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Got some pictures from the season these overhead shots of the pan ams course are pretty cool  and a few of me racing   
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Nov 19, 2023 06:31
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 01:05 |
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Incredible pics, the both of you. Racing bikes is the best.
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Nov 22, 2023 02:20
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Madison National Championship race report: The track: Lexus Velodrome in Detroit is unique in the US - a 167m (1/10 mile), 50 degree track - it's narrow, steep, and fun as heck. The racing: Friday: a nonchampionship scratch race (20 laps) + my main event, the 35-44 masters madison national championship (120 laps) Saturday: another scratch race (30 laps) for my field, plus the 15-18 juniors madison national championship (also 120 laps) for one of our local kids. For those who don't know, the madison is a track event where you tag-team with your partner - you're both on track, but only one of you is actively racing at a time. The story Thursday: Flew in, got the bike assembled, and spent a couple hours getting used to the track. I've raced it once before, but every track is enough different that I wanted to allow plenty of time to get a feel for it, especially for how madison exchanges feel on it. Friday: The non-championship scratch race (mostly to give everyone in the field a chance to get used to racing on the track - it's very different from most other tracks because of its small size). My madison partner and I are in the 35-44 masters field. Collusion isn't allowed in track racing, but when you're literally racing with your partner a bit is to be expected. My partner went for a long attack about 8 laps to go, and I did absolutely nothing to respond - see what the rest of the field felt like doing. Turns out, not much. I gave it a punchy sprint with 2 to go and rolled in for second with a big ol gap. Nothing like going 1-2 to build some confidence, although out main competition chose to sit out the warmup race. About the Madison: 120 laps, or 20km. 5 teams (which is actually kinda a lot on such a small track). Point sprints every 20 laps, plus 10 points for every lap gained or lost. The main competition were the defending champions, with home track advantage, one of whom was the 2021 elite scratch champion (Kyle Perry, Texas Roadhouse) - no slouches! Based on past performances, we expected them to be stronger diesels than us, and both of us stronger sprinters. We planned to try to mark their moves and then frustrate them in the sprints.  No plan survives first contact, and while we got through a few exchanges on the wheel, it wasn't long before we got a little caught up with another team and were on the back foot chasing. The Madison is all about who makes the least mistakes, and in total we made about 3 - caught by surprise with how fast the riders come around on a short track we had a few missed exchanges. Our rivals made none, and capitalized on each of ours effectively. Weirdly, by about 30L to go we were pulling them back - despite expecting them to be bigger diesels. I guess that Madison hour record was paying off! End of the race landed us second, a long way clear of third. Having won this back in 2019, and also landing silver in 2021, it's tough to fall short of the jersey, but with the ups and downs of this year and against such strong competition, I'm pretty satisfied.  We had planned on just getting tore up in the beer garden, but Friday was so fun we decided to race again in the non-championship races Saturday. We did do a bit of enjoying the Detroit nightlife, though... Saturday: My main event out of the way I shifted focus to supporting our local junior. He's 16, and a good kid, but was a bit up in his head about racing a new race on a weird track with an unfamiliar partner. A bunch of practice exchanges with him and some goofing around (upside down bars, aero?) seemed to get him back in a having fun mood, which, hell - if you can't have fun racing you're doing it wrong, in my book. For my last race we had a bigger field, but still a pretty short race (3 miles) relative to what we're used to. My partner was feeling silly, so we decided to go with a similar plan and see what happens: he'd try to take a lap, and I'd watch things for the sprint. It ended up mostly working out, but another guy got around for the lap, so we ended up going 2/3.  After that it was a race to the beer garden to cheer for our junior racer. He did great - gutsy riding against a strong field to end up third. All in all it was a total hoot - every race we did we ended on the podium, and the vibes were good all 'round. 
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Dec 2, 2023 02:00
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Ty for the write up! Super interesting! What do you mean by mistakes? Like missing following attacks? Maybe because im not familiar w the format (slash have no personal experience of racing) im having trouble visualizing.
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Dec 2, 2023 08:55
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It is a rather unique flavor of racing, so yeah, kinda hard to follow. It might (maybe?) be easier to follow in a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edZ5nXtcl2o&t=3703s So, in a madison you're trading off back and forth with your partner. The active rider is the 'racing rider', and the other is the 'relief rider'. The relief rider stays on the track, up high out of the way of the race, waiting for their racing rider to come around and catch them - each time they do, ideally, you exchange who is racing and who is on relief. You want to do it every time you can, because the race is essentially an interval workout - about 35s on, then 35s of rest, then back at it. If you miss an exchange, that means your partner has to keep going just as hard for 70 seconds instead of 35 seconds, which... just ain't sustainable unless you're insane strong, or your competitors happen to be going easy at that time. On different track lengths the time it takes for the racing rider to get around to you is different, so we got caught by surprise a couple times with it happening faster on such a short track. It's also tricky with a small track to avoid other riders, which botched another one of our exchanges.
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Dec 2, 2023 16:06
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Super interesting! Congrats on 2nd and thanks for sharing.
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Dec 3, 2023 16:36
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I raced pretty seriously from 2009 to 2015. Between burnout, major health issues, and other hobbies, I stopped riding regularly until early 2022. 2022 got some good miles in. Lost 40 lbs over the course of the year. Finished three gravel races. First two went poorly and I was discouraged. Third one, SBT GRVL, didn't have as much elevation and I'd lost a bunch of weight by that time. Had such a good time. 2023 decided to get a bit more serious. Did a spring TT series, retro class. Four gravel races. And nine crits. Got some good results, including a podium. And more importantly, had an amazing times with some awesome people.    Looking forward to 2024. dema fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Dec 3, 2023 |
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Dec 3, 2023 17:02
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dema posted:I raced pretty seriously from 2009 to 2015. Between burnout, major health issues, and other hobbies, I stopped riding regularly until early 2022. You're looking strong, good work! Never did podium myself and now I'm in masters age group with all the pros I used to worship.
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Dec 4, 2023 01:14
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bicievino posted:It is a rather unique flavor of racing, so yeah, kinda hard to follow. Oh that is super interesting! It totally makes sense when you explain it that you’d want to swap off every lap, I was imagining like one person does a couple laps, then the other.
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Dec 4, 2023 02:17
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 01:05 |
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VelociBacon posted:You're looking strong, good work! Never did podium myself and now I'm in masters age group with all the pros I used to worship. Racing masters is a trip. The mix of people is wild - some folks who came to the sport super late, others who've been doing it forever, and then occasionally it's like "oh poo poo you were in the loving Olympics"
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Dec 4, 2023 04:09
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