Jul 12, 2013 at 01:49 PM
Erased
Capital Region RR
Jul 12, 2013 at 01:53 PM
Agreed. Most likely our best "team" tactic will be to attack/put on the pressure right after the second time we go up the climbs. A lot of guys will be gassed and there is the opportunity to get a break with a good gap. I feel good and hope to have the legs at that point.Jules said:I'll be surprised if there are any big attacks in the first lap. I think the field will dwindle until after the second time up the big climbs.Look around after mile 25 or 27 and those are the guys who will be there for the final.
Whether or not this works, let's communicate and work together, especially on the post (big) climb section of the last lap.
Jul 12, 2013 at 02:24 PM
@Patrick I think the attrition will happen on it's own by then, at least that's what I've witnessed before. I just look around and there are only 8 guys...
If it *is* all together coming over the top of the second round of hills we're going to need to do something dramatic up the next wall.
There is a seven mile descent going into the final climb so it will be important to make sure the competition is tired by then.
Jul 12, 2013 at 02:29 PM
Totally agree. We don't have the horsepower to blow up the field so we'll have to play the hand we're dealt. I'd like to get a good idea of our end game plan. If there are still three or four of us we should be sending legitimate threats up the road early at the base of the final climb.PatrickG said:Whether or not this works, let's communicate and work together, especially on the post (big) climb section of the last lap.
Jul 12, 2013 at 03:52 PM
As a teammate who is (happily) not racing this one, I appreciate the delicateness with which our serious hitters in the 4s are treating tactics. Any one of these guys making a sacrifice for another could realistically be sacrificing their own top 10. Good luck, fellas!
Jul 12, 2013 at 04:02 PM
Unless a serious break gets away that needs "chased" I think it's going to be a war of attrition. The final climb/sprint if it comes to that will be key.
Until then it's just a hard weekend ride 
Jul 12, 2013 at 04:04 PM
Speaking of which who has what Talismans? Jawbone? Thimble? Does Ryan still have both?Jules said:Until then it's just a hard weekend ride
Jul 12, 2013 at 04:39 PM
If he does, tomorrow he will be UNBEATABLE
Jul 12, 2013 at 04:52 PM
i have the jawbone
Jul 12, 2013 at 05:16 PM
Diamond Joe for the W
Jul 12, 2013 at 06:59 PM
Yeah ask Joe how he wriggled out of defending the Jawbone on Alpine a couple weeks ago
Jul 12, 2013 at 07:09 PM
I have thimble
Jul 13, 2013 at 05:02 PM
Kick some ass my hombres
Jul 13, 2013 at 05:23 PM
RESULTS BRO'S!
Jul 13, 2013 at 06:09 PM
Congrats to Jules on 7th in the bunch sprint (he got boxed in). Wiggins wins it!?
Jul 13, 2013 at 07:21 PM
John, where'd you find those results?
Jul 13, 2013 at 07:24 PM
Via Jules mail! He took a photo
Jul 13, 2013 at 08:02 PM
Congrats @Jules!
Jul 13, 2013 at 08:19 PM
Nice Jules.
Jul 13, 2013 at 10:08 PM
Nice!! Congrats, Jules!
I had some bum luck this morning with my car. As soon as I got out of the city it started to overheat. I stopped, got gas, let it cool down, filled it with coolant, and got that breakfast I'd skipped. No more than ten minutes later I had puffs of black smoke drifting over my windshield. I repeated the coolant procedure, and when I saw the temperature gauge rising again (not yet on 87), I threw in the towel and did the "I'm the slowest on the highway" crawl to Fort Lee and did a rainy solo ride to Bear. Reaaaaaally bummed to have missed this, but glad to have not been the ride for anybody else and also glad that it happened for this and not Catskills.
Jul 13, 2013 at 10:10 PM
Konrad...check your engine thermometer...it may not be activating the fan soon enough to keep your engine cool. It's a pretty cheap/quick fix. Of course if you have a leak in the system somewhere...that's less cheap/easy.
Jul 13, 2013 at 11:44 PM
Any day during which I eat a Pizza Hut personal pan pizza and a bag of fries for lunch, at a truck stop, is a good day. Today, I did that.
Nice work Jules. Curious to hear some reports from the 3/4 race. That field was no joke, there were some very strong 3s in there.
As for the Pro123 race:
First lap, brutal. Brutal. Followed Michael Boardman up the wall thinking if I was with him I was probably in a good place; dude can climb. A 6-man break went after the crest, with Murphy and Margaurite and riders from some of the other more elite teams who had any numbers in the field. This caused things to chill out a bit during lap 2 although there were still some nasty accelerations.
They had 2:30 at one point but on the third lap the chasing started for real and it was balls out again. We caught them at the start of lap four and then things really went ballistic. Guys started getting dropped early in that lap. I felt decent and was super happy that I was still in the race and started dreaming of top 10s.
But alas…I just missed the final selection. The bitch of it is I actually made it over the wall the last time, and near the front. Chabanov had tried to leave us on the steeper pitches and someone else had followed. The two of them lingered up the road a ways but never got too far up. I turned myself inside out but I crested in the top 10-15.
As we came over the top I looked to my right to see Allan Carr absolutely dying. I got gapped a little coming over the top but I caught back on in the fast S-turns. Then the little kicker up to the hard right-hander onto the false flat broke me. I made the right turn with maybe two feet of space to the wheel in front of me and I just. could. not. do it. anymore. Curtains.
I watched the selection roll away. Maybe 20-25 guys, I dunno. I looked back. Nobody in sight. I soft-pedaled for a long time and it was several miles before one guy caught me. Then about a mile from the finish Adam and Johan Gibcus from Grinta caught me. I let them all go, I was toast having given all I had trying to stay on the lead group.
Of course I'm now kicking myself thinking "if I'd just been a little tougher" but really I think I'd reached the point where tough didn't matter. My body wasn't gonna do it. The crack happened right at the limits of the distance I'm trained for. It was at about mile 75 that I needed one more big effort and I didn't have it.
I was impressed with Adam. He'll tell his story.
As always, good fun with boys. Thanks to Joaquin and Joe for the company.
Jul 13, 2013 at 11:45 PM
Golden Cheetah shows a hard day. 83 miles, average speed 23 mph
296 bike score.
Here's what it took to get dropped with 12 miles to go!
Normalized Power 249 watts for 3 hours 37 minutes
Power Peaks:
Max power 962w
5 sec 814w10 sec 668w
20 sec 576w
30 sec 512w
1 min 471w
2 min 444w
5 min 347w
10 min 296w
20 min 269w
Jul 14, 2013 at 12:43 AM
Good job Ryan.
Jul 14, 2013 at 12:47 AM
Fun race, 7th place.
"Chasing points" is not nearly as fun as racing to win. I know that for an upgrade I have to accumulate top 10 finishes so I signed up for this race thinking it would be a good place to do well and help me get ready for next week's Tour of the Hilltowns.
I drove up with Adam the night before and as expected the conversation was wide ranging and populated with more than the usual number of expletives.
We had a late start so we were lights out in the Super 8 just after midnight.
Setting aside our pre-race jitters we drove out early and drove up the final finishing kilometer. "Not too bad..." we thought. It wasn't until we turned around and headed back down that we realized exactly how much of this was straight uphill...
Whitey (Jeff) had said that reports were that it was a tight finish but it didn't look tight... more on that later.
We were at registration early enough to beat the crowds to the "loo" and were pinned and ready to roll with plenty of time.
I quickly met up with Patrick & Jeff "Condi" Condon. We didn't have much of a strategy other than see how we were feeling and play the finale by ear.
The race was relatively uneventful - there was the obligatory crash in the neutral rollout, and I did my best to stay at the front for the first lap. The hills were hard but not horrible and there was one kid from Middlebury that was clearly itching to jump away. He was so much stronger than anyone else I was counting on others to chase him if he went. "Top Ten" kept going through my mind.
After the first set of hills some guy settled in on the front and started hammering on the straight flat section. I took second wheel with Condi right behind me...2, 3, 4 ,5 6, 7 miles ticked by and he didn't let up. There was no wind and nobody ahead of us. I sort of shrugged and figured, "Ok, it'll be a shorter race."
After the first feed zone Middlebury and some others attacked... the seemed a little disorganized and with 20+ miles to go I figured "top ten" and I'd let others chase.
Eventually they got about 30 seconds on us but were still scattered, not working together. When they finally *did* get organized it took us several tries to get an organized paceline going to chase - with basically (?) the entire field behind us it seemed like we just couldn't get it working - soooo many people didn't know how to ride a paceline it was absolute agony.
As we used to say in the military, "The only thing worse than drill is BAD drill."
Eventually though we caught the break but there was no moto up front... and no Middlebury. Oh well, "Top Ten..."
With about 5 miles to go I tried a brief attack but people were on me like glue so I sat up and waited.
We got to the bottom of the final climb (which, for the record, is about 2:30 worth of racing) and I stuck with the front group until about the 75 meter to go mark. Then I began to open up my sprint but the few guys in front of me were all going ziggy zaggy so I only did a Sad Panda sprint... I was boxed in. I gave a final bike throw to beat out Jun Sugai for 7th. Small victories.
Had I gone a bit earlier or had a cleaner line I'm sure I could have come around most of the guys in front of me and gotten 4th if not 3rd.
The two guys (Middlebury and one other) were 30 and 40 seconds ahead of us.
Prizes were T-Shirts but they only went "three deep."
Ryan, Adam and Diamond Joe stuck it out with the P123's for double the distance and each looked well and truly knackered - hats off to them.
I'm pleased to have a bit of form again and happy to have some points but racing for "Top 10" just ain't the same. I'd rather race for a teammate or go for broke. There were more than a few moments when the break was far but not "uncatchable far" that I had to tell myself to sit tight and remember the points chase.
Overall I think I ate & drank with a little too much fear (ie too much) but my positioning was good and there were only about 3 or 4 turns I really didn't handle well...
Next year I'll bring the family and hopefully we can make a team BBQ out of it when we're done.
Jul 14, 2013 at 12:53 AM
Some power numbers (all normalized) although nothing very exciting below 10 minutes. Overall I think I raced within myself and was much more conservative than I've been before.
2 hours: 280
90 minutes: 290
60 minutes: 291
30 minutes: 312
10 minutes: 330
Jul 14, 2013 at 01:10 AM
FYI I found some sweet photos from 2008 version of this race...
Jul 14, 2013 at 01:20 AM
@Jules - what is a Panda sprint?
Jul 14, 2013 at 01:22 AM
Jul 14, 2013 at 06:39 PM
Complete results: http://www.fastalracing.com/results/2013/CRRRResults13.pdf