10march
i am in for Sunday's nyc SpringSeries in cat5.

goal ride wheels of Siggi's 12man monster, steer clear of dodgy riders, talk to them, gently, encourage them hold their lines, not jump too fast, &will not win race on the descent etc.. i'll attempt to make a break on lap2 somewhere the west side(shortened 2lap race) & hammer TT style to finish. lord give me the legs!

flame-out or glory.
-h

ps joshC are you in this week?

Harry - I am in - going to bed shortly

JP - Nosson is a cat IV now, not a 5.

Come on Harry, move up!

Jojo,
Hope you're feeling better. How did the faceplant happen?

story please.

Really, no race reports from Sunday? It's 10am on Monday morning for chrissssakes, c'mon people!

I was in the 3/4 race with Joji, and i dont think i saw any other Kissena's. He said he had raced saturday, so i am thinking he is pretty strong this season. Joji was away in a 3 man break from about halfway into the first lap. i think they got as much as a minute, but we caught them near the end of the third lap. Joji was near the front, maybe around 7th, and as things started picking up a lot of speed near 90th i think, he bumped the wheel in front, he said, and slid out. he had his hands up in the air as we went around, so he did not look dead, so i decided to keep racing. i feel a little bad about that in retrospect, as i think he was actually pretty banged up. he rode himself back to the start, and he didnt want to go to the hospital with the ambulance, so i gave him a ride home. I suspect possibly a broken thumb, and maybe something to his cheekbone. I hope he went into the hospital with his wife, as with that kind of head impact, i think he should have had some extended observation. For myself, i was happy to hang in there for the race, but i did not feel too snappy. I didnt recognize very many riders going into the finish, so i wasnt sure how to get good position. I was too far behind in the sprint, so only made it up to i think around 17th or so. But was happy to come in safe.
A big hooray for John M, as i heard he rode to a spectacular finish in the crit on saturday! Congrats!

Nice RR Mckay, glad to see you're back this season, I couldn't stomach another CP race after the prior week's events. Any status update on Joji? Sounds kind of bad.
Heal quick!

Hey Joji, hope it's not too bad, let us know what's up.

Joji,

hope you're feeling better and look forward to seeing you back out on the bike soon.

Thank you guys for your warm words of encouragement and sorry for late update. I was in bed whole yesterday with a high fever.

This time my strategy was to keep staying in front and jump in breakaway. After the hill climbing in the 1st lap, 2 Team Cosmic guys made a breakaway and I jumped on it.
I worked with them and made a 3 riders train in the rest of the 1st and 2nd laps. Sometimes I looked back but there's no chasing peloton in my sight. We were good breakaway at that time.



In the 3rd lap, however, one of the Cosmics burned out during the hill and 2 of us (me and another Cosmic) kept pedaling. But our speed apparently slowed down with only 2 riders train.
And finally before the final (4th) lap, we got caught... Though our breakaway failed, I kept staying in the peloton and tried to recover my legs until the goal sprinting.



But when we were in the gentle curve after Guggenheim straight, a rider in front of me moved out of the line towards my side. It was too late to scream "Hold your line!" and my front wheel bumped his rear wheel. Though I tried to recover, I lost control and fell down from my face to the ground. I raised my hand immediately for others to avoid crashing with me. Fortunately, no one got involved except me. I went back to the start/finish line and some ambulance crews took care of me.



After the first aid, McKay kindly gave me a ride and took me home with his car. In my home, I felt tired and got a high fever. I called my primary doctor and went to see him. As a result of X-Ray, there's luckily no major fractures. I took tetanus shot and antibiotic drugs. But my right hand is still swollen too much and I cannot write, eat with my right hand nor hold handle bar. I hope to get well soon and come back to the race with you guys.

The guy who didn't burn off is Anthony Fatuzzo, he's the dude I said to look for if you wanted to try for breaks earlier in the thread. Strong, strong rider, but not terribly tactical.

Joji,

Very sorry to hear of your crash. I hope you feel better soon. It is hard to get into those breaks - it takes skill and fitness; you have both.

Heal up soon!

Jules

yea get back on quickly! it's too bad, just gotta ride the trainer for a short while. see u soon hopefully.

Brief 1/2/3 report:

Despite the nominal loss of an hour's sleep, I actually felt decent waking up. Much better than I felt Saturday morning. And with the 6:45 start, I even got up sort of later than normal. Rolled to the race, no Joe. Warmed up. No Joe. Me solo. for four laps in CP.

Short races can be really intense and a small break can keep pressure on for an hour and take the thing. I was hoping for this. Didn't want to put in the first attack off the line but was all set to go once we hit 100th on the west side.

The first move went by east 85th. Tad Marzalek was feeling frisky. Unfortunately, he's currently got about 50 meters in him before he starts to need some assistance. This was a pattern throughout the race. See him go, gain a short gap and then you could see he'd lose his oomph. Tad is aggressive, which is good, but his fitness isn't there yet. The problem was he'd draw some of the out-of-towners who would otherwise be good for attacking. And they'd get nowhere, thus burning their matches for nothing.

Several occasions, I'd see something starting to form, I'd bridge across, and the guys would kind of sputter out and look at each other. The best chance I seemed to have was a move that I started by West 72nd before 2 to go. Got some guys off the front, like six, but only half were interested in riding and the field was slowly pulling us back. We stayed away until two to go and the field sat up. Felt like this many times.

On the last lap, a guy was away and the field was dawdling to catch him. We caught him and then two riders jumped away around tavern. (marc, you reading). They hung out there. Mangoseed took responsiblity for chasing, but they were chasing slowly and the field was getting antsy. I was in pretty decent position, but then I accidentally rolled to the front--there was an opening. Once there, took a quick dig, saw everyone switched to my wheel, and I was now forced to lead it out. Took it controlled to the final curve, started winding up, realized there was not enough to do anything and I pulled over.

Anyone racing Prospect Park on Sunday 18th?
Im making my debut to racing and the club this Sunday in the 5's. Any tips or team plans?

There are some 4s racing.

I'll be there for the 123s, I think JP Joe and Eric will also be there. Marc? William? Rene?

I'm in for the 1/2/3 race on Sunday.

@Ashley. Are you in Brooklyn? Can anyone on the club pre-ride the course with him this week? I could type up volumes of tips, but I think if you could get out there with one of our PP regulars, that would be better. Josh C and Harry B are our other 2 racing Cat 5s right now.

4 laps for a 1/2/3 race? Wow, super lame. Ohhh, the last lap Tavern attack! 2 up? My favorite, did they stay away? Where did you start and finish your leadout? Getting to the front too early is tricky. Because if you sit up, by the time you slow enough to encourage the field to swarm you, you are going so slow that you won't be able to react as guys sprint past you. This is where even just one teammate would have been helpful. JP, a team of one, did a nice leadout for the field. Now, the next time we line up with more than a few guys, we have no excuse, right?!

JP, when you got to the front, what if you kept it tempo instead of taking a dig, would guys have rolled around you giving you a little draft so you could have taken your shot at glory later? Where was your final attack exactly?

I could do a Friday evening tour after I get my haircut.

Maybe 6PM?

I'm reg'd for Sunday at PP. I see Adam and another Kissena I don't recognize, Daniel Hubbard. (Daniel, am I having one of my "episodes" and forgetting having met you?) I believe Jules also plans to reg. Anyone else?

I'm doing it. Will register today.

Marc, I just moved to the US but yes, I am in Brooklyn, ive been spending a bit of time in Prospect Park recently getting to know it but agree it would be very valuable doing some laps with some racers with an eye of whats what. I have some plans in my own mind but im pretty fresh to the whole racing scene.

@Josh C, @Harry B, in light of the stellar teamwork and aggression the 4's at Grants Tomb laid down shall we get a plan together?

@mperlberg, I could do Friday but wont make it in before 7.

Would anyone know who I should poke to get a jersey? Ive gone through the channels on the website but to no avail so far.



A

No, the break didn't make it. My move was the coup de grace.

I was on the left side of the road, I guess around 68th. The road was curving right, so the left side opened up. I rolled, then dug, then backed off. I tried soft-pedaling for a few seconds. Nothing. The field was bunching up behind. So I picked it up again to tempo. I was at the front of the field from I guess around 69th or 70th to the final curve. I stayed on the left side to take the smoother rise, but didn't have legs to do what I thought was the necessary jump.

I'll be racing the 1/2/3 Sunday.

I'm reg'd in the 3/4

(Belly full of anger and some extra tight stem screws & locktight!)

Does anyone have any race data (from any category) from previous races in Prospect Park? Powerfiles, strava, Garmin Conenct, TrainingPeaks, WKO etc ?
Interested to know what average speeds and/or normalized power (if your that way inclined) constitute to a regular group lap, a hot stung out lap and maybe a solo attack lap?

I have an idea what I can do powerwise for a hot lap and what I might need to attack on the hill or on the long back straight but how that translates to what the pack might roll on the day I have no idea.

Cheers

An 11-lap PP race from April 2011 Cat 4

http://tpks.ws/RhUE
Time: 1:29:35
AvgPower: 203 w
NormPower: 250 w
AvgSpeed: 25.3 mph

A 9-lap PP race from June 2011 Cat 4

http://tpks.ws/cDbBDroN
Time: 1:12:01
AvgPower: 219 w
NormPower: 266 w
AvgSpeed: 25.5 mph

Both those files have warm-up/cool-down data. The taller stuff in the middle is the race

what's your weight?

Great question! I was around 165 for both those races.

Here is one from a 9 lap race, April 30th of 2011
(Timestamped with Jeff O's "can't work because I'm fat" line)

It was almost my first ride (let alone race) after Battenkill

Time: 1:15
AvgPower 225
NormPower 275
AvSpeed 24.4 mph

154.5 at the time