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What Brad saw:
Category:
(Brad was not racing today.)
............Anxious to read about how it feels to ride in a peloton of 100+ riders. Today's races have to be the largest ncnca race groups I've ever seen, let alone definitely largest EB races ever seen....i'm not really sure what the count was, but it looked like 100-120 to me for the race that Tim, richard, and santiago (others?) were in. Does anyone know the official start #?
And the women's races.....holy smokes....a larger field than most senior men's races I've seen in the past. Parking went all the way out onto Paseo Padre, and every space in the circle area itself was jammed. Truly, this is amazing stuff......racing has exploded in nor-cal, clearly prompted by a two-prong PR exposure led by Lance Armstrong and last year's SF Grand Prix. It has to be more that just Lance, as he's won TdF 3 years in a row, and last January's EB's were big, but not like today. Maybe it's cumulative interest.
The other thing, I'm seeing many new clubs crop up now, or let's put it this way, many clubs are now taking the time to drive all the way down to Fremont for the EB's. Perhaps the mentoring program is paying off big-time too.
So, Garry,......next meeting i humbly propose we spend some time discussing the FFBC one-day crit. In terms of scheduling, it might already be too late as most races are submitted by December. But, we should look it over anyway....don't ya think???? Strike whilst the iron is hot!!!!!! (throwing in a little garryism there.....)
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What Tim saw:
Category: C
Result: Mid-pack
Another absolutely huge turnout for what was a beautiful day. Kent again took on the C Race all by himself and finished well. Hard to know exactly where as the field was huge. Kent, feel free to report on your race in an e-mail.
In the B race we had an actual team out there with Santiago, Paul, Richard and myself. We talked a little strategy before the race, but it was hard to even find each other in the huge field. I don't know, maybe 100? Anyway, we each had our fun.
Santiago charge off a few times. I got a flat and took advantage of the free lap rule. The rest of the time we tried to maintain position. With two laps to go we all hooked up for awhile, all 4 in a row. It was cool. Unfortunately we got split up, but Richard stayed on my wheel until the last turn. It was cool, cuz' he kept telling me he was there.
We made up quite a bit of ground in the last few laps. Everytime there was a lull or an open spot on the downwind side of the field we jumped forward. Going into the third turn we were in pretty good shape, maybe 10 or 15th and I saw Paul, but Richard got cut off my wheel.
So as we charged for the sprint on the right side of the road, a guy got between Paul and I as we really wound it up. As we continued blazing down the front straight, the guy between Paul and I, stuck his front wheel in Paul's rear wheel and went flying right in front of me! Down he went with his bike flying through the air. I just missed his head and the rest of him too, but that was it for Paul and I.
I didn't see how Richard and Sanitago did, but I believe they were also slowed in the crash. A split second later, a second crash occured on the left side of the straight. Yeow! Anyway, Paul's wheel had broken spokes, my momentum was broken and that's that. Sometimes you have to count your blessings!
I always sort of prioritize my objectives like this: 1. don't crash, 2. don't get dropped, 3. try and place. Well this week I only met my first objective, but sometimes that's good enough! I really didn't need to crash right then. It really was fun doing the team thing, but the B race was sort of scary compared to the A race last week.
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What Richard saw:
Category: B
Result: Mid-pack
Just to add a couple of comments to Tim's report. Casey emailed the NCNCA list and said that there were 104 riders in the B race. There will be a change in the program next week due to the huge numbers showing up.
Anyway, I found myself behind Tim with about 4 laps to go, and boy is Tim's wheel a good wheel to follow! He is great. We were in a good position with a lap to go, and Paul joined us, so going into the back straight we had a 3 riders line astern (Paul, Tim, then me) not too far from the front. Unfortunately, I got bumped off or didn't defend Tim's wheel well enough going down the back straight, and then got seriously slowed into the final corner, so I used my sprint to get back up to pack speed and then cruised home.
I saw both crashes in progress, first was the one on the right near Tim and Paul. They were clear of it by that time, and there were still people going down - it looked like 4 or 5 people were involved, with some broken hardware which I couldn't identify littering the road. Shortly afterwards on the left another pair went down. I think this was the classic "switch" effect - people avoided the crash on the right by moving left and someone's front wheel was clipped. It certainly seemed to be in the location you would expect form this sort of pack ripple.
The average speed was something like 23.5mph and the safest time was when we were largely strung out into a 2-abrest line going 28mph for about a lap. It was fun as the corners were far easier to negotiate, plus at this point I was in about 12th place.
My goal for the day was to hang with the group as this was my first race racing with cat 3's, so I am quite pleased. A bit bummed that I lost Tim's wheel in the final lap, but I certainly got a lot out of the race in terms of getting back into riding in a large pack.
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What Santiago saw:
Category: B
Result: Mid-pack
uyuyuyuy!!!! that was a big field.... it was really hard to hold a position since there were so many people moving up and down, that's why a couple of times I decided to take off in front of the pack but nobody followed either time and the wind felt really strong out there, so went back to the field, and yes, with two laps to go we were all four nicely align but I lost Richard wheel on the last lap, somehow the crowd pushed me to the other side of the field, I saw them again before the finish line but there was nothing to do since we were slowed down due to the two crashes, anyway way it was a good start for the year, everybody made it safe to the finish line...
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