Sunday, September 17, 2006
Bob Beal Day 2
Okay, this would be why I am still a cat 4 racer…
Coming out of day 1 I was actually 3rd in GC with Kyle Wolfe and Chris Young in 1st and 2nd and Badger close behind me in 4th. 1st and second were out of reach and with Badger right behind me I was justifiably concerned about losing 3rd – perhaps too much so. Unlike Saturday, Sandy chose to have the 35+ and 30+ field race separately, starting us a ½ lap apart. I wasn’t especially happy about this change because I was hoping to benefit from increased volume in the pack and potentially some well placed 30+ sweepers in a bunch sprint.
So, I anticipated that Badger had to attack early and often in order to separate himself from me and guarantee enough points to catch third. Also as expected, the race started out fast with a series of attacks. I was trying to keep forward in a position to respond to anything that looked dangerous. Unfortunately, Badger timed his attack for when I was trapped in a position where I couldn’t respond. He and one other rider got up the road and dangled in the 10-15 second range.
This is the point where I stopped thinking enough about what I was doing and focused instead on losing that podium spot. Over the next several laps I tried to respond to bridging attacks and made a few of my own in order to try to get back to Badger’s group. After my last bridging effort, where I was once again hung out in the wind by another rider, a hard counter went up the road that split the field in two and had me desperately trying to cling to the rear of the second group. I was too burnt to manage to hold on and watched as the gap ahead of me just opened up despite my best efforts. Basically I overcooked myself instead of stoically accepting the fact that I could be fighting for 4th (or even 5th or 6th – GC paid 6 deep).
I was joined by a Caster’s rider and we managed to keep up a good enough effort to only just get lapped by the lead break of 3 to finish 1 lap down. Despite this exercise in dumb racing, I still managed to salvage a top 10 GC at 9th place. Of course the killer was that all I needed was 5 more points and I still would have been in a paying spot. Hopefully once next year rolls around I’ll actually remember what I learned today…
Coming out of day 1 I was actually 3rd in GC with Kyle Wolfe and Chris Young in 1st and 2nd and Badger close behind me in 4th. 1st and second were out of reach and with Badger right behind me I was justifiably concerned about losing 3rd – perhaps too much so. Unlike Saturday, Sandy chose to have the 35+ and 30+ field race separately, starting us a ½ lap apart. I wasn’t especially happy about this change because I was hoping to benefit from increased volume in the pack and potentially some well placed 30+ sweepers in a bunch sprint.
So, I anticipated that Badger had to attack early and often in order to separate himself from me and guarantee enough points to catch third. Also as expected, the race started out fast with a series of attacks. I was trying to keep forward in a position to respond to anything that looked dangerous. Unfortunately, Badger timed his attack for when I was trapped in a position where I couldn’t respond. He and one other rider got up the road and dangled in the 10-15 second range.
This is the point where I stopped thinking enough about what I was doing and focused instead on losing that podium spot. Over the next several laps I tried to respond to bridging attacks and made a few of my own in order to try to get back to Badger’s group. After my last bridging effort, where I was once again hung out in the wind by another rider, a hard counter went up the road that split the field in two and had me desperately trying to cling to the rear of the second group. I was too burnt to manage to hold on and watched as the gap ahead of me just opened up despite my best efforts. Basically I overcooked myself instead of stoically accepting the fact that I could be fighting for 4th (or even 5th or 6th – GC paid 6 deep).
I was joined by a Caster’s rider and we managed to keep up a good enough effort to only just get lapped by the lead break of 3 to finish 1 lap down. Despite this exercise in dumb racing, I still managed to salvage a top 10 GC at 9th place. Of course the killer was that all I needed was 5 more points and I still would have been in a paying spot. Hopefully once next year rolls around I’ll actually remember what I learned today…
Comments:
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Thanks Ed, you know I ended up feeling a little bit better once I started to realize that I'd been getting worked over today by some pretty strong Cat 1 and Cat 2 racers. I guess it wasn't too bad a performance for a cat 4 wannabe...
Good job Gary. Ninigrit is probably the toughest pan flat crit course around. The wind always makes that place a challenge. I was bummed we didn't go. First time missing that race in 7 years...
Thanks, I was hoping that the flatness and home field advantage would be working in my favor yesterday. I was bummed you weren't there too! I could have used the company!
Also one minor correction - I was actually 6th in the TT. I beat Badger by about a second. The thing that really hurt in looking at the results is that I just missed 5th by 0.4 sec. That was about how much starting slightly overgeared with my pedal at 11 instead of 10 cost me. I really need to practice the "held" TT start...
Also one minor correction - I was actually 6th in the TT. I beat Badger by about a second. The thing that really hurt in looking at the results is that I just missed 5th by 0.4 sec. That was about how much starting slightly overgeared with my pedal at 11 instead of 10 cost me. I really need to practice the "held" TT start...
Welcome to a points TT. 3 or 4 years ago - when I won the RR - I missed being in the leaders jersey by 2 places in the TT. Those 2 places represented less than 1 second! So I'm attacking like crazy in the crit to gain spots rather than sitting on and defending. Oh well.
Hi Gary. I think I was your minute man in the tt. Glad I wasn't caught, but you did gain 40 seconds on me! Great work overall.. The crit had MANY accelerations which put us deep into 30+ mph. I think I tasted puke at one point. Also, I posted lots of pictures from our crit on the Union Velo blog. Thre's a Flikr badge on the right side. See if you're in there, feel free to lift the ones you like, if any.
Hi Murat,
THanks for the kind words about the TT. I was indeed the "full aero/disc/helmet dude". (though I actually only had a 4-spoke in the rear). I had been working on my TT this year, so doing well there was a priority for me. I also knew that the full aero/disc/helmet dude behind me was fast and I didn't want to hear his disc catching up on me! So, I had extra incentive.
The Crit was pretty brutal and as I said in the blog, it was pretty close to my least brilliant tactical race. I didn't get the vurps during that one, but I did make sure that my shorts went directly into the wash afterwards - wasn't sure whether I had that part of the fight or flight mechanism kick in. By the way, were you the guy parked by the soccer fields asking about the benefits of position/clip-ons/disc etc? In any event, it was good racing with you, and nice job in hanging on to that wicked fast field in the crit!
THanks for the kind words about the TT. I was indeed the "full aero/disc/helmet dude". (though I actually only had a 4-spoke in the rear). I had been working on my TT this year, so doing well there was a priority for me. I also knew that the full aero/disc/helmet dude behind me was fast and I didn't want to hear his disc catching up on me! So, I had extra incentive.
The Crit was pretty brutal and as I said in the blog, it was pretty close to my least brilliant tactical race. I didn't get the vurps during that one, but I did make sure that my shorts went directly into the wash afterwards - wasn't sure whether I had that part of the fight or flight mechanism kick in. By the way, were you the guy parked by the soccer fields asking about the benefits of position/clip-ons/disc etc? In any event, it was good racing with you, and nice job in hanging on to that wicked fast field in the crit!
Well done Gary, mission accomplished. Yeah that was me, all stressed and anxious about the TT. I hate doing them, I'm terrible at metering my effort, and for the record I had an average HR of 182 during that wonderful 7:12 I clocked.
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