come up with some sort of game plan. Would it be easier if I started a group chat through text or if we used slack? Let me know your preference. Thanks

@RobertPeras sounds good to me (I'm good with either slack or text (845-642-8095)). I'm most likely going to ride to the race so i can wake/warm up a bit. Any other Cat 5s rolling from Brooklyn the morning of?