Awesome Andy. See you there. You won't be dissappointed until you get back to these parts and wonder why we don't more awesome crits.

I just retread this because Hotlist.

Drive or fly?

Fly

Looks like JPow is following the Bertucco cross training plan by heading out to ToAD. Copycat.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/jeremy-powers-set-to-unveil-new-cyclo-cross-team

Day One: Shorewood Cat 2/3

"Hey, would you like to race today?"
"Yeah, I sure would!"

(get it? SURE WOULD; Shorewood)

Arrived a healthy 2 hours early. After 14 hours of driving, followed up by a day of errand running with my mom, there was no time to ride my bike to stretch out the legs the day before. And I've arrived to this very race in years past, jumped on the bike, and immediately been struck with excruciating cramps, the after-effects of which I've felt for DAYS. Wasn't going down that road again. And as I got out of the car, I was struck with a blast of cold air. YIKES. What the what? It was in high 50s, low 60s. And me with no knee warmers or long sleeve jersey. Or long sleeve anything. Except a rain jacket. So on that went for a few laps before that felt sticky and cold and weird.

Due to road construction the course was flipped on the other side of the main street, and included a fast and treacherous 1.5% descent and corresponding rise. About 70 starters. I was looking for Rene, as he said that he was going to race the 2/3s. Tonight he lined up with the big boys though. Robert Mecca from Brooklyn was the only familiar face to me in our field. Not sure what happened to all the guys with whom I used to race back in the day...

Crap back row start. Which normally wouldn't haven't been a problem, except the descent into turn two was fraught. And unless you were at the pointy end of the peloton, the road to turn three was always a big-ole interval. I managed to move up some on the "climb" on most laps. The next couple of days' worth of racing are on quite technical courses, so I'll be racing to the start line every day it looks like.

I felt pretty solid. Not the best warm-up in the world, but not the worst either. And I was in it for sure. A few dicey moments, some digging deep. But never really in danger of getting dropped like last year. Robert was solid too. Both of us were too far back in the closing laps though and so I the best I could really muster was 39th place. Now that I've already reached my "realistic" fitness/performance goal for this series, I think it's time to go for a bigger goal. MONEY. Maybe a prime, or maybe a top 15, it's time for me to really get moving.

Random notes from the day:

• After the race during my superpro cool-down in the CycleOps trainer tent, I overheard guys talking and I had a real "Laura Van Gilder Moment." Namely I realized that I have been racing longer than some of my competitors have been alive. Cripes...
  
  
• There are definitely lots of guys in my field who, ahem...could use some bike handling tips.
  
  
• Two paper numbers for 11 days of racing...I was wishing for some Champion System cloth numbers...for which this is the PERFECT application.
  
  
• Tons of families having BBQ on their lawns. Kids everywhere. Lots of businesses open. Live music, beer, raffles, etc. Really nice community. Definitely not a typical "bike race town."
  
  
• Raced with two big honking rental car keys and key chain and that unbreakable cable tie/ring thingy stuffed into the radio pocket up around the neck of a skin suit. That felt, ahem...not recommended. The opposite of 'recommended,' whatever that is. Still better than coming back to a stolen rental car.
  
  
• Eugene from Mengoni and that nice young dude from Foundation looked solid, if not pinned to the middle back-ish of the Pro 1/2 race. Rene unfortunately, was kicked out the back and lapped pretty early on. Not sure about the other Mengoni.
  
  
• No United Healthcare yet, still watching tonight's Pro 1/2 racing action...that's some serious next level stuff. Champion Sys attempted for about 5 laps to pull back a serious break of 4 before they gave up. The break ended up staying away for at least 1/2 of the race. I'll have to ask Eugene how it compared to the Somerville Pro 1 race.
  
  
• We were "shorted" by about 5 minutes. Only 45 minutes of racing makes me a wee grumpy. They were a pretty hard 45 minutes, but still, I could have used a few more laps.
  
  
• It felt odd doing a race with 4 right turns. Like my ice skating crossover, I prefer to go left. Took some time to get used to leaning that bike over.
  
  
• Wait for it...
  
  
  
• ...wait some more...
  
  
  
  
• I RACED THE CAAD10!!!!
  

HOLYFUCKCAAD10AWESOME!!!!!

Edit...looking at results, appears Rene flatted, and finished with the field.

And another odd note. On the official results sheet my team name is missing. So are many others. I go to the reg table to see if I can sort this out. And I end up having this really circular and maddenning back and forth with some dude in a USA cycling fleece. "but what's your TEAM name." "Kissena" "No, that's your club name, what's your team name." OMG. I wanted to scream. Apparently something about the way our club is registered with USA cycling? I don't get it. Because on my license it says Kissena for both club and team. Either way I blame the CRCA.

Marc, pics and details about the caad10.

Stuck with iPad for updates. So you know, no paragraph breaks for you! I'll keep it brief. Yesterday's race was four right turns evenly spaced, in 2 minute ish laps. Today's race in East Troy was 6 turns and a chicane in 1 minute laps. This is not a beginners crit course. Bigger field at start, still stuck at back for the start, but kept things rolling. Hard to move up anywhere because of the immediacy of the next turn. Always the next turn. Avoided some crash nasties in the last 5 laps, and while I thought I placed a little higher today, results say another 39th place. Not thrilled with that, but seriously, I have to keep it all in perspective. The next two days are two tough crits. Will require strength and finesse. Today's course was more of a finesse only course.

Keep it up Marc. You're doing so much better than you were last year. I wish I was there with you guys.

Day 3: Grafton. Another iPad update so I will be iBrief. Today was BRUTAL. Course was similar to the White Plains course, but 1000 times harder. 2 more turns, one descending, followed by an immediate rise, followed by a screechingly long descent onto an off camber, complete with squishy tar strips to make it extra fun and slow for the back markers of the 126 starters. Damn weekend! Things started badly as I was bullied by the announcer into taking an extra warm-up lap, making me give up my front row start position. And so for 20 minutes I was in the kind of pain that makes you want to quit racing as I struggled to move up. A huge part of the problem, was turn 4 being so double sketchtastic that many laps I was forced to go from 8mph to 31mph on the long straightaway. Lap after lap after lap. I wanted to cry. Instead I moved up and with 5 laps or ten minutes to go, I was solidly mid pack says my dad. And then it happened. A spectacular pile up in turn 1. The field was gone, single file as soon as the lovely sounds of crashing bikes and bodies were heard. I hammered on the breaks, avoided going into the dudes in front of me, held my breath waiting to get rear ended, put a foot down and steered around the carnage and chased for two laps before getting pulled and hopefully placed. Frustrating. Many guys further behind me were able to avoid the crash and keep their speed up allowing them to finish with the bunch. Oh well, I've been in that situation too. I'll count this as a lucky day because me and crisp and clean CAAD10 stay bruise free another day.

Further notes from the field. When selling the beauty of crits, I often talk about the way good crit racers collect and process data like the Terminator. This includes things like road surfaces, rider behavior, wind conditions, peloton tendencies, etc. But the past few days I was reminded of another very important data point to include in your on the bike calculations. SOUNDS. On day one there was a spectator blowing a vuvuzula, just as the peloton was launching off a ramp of asphalt that was trying its best to ruin our day. Today, a spectator with a whistle in turn two, sounded just like crazy screeching brakes of a rider about to crash. It took me a few laps to not flinch every time I heard the well intentioned cheers of spectators. Anyway, it's not the most important thing to think about when racing a crit, but it IS A thing.

Day 4: Waukesha.

I woke up pretty tired from Grafton's MMA cage match beat down, but managed to rally my spirit for a 4th day of racing. Similarly challenging course in Waukesha, including descending off-camber turns strewn with squiggly tar strips, long straightaway, and a wicked turn one that was just begging to put riders into the crowds. But there were a few subtle differences that made a big difference in how I felt during the race.

The biggest was that I bum-rushed the start line and managed to nose my way into the 4th row for the start...instead of the last row of 100+ riders. With two laps to go, I was sniffing around 30th wheel. Ex-Kissena Mattio M. was in front of me by a few riders. Near the end of the race, when I survived most of the beat-down, I was ready to take a legit stab at a top 20-ish. But...

...of course, guys decided to dump all over the course on the last lap in turn one. I didn't have to put a foot down like yesterday, but I did have to slow and steer around. Chased back on-ish to the tail of some riders and crossed the line in 58th. Mattio got a sweet 28th place finish.

Hard racing. Really hard. Which is weird, right, you generally don't think of cat 2/3 races as being that hard? Well, I can tell you that all of these races have been exponentially harder than the Pro 1/2/3 at White Plains and Pro 1/2/3 at Harlem. Anyway, that's just me trying to make myself feel better for mid-pack finishes all week. Blurg.

Random notes:

• All of these events have had a fair degree of family-friendliness, but Grafton wins out so far. In addition to the usual "main street" food options, cheering families having picnics, the local fire house had all their engines out, 2 bouncy castle things, PLUS a three sided climbing wall that had to be 20-feet tall.
• Watching UHC lay waste to the field today (1/3 of the starters finished) as they chased down and held steady a 9-second gap, until they wanted to bring in back all the way was impressive. But I miss the days when you had two or three powerful teams crushing it. Mercury, Saturn, Navigators, LA Sheriffs.
  
• Adam Myerson continues on his hot streak, successfully defending his position as the last man on the UHC train, to score another top 5 finish. 5th today. Three top 5s in three attempts.
• Gavi Epstein rode it like he stole it, and finished 6th. That's got to be a career best result for him.
  
• I noticed two dudes seemed way to comfortable riding the back of a big pack...
• One was Rashan Bahatti who has been surfing the back all week long, and then coming around when it counts and placing in the top 20. Today, he paid for it and DNFed himself after getting shredded and unable to bridge to the main group.
• The other was this tiny dude from Hincapie Development (their bike/kit/helmet combo makes them look so bad-ass in a Darth Vadar-y way). So he gets around crashes, makes up all kinds of ground (at one point there were like 4 groups of riders on the road), gets to the front, solo bridges to a Kenda 5Hour Energy's James Stemper who had been off the front, killing it for a long time, proceeds to stay out there with him, still stays out when like 4 other riders bridge to them, and then, when UHC finally brings it all together again, and all the other break away riders pretty much drop anchor (not stemper either), this dude still manages to get 14th place. Ray Alexander. Holy-schmoly, remember that name.
• The first couple in CX was in the hiz-house. Gabby Day and Jeremy Durrin were ripping it up. Both looked solid.
• Speaking of CX "stars." I swear, I see Stephen Hyde at more races, cross and road, but always in street clothes. He's a pro now for Astellas Oncology. Not sure what this means.
• Laura Van Gilder has been ill, but was back to her usual winning form, sprinting for 3rd place today.
  

Also, would like to mention that after my race today, I had only 1/2 sandwich and cup of chili (although why they called it "Beef tortilla soup" is beyond me), when I was actually hungry for a whole sandwich and bucket of chili. #BecauseGreenMountainStageRace #BecauseTiredofFat

So, the bike...Andy wants to know about the bike. Doesn't he know that "It's not all about the bike?" Seriously a handful of days in, I have to say that I'm enjoying the ride. Part of it is just riding a new machine that is free of extraneous clicks and creaks, sans indexed steering, and shifts gears when I want it too.

Initially the bike felt "twitchy," but 5 rides and 4 races in, I'm feeling comfortable on it. That famously subjective feeling of stiffness really is required when I have to blast out of slow corners up to top speed again.

Before the actual racing started, I thought having a 10-speed compact would be a detriment on the flat crit circuit, but I don't even give it a second thought. I have all gears I need. Plus, there's the bonus of not having to beg/borrow/steal a long cage rear MTB derailleur come Green Mountain in a few months.

Everything on the bike, except, in this picture, the front wheel and the Ritchey stem, is bone stock. This bike is a 54 which is a size down from my Trek 56. As such, I needed a 120mm stem to keep my reach the same. The saddle: I also bought a Ritchey saddle with a cut-out, but so far, I've been comfortable on the OEM saddle. Of course, I'm racing crits, so I could have a plank of wood there and it would be fine. We'll see when I get on some longer group rides if I need to make the swap. The smaller size is more suited to my over the BB spinning style. I'm riding the tip of the saddle less (of course this saddle is a bit longer).

One thing that I still don't love is the seemingly overly chunky Ultegra break/shift levers. I'm getting used to them, but it's a thing I noticed the first couple of races/rides on them.

But I think the real testament to how I'm feeling about the bike, is how much time AFTER my races I'm spending warming down, tooling around etc. Hopefully the new bike fun won't wear down too quick. I'm just going to have to be better about changing cables, chains, etc to keep it ship shape. Because you know, this might be my bike for the next 15 years like my Trek was/is!

Hey kids...here's an album of crappy photos I've taken so far. Any advice on how to make a point and shoot take better action shots?

https://www.facebook.com/marc.bertucco/media_set?set=a.10202890481197789.1073741834.1075176960&type=3&uploaded=37

@Marc - First off, loving the race reports.  Second, loving the CAAD10.

For better photos there are a few tips and tricks depending on if the camera has the features.  Most P&S cams from the last 5-10yrs will have dedicated "action" modes.  These settings will basically raise the ISO (more light sensitive), open the lens aperture wide (to get as much light as possible), and shorten the shutter speed (the time the lens aperture is open to gather that light) as best as the programming in the camera will allow it to.  The goal here is to "freeze" the moving object in the frame.  The tradeoff is that the higher the ISO (sensitivity), the "grainier" the image - to use old film terms, so things won't be as sharp.

If your P&S has a manual setting, you can practice your old film SLR camera skills (Pentax 1000 anyone?) and set your ISO to the max (it used to be 800, but with better sensors I think they can be up to 3200 on new models) and shutter speed to fastest (usually 1/1000 to 1/2000th of a second).  On a cloudy sunny day you may be able to get away with a lower ISO or smaller aperture, but shutter speed should be as fast as possible for "blur free" moving objects.

The biggest shortfalls of P&S (IMO) are 1) focus times and 2) auto light metering.  Again, if your camera has any sort of manual settings, look for a manual focus option and set it to about the distance of the riders coming by (for example 10 meters) in relation to the camera.  If your camera does NOT have a manual setting, a good trick is to pre-focus on something around that distance (you can use the road where they will pass by or something else around you that is the same distance away) and keep your finger halfway depressed on the shutter button until they come by where you will fully depress.

For auto light metering, manual ISO/shutter/aperture settings should override that.  If these manual settings are not available, most cameras will usually have a few metering options - center, center weighted, and overall.  I would set to center weighted and use the similar trick as with focusing without a manual option by depressing the shutter button halfway on something (someone) in similar light as the racers (instead of, say, someone standing in the shadows) and fully depressing when the racers come by.

Last but not least is the simple trick of moving your camera with the racers as they come by.  This will create the effect of keeping the racers blur free and creating a pleasant blurring effect of the background.  This works best when you are to the side and not when they are coming towards you in a corner.

This all makes sense to me in my head, but maybe we can mess around with a camera while we have espressos and doughnuts post race/ride.

Party on.

David, great info. I used to have a film SLR back in the day and so, while I couldn't remember what was for what anymore, your explication makes sense to me.

Tomorrow's race is around the Schlitz Brewery, includes a big ring climb, a screaming descent...I'll practice your suggestions.

The only thing is with manual focus, I get into trouble, because my eyes, are ahem, a little out of focus, which becomes very clear when looking at pics that I manually focused. #dreamsofAirForcepilotupinsmoke #NYPDletmyeyesslideduringmedical

iPad update. Schlitz Brewery. A carnival ride of a course, with a big ring climb followed by a screaming descent with lefts, rights, curving esses and plenty of orange caution paint on the road. Unlike most of the field, I was looking forward to the climb as it offered a bit of freedom to move about the field without a super fast turn seconds away. And so, full of confidence, I didn't bother trying to get a front row start position. mistake. Guys were blowing up immediately, I was passing riders every lap, but like a cross race, the front of the race was long gone in just a few laps. 70 plus riders started, 20 finished without being pulled. My group of 6 or so got yanked after about 15 minutes. Extremely frustrating day. Ill be taking a few days off now and be back in action on the weekend. FWIW, Mengoni started Everhard, Rene, and Carl Nelson. Carl was the only one who finished...and he won the damn race.

Notes from a spectator: Early leader in the 35+ 1/2 field, notably was increasing his lead on a chasing peloton by killing it on the downhill sections, pedaling while most were coasting. This descending section was super fast/scary and most were content to let gravity do all the work. In the pro field, look to the top 40 or so finishers in the results sheet to get a sense of who actually completed the whole distance. Most guys were pulled within 30 minutes of this race starting. Gavin Epstein continues to impress, with another rock solid finish on a hard day.

Gah I wish I was there!!!

Bump....results bro!

http://www.prairiestatecyclingseries.com/pdf/results/2014/willowsprings-cat23.pdf

Perlberg takes 12th in the 2/3 Willow Springs Road Race in Illinois! At least one dude on the club wants to read race reports from this midwestern series organized by the ToAD folks.

Training is pretty sucky. I spent a lot of time on my trainer. Or on the Palos Hills Forest Preserves (Christian Vande Velde's neighborhood) riding a mountain bike. Or on the roads out there. From Oak Park, if you head out to the Hoffman Estates/Shaumberg area, there's a pretty decent group ride that leaves from a local college parking lot. The ride feels very much like Gimbles type ride.

Historical aside: ABD is my old team. No one on the team today, well, maybe a few, but none racing against you would even know who I am. For a while the team was traveling and hitting up a lot of the big races and eventually (not while I was on it full time) was legitmately one of the best amateur teams in the country. Had a couple of dudes turn pro, almost national champions, etc. I'm 90% sure the elite team morphed into what is currently the Astellas Oncology pro team. The team's founder and current bike shop owner was a rider/DS for the old Wheaties Pro team back in the way back.

Anyway, they are definitely still one of the more active racing teams. And actually in terms of the number of races they organize, they are very similar to Kissena. Several big time crits, a whole series of indoor computrainer races over the winter, cross races, sponsoring track nights, etc., etc.

Good luck with the rest of your races. This stalker definitely wants to read more!

Today's race was in Elmhurst. Great course, very much like bound brook. Add some serious wind.

Short report. I got destroyed and dropped, courtesy of the constant attacking of 2 18 year old Canadian teammates who ended up getting away together, held a 15 second gap on the field for 40 minutes and went 1-2 side by side.

Better luck Tomorrow.

Elmhurst...I totally could have ridden my bike there from Oak Park...jelly. Shred 'em tomorrow. Start up front and stay there.

Another tough day today, but managed to finish at the back of the front bunch.

The course was more or less a 4 corner crit (plus a super quick left right chicane on the back stretch) .

Throughout the course you could smell hops, malt and barley coming from the goose island brewery. The intelligentsia coffee was roasting and brewing on site. A free beer and a free coffee for every racer. Woot!
The race wasn't nearly as hard as yesterday. Much bigger field, many more places to hide.

But. Crashes. Yuck. Silly stuff, like people freaking out about manhole cover that we rode over the last 8 laps. Or guys pulling out a foot in a corner. Or getting jammed up into the metal barriers.

About 5-6 laps in I got caught behind a pretty nasty crash, pulled up just short of running a guy over and was bracing to be walloped from behind. Put a foot down and took the free lap, cause there was no prayer of catching back on after that.

Anyway, I was holding good position with 3 to go but another crash caused me to loose places. At that point, I decided to just ride it in and keep all my skin on.

Hey look what I found. You'll know I'm on the iPad typing these updates when there are no line breaks. #technology

Started stalking the competition and it appears I'm near the back of the 2/3 fields according to USA Cycling's predictor. Which is good, I like to be underestimated.

In other news it appears that Australia's Budget Fork Lifts will be racing the pro events. You may have never heard of the team, but they have this dude named Jack Bobridge who has won some world championship medals, attempted the hour record on the track, led this years tour down under for three days, then lost that and consoled himself with the overall KOM jersey. Also another Aussie Scott Sunderland (difft Sunderland) who is a prepping for the Olympics on the track. Basically scrubs with no clue. Haha. So you know, my dreams of racing the Pro 1/2 field this year either took a step up or back depending on when you catch me.