GamJams.net: Go, Racing!

Gloucester Cross Cam

This week is known, in New England CX circles, as "Holy Week."  Big title, huh?  Well, there are some pretty big events going on.  This past weekend was the Great Brewer's Gran Prix of Gloucester, aka "The New England Worlds."  Win there and you're big time - even if you're a Cat 4, win at Gloucester (rhymes with "foster") and you're Cat 4 big time. 

Colin Reuter, the evil hairless genius behind the site that runs your life all fall, and promoter of tomorrow night's The Night Weasel's Cometh race, was an early adopter of the GoPro onboard camera.  He's gotten some great footage in the last couple of years and posted this video of Sunday's UCI race in Gloucester. 

Colin writes a pretty funny blog called Until The Snow Ends and tweets as @resultsboy. 

Enjoy.

Monday Multimedia - Old Guys Rule

 
Gears?  HAH!  I don't even need handlebars!  You kids these days with your modern contrivances...

Just a few pics from yesterday's Masters 45+ and singlespeed races at Winchester.  Finally felt like fall and cross weather - beautiful day, great event. 

Some fun videos of THE WALL to follow.

Charm City UCI Men's Race Video

Freakonomics is a great book.  One of the things they discuss is the freakish number of world class (especially women) golfers coming out of South Korea.  They must have a ton of golf courses there, right?  No, they have a ton of driving ranges.  You see, the repetition of building a swing on a driving range makes great mechanics.  From great mechanics, the next step is transferring those fundamentals into action on the playing field.  Last night, we did about a half an hour of nothing but fast downhill off camber right hand sweepers.  Entry speed, line selection, commitment to the line, weight placement.  If you "groove your swing" well enough in practice, you won't even know how to do it wrong under the pressure and fatigue of race situations.  It's something that all of us pikers can work on. 

Enjoy some footage of guys whose swings are pretty groovy, battling it out at Charm City last weekend:

 

Charm City 2012 Photos

More photos and video to come but for now get started with these, mostly from the Sunday Women's UCI and Men's B races. 

Feed Me!!!

Fall is more about handups (beer, sausage, dolla dolla bills y'all, etc) than it is about bottle feeds, but you never know you might get wicked bored and want to practice feeds some time.  My first direct experience with bottle feeds was at my first 3/4 race, as a freshly minted 4.  After the race, at which I'd pretty much gotten my behind kicked until finally my chain decided to have mercy on me and break, this donkey on my then team was berating his girlfriend for screwing up his bottle feeds.  Apparently that race was his ticket to a pro contract, and she'd put paid to his dreams.  These are things that warp young minds, and my initial attempts at both feeding and being fed were tinged with fear that I'd lose my shot at the bigs and be forced to excoriate my wife.  I get yelled at all the time so I wasn't too worried about that end, really.

There are as many feed techniques as there are people to feed and be fed, but only a few of them work.  The most effective, in my estimation, is the "Dainty Crab," pictured below and for which we have the lovely and talented Laura Hill to thank.  The strength of the dainty crab is that the feeder is able to hold the bottle securely, yet the rider can easily take the bottle with a decisive grasp.  The feeder can also easily and securely extend or retract the bottle, or change presentation angle.  In a lot of tries with a lot of riders, we have yet to boot a bottle with the Dainty Crab.

The "Grippery Nipple" is another good technique.  The advantage is that the rider has the full real estate of the bottle to grab, so a big target.  It is also an easy release, as the feeder's grip on the bottle is necessarily light.  The feeder is not able to manipulate bottle presentation as with the Dainty Crab, but this is a good technique nonetheless.

"The Paul" is a technique employed by a teammate.  I have once received a feed using this technique, with a 100% success rate.  This technique offers the feeder the most secure (really, it's unbelievably secure - defensively so, even - "take this bottle, I dare you!") grip on the bottle.  The disadvantage is that the rider might be thrown to the ground if the feeder doesn't give a timely release.  The advantage is that the rider, having successfully wrested the bottle out of the feeder's iron grasp, will have confirmed his superior strength in the act and can confidently proceed to crush the souls of his competition.  As with all things Paul does, this is a full commitment technique.

Course Recon

Rooster says "get your act together!"

Whether we're talking about road, mountain, or cross, it's always an asset to have as much info as possible on the course on which you're going to race.  For a lot of road courses, it's pretty easy to get a fair idea of the layout from your computer.  Strava, Google Maps, and promoter-provided course maps and cue sheets can all be part of your pre-race intel.  If possible, the gold standard is to ride critical sections of the course, especially if there are big climbs.  You don't want to lay out some blistering attack thinking it's false flat to the finish only to "discover" a 500 meter 20% switchback section.  Conversely, you don't want to save energy on the "second to last climb," thinking that the lead group will reconsolidate before that "last climb," only to find out that you're already ON the "last climb" (don't ask me how I know this).  In any case, a piece of white tape on your top tube with significant cues, feed zones, KOMs, sprint points, and simple climb info can be a huge help.  You'll just want to be sure to start the trip odometer on your computer at the start line so things line up.

For a crit, you'll want to get to the course and be ready to ride before the race before yours.  As soon as the officials open the course, get on it, check out the lines, make note of any potholes or grates or manhole covers, how the wind is moving over the course, and anything else that seems significant to you.  I often find it helpful to walk around the course while other fields are racing and see how they are doing things in various sections. 

In mountain biking, pre-rides are key.  A lot of courses stay much the same year to year so over time you will build up not only info on how the course goes, but how it rides in different conditions.  For a new course, often your only option is to show up a day early, or to hit a pre-planned pre-ride (some courses are on private land and can only be ridden at approved times).  The typical mountain bike race will have waves on course throughout the day and you can't get on on race day.  Knowing the course well is a huge advantage in a mountain bike race. 

Cross races are sort of the opposite of mountain bike races, logistically, and are much more like crit pre-rides.  Often, the course isn't set up long enough before hand to allow you to pre-ride it before race day.  Also, courses get tweaked year to year.  If there are memorable specific features of a course and you know they will be included, it's fairly easy to replicate them of site, so do that.  On race day, you want to get to the venue with at least enough time to ride the course when they open it after the race that's two races ahead of yours.  You want to be somewhat warmed up and ready to roll about 20 minutes before the race before yours, and as soon as the officials let you on course (which is usually while the race in progress is still going, but PLEASE do not interfere with any riders still racing), get out there. 

In crits, mountain and cross races, not only does pre-riding give you a heads up as to where you need to spend energy and where you can save it like on a road course, it will give you a big feel for how to set up various sections.  You can also make any adjustments to tire pressure or other setup bits and know that you're going into the race as ready as you can be.