I still don't have my kit, so imma be incognito. 

What tactics will you guys want to try this time?
I don't mind animating for the first half of the race, but I wanna save myself for the end to try to get a win or upgrade points. 

If @RichardCornetta is there with me on the climb, I wouldn't mind going full gas. 
My best guess if you are leading out is to attack and lead just before the turn at the top of the climb and hold 28-30 mph until about 200 meters to go. 

@RobertMullen I never know when the KOM thing is gonna go on, so im probly not the guy to pull you up the climb lol

Kevin, let's get you a jersey for the next race, even if borrowed. Both the KOM and the sprint will ring a bell one lap before, so everyone knows is coming. The finish does too.

I’ll lend you a jersey @Kevin Man - might be a bit loose around the bicep, so might want to consider adding some curls to your workouts this week...

I'm in for Sunday. Reg in the 3/4 is up to 54 now.

I’m registered for Cat 5

20% of the 3/4 field is currently made up of members of this club

@JohnOlsson thats what I was saying to @RichFreeman yesterday, so we better do something... We can control the race if 4-5 of us can stay top 20 at all times and one after the other just constantly throw an attack, and keep the race pace incredibly high and really hurt the other team. 2-3 stay hidden the whole time and come forward at the last 1-2 laps go for the win. 

Do we know what our cat 3/4 people in the team goals/strength are? (we should make some kind of spread sheets since we have a lot of people.) 
We can combined our strength and make something happen... 

For myself Im a short 1-3 min power, punchy but not a pure sprinter and I don't mind elbowing and bumping at the end. I really want to try to move to Cat3 this year if I can. 

For inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02_0E2cYYqQ

Hi,

I'll write a more specific plan and roles closer to the weekend. Meanwhile I welcome Kevin's enthusiasm and all his cycling POWAH. 

We have some team goals for the season, in case you have yet to see them refer to these posts... 

• Plan for previous L&C
• Report on previous L&C
• Patrick's notes for previous L&C
• Plan for the first L&C

More soon...

Awesome to see the planning and preparation. Go get ‘em boys! 

My goals for this race are essentially the same as last race: 

-Nab some more KOM points: I learned a lot last time of when I need to attack after I'm up the hill. I had some daylight each time but got nabbed at the line. I think I attacked the guys too early and I need to trust my sprint a bit more. Our lead-out was really strong and I think we can be even sharper this go 'round.

-Work better for our sprinters: I want to make a more conscious effort to be where I need to be in the finale. I think I was a little hazy on the last lap and had it in my head that I just need to move up. I'd like to play a bigger part in an organized lead out. 

A new, arguably most important, goal is to have fun. Last race was the literally most fun I've had racing bikes in the park. I think keeping that in the back of my noggin would be good for this weekend. 

I’m all in for covering moves early in the race and leading out Rob for the 1st KOM. I’d like to take a less active role on the 2nd KOM to save my legs for the finish. 

If we have a large large enough group for the leadouts let’s consider having someone sweep Rob’s wheel. In other words, let’s keep a competitor from drafting off of him and trying to sprint by him. This involves let a gap open up when he opens up his sprint, forcing competitors to have to go around you to catch back up to him

Also, don’t forget to sign up to help with registration! Thanks

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1h68kb_QnO2NSAaAd2gradwBk12Q3uw__kjm2yTAv8Zg

My goal for this race is to show up, have fun, and not embarrass myself or the team too badly. Ever since I went back to work from paternity leave, I've watched my power numbers slowly decline. Who's got two thumbs and likely to be DFL....... t h i s  g u y.

Opened up my legs and my lungs with a little suffering on the mountain bike today. Going to try to help rob grab some more KOM points tomorrow and see if I can surf some wheels to be there at the finish tomorrow. 

Hello team. 

Sorry, again, a bit late, but here's a plan outline for tomorrow.

We have a few challenges tomorrow, but the main one is obvious: We have too many individual goals. To race as a team some of you will need to sacrifice a bit. 🔪

Race is at 6:00 am and registration opens at 5:00 am

Our huge team tomorrow:

• Sean Hourigan
• John Powell
• Patrick Grehan
• Robert Mullen
• Ricky Cornetta
• Phillip Maronilla
• Andrew Johnson
• Erik Pfiffner
• Richard Freeman
• John Olsson
• Eloy Anzola
• Max Thorn (please add "Kissena Cycling Club" as your team)
• Kevin Man (please add "Kissena Cycling Club" as your team)

We continue to have two goals:

• Get Rob KOM points
• Get Ricky in the money at the end

Everything else is secondary and should come AFTER we achieved these goals. If you rather prioritize your goals, reply here, text me at: 347.225.1058, or let's chat tomorrow before the race. 

Basic strategy remains the same than last race. Here are some notes and specific roles:

• We should cover, and create, early moves. For this I nominate Rich Freeman and Kevin Man.
  • Warm up before the race.
  • Take turns attacking.
  • Don't chase each other.
  • Be awesome. Attack and win. Specially if Angelo (yellow jersey), Laurey, or Pelaez (KOM) are on the move.
  • Anyone else wants to play, go for it! have fun!
• For the first KOM: Patrick Grehan, Erik Pfiffner you'll be Rob's top lieutenants and help him be in position for the climb.
• The rest of us, obvs, we help too (I'll probably be sweeping)
• For the second KOM: Max Thorn, and John Olsson should play that role, and position Rob in the FIRAH
• Same deal, the rest of us are all in to help. Except: Kevin, Erik, Patrick, and Ricky, who are saving themselves for the final. Which comes about 6 km after the second KOM
• For the finish: Kevin, Erik, Patrick, and Ricky -- perhaps in that order -- should position each other and go for the m'fck'ng win.
• Everyone else is all in to help then

I'm getting super specific -- which may or may not be the best way to go about it -- but in general just remember these basic priorities:

• Rob for KOM
• Ricky for the win
• Secondary goals: Patrick in Grey Jersey points. Kevin in upgrade points.
• Communicate with each other
• Ride the front
• Look sharp
• Have fun
• If you are about to make an effort, know why. Make sure it helps you and a teammate

Refer to my previous posts for more details.

• Plan for previous L&C
• Report on previous L&C
• Patrick's notes for previous L&C
• Plan for the first L&C

Sounds good to me! I'll try to animate as much as I can in the first 3-4 laps, @RichFreeman let's try to stay top 15 for those laps, and take turns animating... but wait like 5-10 sec before starting another attack so we can see if anyone is attacking and jump on their wheels for a possible breakaway moves, it'll be primo if we can can jump in them without burning the first match doing the attacking.

@RichardCornetta if I find you on the hills on the last laps just let me know and hop behind me so ill start going full gas as soon as the turn on the top to lead you out. (stay communicative that happen, yell "on or off" or even "faster" I'll do it if I have the juice)

You guys sound like you’re going to destroy Easter for everyone racing against you! I am sure @JohnOlsson will be pleased 🤪

#wolfpack

excited to see this play out...see you all bright & early

A dozen guys in Kissena colors. Damn. Take a good look lads; this is how you put the green jersey in an armchair on the way to the podium.

gents!  way behind the curve!  im racing tomorrow in unmarked kit...depending on my fitness (to be seen) i can lead out fairly well, less so on the PP course for obvious reasons. in the morning let me eyeball the faces of the guys we're supporting...

Awesome Plan, @eloy

Everyone: I can't over emphasize how important it is to stay close to and communicate with the teammates you are working with (e.g. part of the readout group). Avoid getting boxed in somewhere on the other side of the road (its happened to me too  many times).  

Alright so Pete Post has given us the plan, time for someone to Jan Raas up tomorrow.
 

Sean Hourigan said:

gents!  way behind the curve!  im racing tomorrow in unmarked kit...depending on my fitness (to be seen) i can lead out fairly well, less so on the PP course for obvious reasons. in the morning let me eyeball the faces of the guys we're supporting...

maybe too late Sean, for you to read this, but I'll bring an extra medium jersey so you can wear it during the race.

--- No big deal, but as there been a couple of similar post this week... Totally understand that someone just joined, and is yet to get kit. And frankly, there are plenty of events where this wont matter. Still, this is a bit of a peeve for me (GOML), and an actual USAC rule: To race for Kissena you must wear a Kissena jersey. No worries, Kissena is a big enough club, that usually someone can lend you a jersey.

Let's go race bikes!

Eloy - nope, I caught it.  ill see if i can slip it on in the morning Ill head the triangle at 0530AM and try to meet you.  Honestly I wish I was a medium, maybe by august?  thanks I appreciate it!

Well another day of struggle... I knew coming in I wanted to stay active, I want to know my fitness level against these guys. I stayed mostly upfront today, which I usually don't ever do until the last 3 laps or so. I always try to coast atleast 25% of any races, in todays case it was almost 15% which with .94 IF instead of the usual .85-88 IF for PP race.  Which is a huge jump, but I still have reserves for the end, sadly few sketchy things before and at the hill pushed me back from 10-15 place to back of the pack on the top.

Lesson learned... 

-Not that bad power wise against these guys. (still need to raise my 5min power)
-Staying upfront is pretty easy in most cases except the last lap. It's smoother and less surges, except its more sustained power to hold 25mph its about 250-275 watts with no draft. 

Need to improves...

-Still can't figure out how to stay top 10-15 on the last half laps... I can always move from 30th-20th pretty easy on the hills usually but that's too far back for the sprint and expends way to much energy on the hills usually.
All I know is I will probly never gonna be all the way to the right on the last climb (The potholes and cones are so sketchy on the last lap with people braking and maneuvering it) 

What I want to do and try on the next PP race... 

- I can still animate in the front on the early laps, however I'll probably not gonna do a hard counter like today and breaking myself from the front of the pack. Instead keeping the pace higher around 26-27 mph on the flat sections. (I'm not fast on the hills, 22mph is probably max for a solo efforts so I wont do that, I'll leave the skinny boys to do it)
-From then I will try to sit 20th or so in the middle until the last laps. On the last hill climb I want to be 15ish on middle left. Left side you tend to get pushed to the rec lanes and eat wind, middle gets pushed hard by the people on the right avoiding the potholes. 

But yea, sorry for rambling... navigating in a bunch peloton is harder than surgy strung out crits 
Thoughts on positioning on the hills?!? @RichardCornetta you're up there today Mr 13th place!

Anyways here's some pics!

I have similar sentiments about todays race. I was pretty bummed with how I got on today after having a decent showing the week before. First KOM, Pat and Rich led it out real early but got me to where I needed to be. I was in an OK spot cresting the hill but got bumped pretty hard and it threw me off a bit and I couldn't hold my sprint form. It probably didn't have to happen but I don't think it was facetious at all. I feel like I've heard the term "bumping is racing" or something like that so I guess thats what happened.

2nd KOM was really frustrating because I was sat on the polka-dot jersey's wheel, thinking it was the right thing to do. While I was doing that, I missed any organized lead-out hotness that was going on up the road and was stuck too-many-wheels back. I'm really bummed out about this one because Eloy made a point to tell me to stay up toward the front early and I found myself drifting toward the back and kinda had to watch the KOM guys get away. We talked about it heaps already, but the polka-dot guy overtook at least 20 guys in the rec lane. I think he was struggling a bit because we were in a bad spot and he got real desperate. Good on Rich (who was in front of me) for doing the right thing and not following that wheel. 

After that, I tried to focus on moving up. Ricky was a bit up the road already so I couldn't get around to help out with that. I saw Pat and Ricky placed well up front. 

Couple of TLDR notes: 
-Race was p fast, but very hard to move up because we never really strung out
-Very bummed on my KOM campaign and feel like I'm wasting a lot of dudes' strong efforts
-We need to be careful about the rec lane rule as I had two people mention to me mid-race that they saw Kissena in there and it should be mentioned to avoid DQs
-Had some fun
-Enjoyed post-race coffee and Redbeard laps
-Hoping to reset and reevaluate where I'm at/ heading this season

quick report from me...

• We are communicating better and better each race. Hotness.
• Didn't feel specially fast, but at 41.2 km/h this was the fastest 2019 L&C race so far -- race1: 39.4 km/h; race2: 40.4 km/h
• As stated, moving up was this race's biggest challenge.
• The combo of field size and speed, made it so it took 2 or 3 laps to get to the front, usually by grabbing some expensive wind up the climb
• In this case, early "leadouts" string out the field, which make it easier to move up -- Patrick did a great job of this on the first KOM
• Rob looked sharp, I believe he can deliver his KOM dreams!
• Ricky and Patrick looked like firah, definitely our strongest riders
• Richard and Kevin also awesome in the first few laps
• Patrick would finish 11th, Ricky 13th, myself 30 something, with the rest close behind
• I'll let Ricky report on his mid race fire truck, jump on the grass, breakaway experience

On a related note, thanks to all that volunteered and helped out. You make Kissena awesome. BTW, if reg gets super busy, please ask for help, some of us are usually around, and could jump in.

Max got a DNF, did anyone get a report from him?

Those photos are so awesome Kevin!!

Kevin Man said:

navigating in a bunch peloton is harder than surgy strung out crits 
Thoughts on positioning on the hills?!?

Move up early, fight if you need but stay there, and conserve conserve conserve. Economy matters.

Results:
https://legacy.usacycling.org/results/index.php?permit=2019-1020

I went off the back because of a foolish attack and pulled myself. It was on the first sprint lap as we were nearing the skating rink. I went clear with a Foundation rider but we were chased down before we even made it to Center Drive because, duh, it was a sprint lap. What a stupid, wasteful moment for a random attack, even if I were in great form--which I know I'm not. Over the hill I floated all the way back through the peloton to recover and by the time I thought to myself "dig in now to hold that wheel in front of you or your race is over!" it was too late. Turns out that my mental fitness for racing is lagging, too. In case there's someone reading this who doesn't see what I did wrong: a better attack would have been at the start/finish line after the sprint when the field tends to be strung out and the sprinters sit up a bit...and if it fails obviously try harder not to get dropped while you recover.