It was great to be back on the track after few weeks away due to life/work. Match sprinting is amazingly fun and wish we did more of these, especially a real tourney. I had a blast, taking both of my races with moves around the 400m mark or so (Yes, learned my lesson about not taking my hands off the bars or I will get DQ'd next time). Jeff won his 2nd race and Kayt was sooo close to nailing her last race, but it was not to be. Overall, a short (wish we did more than just 2 races!) but fun evening at Kissena. Now back to real life...

That's it, where do I get me a track bike? This sounds like too damn much fun

@Jules‌ don't you play with our hearts like that! I'm going to sign you up for next week's Twilight Series myself!

Im signed up for the July 5th intro

Go fast, Turn Left. Get a good track nick name.

Wait wut? There are nicknames?!?

I nominate jumping Jules flash

Oh boy, here we go...

i'm coming tonight, just reg'd

Looks like we'll have a good group tonight at the track! Mattie, Perlberg, JeffW, Kayt, and I confirmed.

Mike countering after the first sprint for the win and out is a fine move.

That is one of my tricks also. I call it Second Place and Out.

Awesome job!

Andrew Da Silva said:

Mike countering after the first sprint for the win and out is a fine move.

That is one of my tricks also. I call it Second Place and Out.

Awesome job!

So, this is one good example of how track racing can help/inform your road racing strategy. In the win and out, if you are pretty evenly matched (I'm going to guess that Perlberg, based on how he got his second place, has monster watts above his competitors) going for the first place, with total commitment is going to end in one of a couple of ways. 1) You win--awesome, 2) You get smoked and are lucky to recover in time to go for 4th place.

So I know for some, on the road, you have the "win or nothing" mentality. And on the track, in the win and out, you can approach with that same attitude, but you might also get tired of getting smoked and 6th or next to last or whatever place. And then one week you might scheme a little and go for 2nd or 3rd and you might take those spots and realize, hey, against these folks, in this race, 3rd is pretty sweet.

And so now, you're in the closing kilometers of a road race, and you think these punks are going way too slow, I better attack off the front and see if can solo for 5k and take the win, because I'm a tough guy. But maybe having tasted a tactically smart podium placing on the track, you think, well, if I keep my ego in check I might still have a chance for the win, but I also might take 4th place in Albany this weekend, and that would be pretty cool too.

We had an awesome turn out of Kissena's last night! Fun to watch Mike get his feet wet and kill it in his first races. I have a feeling he'll be beating on us in the 3/4 races very soon!

This was my & Jeff's first race in the Cat3/4 field @ Kissena. Mattie finally came out as well and joined us in the 3/4's. BH's Josh Sakofsky was out, as well as some strong Champ Sys dude (Mitchell Jacaruso?), and Daryl from Pink Rhino. I'm still getting to know the rest of the field, but was a good group. I decided to run a 96" gear to make sure I had some good top speed against these dudes when needed.

The first race of the night was a short 3-lap Tempo. I decided in my head that the best strategy was to not contest the very first sprint, but go right after and hold on for 2nd & last lap sprints. And it kinda worked out exactly like that… I let the the first sprint play out and went very hard ~300m out for the 2nd sprint. Coming around turn 4, it was literally three-up across the finishing straight: Josh, Mattie, and I (up-track). I ended up nipping both of these leg-monsters by over a wheel it seemed, BUT I then quickly realized the last sprint was still coming (ouch!) and I already had a little gap there as people were recovering for a split second, so I just put my head down, went hard again, and held on tight for dear life for the final lap. Nobody could close the gap and I took the win. I came back to the in-field and my damn quads started to cramp up bad. I could barely extend my legs at one point. I tried to relax, got Dr. Whitey to help open me up a bit, and slowly got ready for race #2.

I was already hurting, but knew I still had hard stuff left in the legs. Next race was Win & Out. I really wanted to go straight for the win (and get it over with!). But the jump after the neutral lap from one of the riders (ChampSys?) was quick and I just wasn't in the best position to close that gap fast enough and ran out of distance. He ended up solo-ing for the win, I really put in hard effort when I should have shut my sprint down right away to save it (like a stupid dog chasing the mail man). I then waited for the 2nd place sprint, chased down a gap and opened up for the sprint again, but my legs were in serious trouble now. I just didn't have the juice at that point to close again. Those two back-to-back hard efforts really made me hurt bad. I was sure I could't fight it out for 3rd place coming up, but Jeff flew right by me and I saw a good wheel I knew could ride right to the finish-line. He made a HUGE effort and took me up about 600m and I had the line in my sights as I opened up the sprint around turn 4, but Daryl from Pink Rhino was sitting on my wheel the entire damn time and nipped me at the line to take 3rd. At that point that was all I could have given and didn't have the pop I needed to win that extra inch from him. I didn't even suspect he was sitting behind me for the ambush (I should have obviously guessed). I was just completely cross-eyed at this point and didn't know up from down. Was just glad to get Omnium points out of that race.

The last race was a mystery lap Snowball. My legs were gone by this time, but I HOPED I maybe had one last effort in me. Maybe. So I decided to really play it conservative and just aim to take the very last sprint of the night if the opportunity was there. I toiled around mid/back pack and just kept myself in decent position sucking wheels and trying to not do too much. I was surprised that a CRCA rider rode away from the pack and had about a 300m gap on us for many laps. None followed or were bothered, and he was able to rack up ALL of the 1st places until the end. I was thinking, if he's getting all the points, I can basically sprint for 2nd place on the last lap and see what I have (some decent Omnium points). No point in trying to use energy I didn't have to close on him, so I just waited. The rest is really hazy, but once the bell-lap was called all I remember is launching myself around turn 2, or a bit past turn 2 maybe, with all I had left in the tank and hoping it would stick. I then remember fighting it out closely with Daryl right at the line and just nipping him by a few inches to get 2nd.


Now that the results are out, Looks like I placed 2nd in the Omnium. Pretty happy about how it all worked out, but damn my legs were totally dead meat!

Jeff, Kayt & I followed up the track with some amazing Mexican food, which resurrected my body a little bit until I was able to crawl back home and into bed. Good times!

... also, Mattie placed 3rd in the Omnium!

@Ros Knopov‌ gear was too big that's why you were cramping. IMHO.

@eragot‌ You're most likely right. Still experimenting with gearing.

Good job Ros!

Impressive that you push that 96 on such a slow track, but like Ragot said... too big.

Super impressive Ros.  Josh S was second behind Kieran at state's wasn't he?

Jules said:

Super impressive Ros.  Josh S was second behind Kieran at state's wasn't he?

Josh was abosulutely no where near Kieran at states. He actually became frustrated with how poorly he was doing in the mass start events and went home half way through the day. Josh has a lot of watts, but little tactical sense and even less endurance. That said, he is a pretty nice guy. 

Andrew Da Silva said:

Jules said:

Super impressive Ros.  Josh S was second behind Kieran at state's wasn't he?

Josh was abosulutely no where near Kieran at states. He actually became frustrated with how poorly he was doing in the mass start events and went home half way through the day. Josh has a lot of watts, but little tactical sense and even less endurance. That said, he is a pretty nice guy. 

Interesting.  Like most people, he can outsprint me by a country mile so I've never really raced against him, but I agree that yes, he *is* a really nice guy.  I think he's also one of the contributors on NYVelocity these days.

Awesome job mike!!! You got the killer instinct for the points race.