Yeah, Mike, its great racing w/ you, hope we get to do more of it sometime.

Btw- I think the "Canadian tractor pull " is a term I coined in cross.. Maybe a Canuck Drag race is more appropriate for the road.

How about calling it a game of hosehead chicken? Maybe just a hosehead take off? Take off, eh.

Mike...as a fellow Stages power meter user...how's bout a peak at your power for the race ???

No way @vlad‌ , take you to the loonie bin! Take off eh! Take off. @twoyacks‌ , I'll download tonight and have a peek. Unfortunately the battery may have given up though..

Ryan J said:

Yeah, Mike, its great racing w/ you, hope we get to do more of it sometime.

He mentioned Bear Mtn, so maybe you should knuckle under Adam's peer pressure for the 123 field.

Not doing the p123 at Bear unless I feel I can compete. Right now, I know I can't - not for 96 miles.

Christ 96 miles ????  that is barbaric......BARBARIC !!!!

twoyacks said:

Christ 96 miles ????  that is barbaric......BARBARIC !!!!

That's a long-ass race for an amateur.

twoyacks said:

Mike...as a fellow Stages power meter user...how's bout a peak at your power for the race ???

Yeah, stages arm was dead,( yeah I'm one of those guys who runs the gas tank to empty and gets stranded) Talked to Neil though who had a working set up.. I'm 173 lbs And if I had to guess we where taking 45-60 sec pulls at about 400w. A little more going into and over the top of any rise. With 250-300w on the middle part of the decent. Neil took a solid 2 min pull when I had some food and drink then I did the same for him. Sprint would have been pretty short with 5 sec at around 13-1400w

Did anyone else see the DKNY rider pull out his junk and a take a leak near the band shell?  This occurred about a lap after the same rider was screaming and dropping F-bombs about a rider in the joggers lane.  I understand the importance of staying out of the joggers lane but I suspect going "Full Monty" would also be frowned upon by the parks Dept.

vlad said:

How about calling it a game of hosehead chicken? Maybe just a hosehead take off? Take off, eh.

Hey Vlad, race report from your day in Pennsylvania?

Vlad and Adam rode the 3 race. I did the M40+ (3/4).
I thought the race was great, it is similar to the 'old' Johnnycake series: 7 mile loop on small, scruffy country lanes. Very rolling, but no major climbs. Lots of wind. Interesting circuit with lots of left and right turns.

The fields are fairly small, which is probably a good thing, with the narrow roads and rigorous enforcement of the yellow line rule; and the organization is good.

I liked the other racers too: they raced hard and well; if a break formed they started working together quickly; and there was a complete lack of the loud-mouth douche rider, which are far, far too common in NYC races.

Anyway our race was hard, about 1:45 for 40 miles, about 15 of us finished.

There were no crashes in our field, but there was a very nasty wreck in the 50+ field ahead of us. Looked like 2 riders had gone into the front of an oncoming farm tractor. All the fields had to be neutralized for a lap and even then the circuit was still closed for the emergency services. We were directed back to the start and after a 15 min wait we restarted for a further 2 laps. One of the riders who was down was from Kelly Benefits in Baltimore, not sure about the other.

Anyway - apart from that .... It was a great race. I will definitely be looking to more of those as the season progresses.

L&C Epilogue. Good and bad.

Garrigan in the leaders jersey.
JP loses grey to Wilson Vasquez; he is 2nd in a 3-way tie with 5 points.

A brief note about teammwork: or "WTF was/is Mengoni doing?"

So having just watched/been in the race, and wondering why Mengoni wasn't really doing anything as a team, you could argue that in fact they were just riding to protect Eugene's yellow jersey.

Except...

1) Eugene didn't even try to do anything in the final sprint
2) And two of his teammates not only finished in front of him, but 12th place Paredes clearly was trying.

That said, by virtue of his win, and Mike's absence at future L&C races, Eugene will be wearing yellow again for the next round.

It is going to be hard to wrest  the jersey from Wilson...if he is going to show up at all the races that is.  So I suspect that getting J.P. into breakaways is the way to slay the badger?

I speak having only raced a 1/2 lap of this series... so take it with a grain on salt. 

@brendan -  i see two off the front just before you crested the hill the last time after the kom line. Maybe the winner came from those two. I dont see the moto when you guys got to the other side of the park.                                                                                        Also, i read somewhere that if you dont know someone's off the front, then you were too far back to begin with.                                  But always fun watching your vids.

Total gossip (kinda) side note.  If anyone knows Lance Sniadowski (sp), ask him what the problem is.  He's been "racing" for 6+ years.  He's like 50 years old.  He followed around the 4's yesterday off the back.  Cool.  Then on the bell lap, he decides to hammer along IN THE JOGGERS LANE next to us.  B/c why? He made 6-7 women and other pedestrians jump out of the way while he did his delusional exercise.  It was completely bizarre and without reason.

I've cleaned up and helped that guy after 2 races when he crashed and always thought he was a pretty cool dude.  But what he did yesterday wasn't only dangerous and rude, it puts the entire idea of racing in NYC parks at jeopardy. 

Again, I don't want to hate on the guy, but what he did was beyond stupid and clueless.

'Cause he can't hack it in the 1/2/3 race anymore so he has to shadow a cat 4 race?

Well, I saw a guy pee literally ON center drive.

Honestly, Charlie sends a lot of sternly-worded emails, but where are the consequences? Start suspending people from the races for a year for riding backwards, or riding in the joggers lane, and watch that stuff happen less often.

Marc Bertucco said:

Hey Vlad, race report from your day in Pennsylvania?

Ian sums up the experience very well. I love that race.... but...

ian ellis said:

Looked like 2 riders had gone into the front of an oncoming farm tractor. 

Adam fell victim to said tractor when a rider took out his front wheel to avoid it. Adam had hit the back of his head pretty hard and broke his helmet. Once I saw that, I decided to pull out of the race and hang with my homie. That helmet was pretty jacked up, but Adam was ok. He hit his hip and his ribs, his jersey was shredded, but he seemed in pretty good shape despite that.

Now I feel REALLY bad.  I never saw one of our riders on the deck, otherwise I would have stopped to help. I saw a Kelly rider curled and mewling, Some other poor rider not moving at all with a Specialized with the forks ripped off and a couple of riders to the right of the road on the grass. I admit I didn't pay them a lot of attention  to those two because - hey - my attention was absorbed by the tractor scene.

Adam, I apologise, and I hope you are OK.

I think that the tractor first interfered with our field and Adam (and maybe some other guy) were the only ones that were impacted by it in our field... and that was only due to actions to avoid it, not direct contact with it.

Jeff Owens said:

Total gossip (kinda) side note.  If anyone knows Lance Sniadowski (sp), ask him what the problem is.  He's been "racing" for 6+ years.  He's like 50 years old.  He followed around the 4's yesterday off the back.  Cool.  Then on the bell lap, he decides to hammer along IN THE JOGGERS LANE next to us.  B/c why? He made 6-7 women and other pedestrians jump out of the way while he did his delusional exercise.  It was completely bizarre and without reason.

I've cleaned up and helped that guy after 2 races when he crashed and always thought he was a pretty cool dude.  But what he did yesterday wasn't only dangerous and rude, it puts the entire idea of racing in NYC parks at jeopardy. 

Again, I don't want to hate on the guy, but what he did was beyond stupid and clueless.

Can his move(s) be found on any video?  Rigby's perhaps?  If we have video evidence, we can send it off to an official and the Burrowes' and let them do the work.

Monday morning Cat 4 odds and ends...

1. Good sleep/rest is essential.  I was running on empty on Saturday morning and it manifested as dead legs.  I tried to stay active early chasing down and/or getting into little break attempts.

2. Niall was doing an exceptional job staying near the front and motoring when required.  Glad to have this diesel engine on our squad.

3. From what I could see, Brendan and Patrick were out in the wind a lot (sometimes working for each other).  That sucks and hope we can keep them sheltered but up front in future races.

4. CIS guys were an odd bunch, weren't functioning as a team at all, and had wildly different levels of fitness and skill.  I recommend staying away from them in the field as they were being erratic, but then again it's hard to avoid all 15 of them.*

5. Middle aged men having 5 minute verbal slap fights in the middle of a race over squirrelly riding is ridiculous

6. 5th Floor seemed oddly quiet throughout and ended up without any contenders for KOM, Sprint, or overall

7. Wyld Stallyns (an offshoot squad after Siggis dissolved) were active and one of the guys I chatted up seemed very eager to work on making breakaways happen.  Might be good to work with them and send Patrick and Brendan up the road with them to shut out other jersey contenders?

8. Matthew Moocarme ("Call me Matt Moo") on Organic Athlete is tied for yellow and is very, very strong.  He has no team support and freelanced his way into money 2 races in a row.  He was at the track clinic last weekend and soloed off the front in our group's scratch race and won by a full lap or something.  Also a nice dude who just started racing last year and obviously has talent.  Agreed with Rigby, he should join Kissena.


*Edit: Seems like CIS has, uh, replaced us as the "cat 4 swarm club"...

http://nyvelocity.com/content/race-results/2014/hangover-april-21-2014

mperlberg said:

Grey: if we are serious about this, it is by putting JP in breakaways. Wilson will defend but will work for scott in field sprints that they are serious about. Even with JP taking top 20s, it's going to be hard for him to consistently place ahead of the field sprinter dudes like Wilson. 

Overall, the way our squad is built, we need to keep throwing down for the breakaway and going for W's using multiple threats. We've showed before that we can put 2+ in the break. Let's keep doing that and then trying to sneak away with some wins. 

When that doesn't work, we can rally and shoot for a top 10 in a field sprint. 

I'm excited to see ya'll at the next one.

FWIW, for those of you that are serious about practicing a lead out, the Floyd races make great little laboratory races where we can practice the sprint again and again. Let me know if anyone is interested in heading down on a specific date and we can coordinate scheudles. 

Jersey Mike,