Re: Race report (boring more than riveting, I'm sure).

On May 23, 8:37 pm, SLAVE of THE STATE <gwh...@xxxxxx> wrote:

us. I didn't really know what to do. I tried to move over to the side,
but nobody came around. One guy did, then moved back. I was afraid to
go TOO slow, but I didn't want to be pulling everyone. I just wanted
to be toward the front for the steep hill.

It is times like these that 53x19-ish (or 53x17-ish) gears are made.

***-em: while sitting there soft-pedaling on the front, just be keen
to pop onto someone else's jump.  But don't chase douche-bags and any-
old attack.  If known "top riders" remain in the pack with you, and
they have no teammates represented in any jumps, then it is probably
quite safe for you to stay with them -- you could easily ignore a
douche-bag attack.

If you are a little clever, you could possibly use a douche-bag attack
to your own advantage, but without elaborating, that could "be
tricky."

Part of my brain was aware of that, but the part that makes decisions
wasn't paying attention. I was too focused on not screwing up and
doing something dumb like swerving into somebody making an attack, or
otherwise earning myself even less respect than I already command in
the pack.


"It depends." -- BF

It ended up with me pulling
to and half-way up the hill, before guys went around. That was dumb. I
was pretty wasted at the top, and was at the back. I wasn't able to
recover by the time we got to the long hill, and I got dropped.

Yeah, at 4% you should have not done any substantial pulling, as
better climbers can get a draft advantage and then attack.

I pulled to and up half of the short steep climb, and this made the
following 4% hill too much for me. The short hill is more like 10%.


But that particular grade is a hard one to control by sitting on the
front if you're not the best climber.  If you just stopped pedaling
before the bottom, it could provoke very hard attacks, but there isn't
much you can do about that anyway.  The way everyone was sandbagging
before that little grade, it was bound to happen anyway.

With a grade >= 6%, it is a sort of art-form to get on the front and
push it hard enough that you can hold it, and yet it is hard enough
that the best climbers are feeling enough pain that they aren't quite
as prone to going even harder.  Of course, sometimes there is nothing
you can do except stay with a group capable of limiting losses and
also able to pull back the small gap to the better climbers after the
top.

I think short power climbs like that are someplace I have potential to
hang on longer than my fitness would suggest. First time up the 10%
hill, I was passing guys 25kg lighter than me who were huffing and
puffing, but managed to finish with the group, while I got dropped. I
was able to out-stomp them on the brute force climb, but they had me
on the fitness climb.

Pisser. Eventually I got together with 2 other guys and we did a good
job of limiting our losses.

I made it to the half-way mark before getting dopped which is a huge
improvement over previous races, and I got dropped in large part due
to my own stupidity, not just lack of fitness. If I had just kept
cool, I would have been able to hang on a lot longer. So I feel much
better about my condition.

Dumbass,

I find your reports amusing.

I will continue to bire you with them then!

Joseph

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