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Do You Road Bike?

Anyone here ride at the velodrome?

I went to the beginners class at Hellyer park after buying a cool fixed gear off barf (couldn't resist for the price in my size) and it was freakin awesome. By the end of the day I went from never riding a fixed gear to doing some mock races with some road bike ricers looking to get into track racing. Pretty cool.

I think I'm going to try a few track races and see how it goes.

I swapped out the saddle, tires and bars and put on a brake for riding on the street. I switched to a different set of bars and no brake for the track.

GcdwJUel.jpg
 
Awesomeness. I tried it once at the LA velodrome, wooden and heavily banked, and it was super duper fun. I would love to try it here, but by the time race season is over it gets iffy because of the weather. Since it is an outside one. :(

On a side note, I have found a kool P/1/2 race with commentary. The level of bike handling skills is amazing. I wouldn't try any of it in CAT4, that is just asking for pile up. It does give me some pointers thought. Just 6 more points!!!
[youtube]md7hjNEnxvA[/youtube]
 
UDRider said:
Awesomeness. I tried it once at the LA velodrome, wooden and heavily banked, and it was super duper fun. I would love to try it here, but by the time race season is over it gets iffy because of the weather. Since it is an outside one. :(

On a side note, I have found a kool P/1/2 race with commentary. The level of bike handling skills is amazing. I wouldn't try any of it in CAT4, that is just asking for pile up. It does give me some pointers thought. Just 6 more points!!!
[youtube]md7hjNEnxvA[/youtube]
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That's some crazy contact!

Good luck with the upgrade. I'm sure you'll get those points soon!

I may go try a couple road races up here in the next month or so (maybe the watsonville crit or cccx race?) but I'll probably just wuss out. :p I'm still not that confident descending after my crash a while back, so I don't know how I'd feel racing.
 
Watsonville crit is a bad race to start racing. It's a technical course, with a hill, and bunch of rain gutters in the middle of the turn.

The CCCX does have a descent, but it's not that bad. It is high speed, but is pretty wide, and you can latch on if you take it slower then others.

Then there is Winters. It's mostly flat with some rollers and one climb. The descent is a bit technical, but short.

Lodi Crit is fun. They combine 4/5, but it is flat and not too technical.

The Foothill is a fun course. It goes around foothill campus so you either going up or down, but descent is super easy and short.
 
UDRider said:
Watsonville crit is a bad race to start racing. It's a technical course, with a hill, and bunch of rain gutters in the middle of the turn.

The CCCX does have a descent, but it's not that bad. It is high speed, but is pretty wide, and you can latch on if you take it slower then others.

Then there is Winters. It's mostly flat with some rollers and one climb. The descent is a bit technical, but short.

Lodi Crit is fun. They combine 4/5, but it is flat and not too technical.

The Foothill is a fun course. It goes around foothill campus so you either going up or down, but descent is super easy and short.
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Sweet, thanks for the rundown. Maybe I'll just go to the next CCCX race since it's pretty close.
 
I haven't done any sort of bike race or practice yet that didn't involve swimming first. But I'm going to try the Carlsbad GP next Sunday. I just don't know if I'm going to have time to swap out my bars on my commuter so I might be racing with mountainbike bars :laughing
 
Ouch, I didn't realize the price of the race. I saw $30 on the registration (which sucks that I can only do one 30 minute race). Went to sign up and the license is another $15 plus a service fee :(

I know with USAT if you buy the one day you can apply that to the annual. But the annual is only like $35. I can't figure out what license to use for USAC or if the one day counts to it.

And I broke a chain today, so I had to dump all that registration money into the bike. Not sure about the race right now :(

By comparison, I did a 6 hour motorcycle endurance race for $70. 6 hours of motorcycle racing vs 30 minutes of bicycle.
 
Sidewalk said:
Ouch, I didn't realize the price of the race. I saw $30 on the registration (which sucks that I can only do one 30 minute race). Went to sign up and the license is another $15 plus a service fee :(

I know with USAT if you buy the one day you can apply that to the annual. But the annual is only like $35. I can't figure out what license to use for USAC or if the one day counts to it.

And I broke a chain today, so I had to dump all that registration money into the bike. Not sure about the race right now :(

By comparison, I did a 6 hour motorcycle endurance race for $70. 6 hours of motorcycle racing vs 30 minutes of bicycle.
Click to expand...

Yeah fees are retardedly expensive, but even then from what I hear it's a crap shoot if profits would me made. There is a lot of red tape to jump through to host something near civilized area, say down town, and everyone wants a piece of the pie.

Hmm, USAC road license is $70 bucks or something like that. It used to be cheaper, but then they combined road and MTB for "convenience". :rolleyes

One day license used to be 5 bucks, now they are charging 15 bucks? Although they usually jack the price up by 10 bucks for day of registration (regardless of license), vs pre-registering online few days in advance.

ProBikeKit has regular sales on components, specially now that it's TDF time. I usually stock up on consumables when they do (chains, tires, cassettes).
 
Unfortunately I'm pay check to pay check these days, so stocking up on supplies is hard to do. My new job only pays about 40% what I made before, and I get less OT (I'm also less miserable). As it is, I'll be racing my $40 Nashbar commuter, I just have to swap out the bars with my old freebie bike because this has hybrid bars which aren't legal. So shifting on the neck in a crit...

Registration is actually at my work, so I will be able to skip the $3 fee, but still. Oh well, I'll probably do it anyway. Just wish I could spread it out over more classes. I hate the idea of waiting all day for one sprint.
 
Sidewalk said:
Unfortunately I'm pay check to pay check these days, so stocking up on supplies is hard to do. My new job only pays about 40% what I made before, and I get less OT (I'm also less miserable). As it is, I'll be racing my $40 Nashbar commuter, I just have to swap out the bars with my old freebie bike because this has hybrid bars which aren't legal. So shifting on the neck in a crit...

Registration is actually at my work, so I will be able to skip the $3 fee, but still. Oh well, I'll probably do it anyway. Just wish I could spread it out over more classes. I hate the idea of waiting all day for one sprint.
Click to expand...

Have you done crits before?

kelsodeez said:
just scheduled my bike fit at mikes bikes!!! cant wait to feel fresh after 50 miles again.
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Good luck. I need to re-evaluate my fit. The seat might be few CM to high. Just very hesitant to screw with things in the middle of the race season.


Jebus the new kit is ugly.
IMG_9241-L.jpg
 
Sidewalk said:
Nope, only tri (new at that too).
Click to expand...

What groupo are you running on your bike?
In a crit it's nice to be a able to up shift going in to the corner and of course easily downshift when pace pics up. Taking hands of the handle bars to reach for shifter in the middle generally not advisable.
 
UDRider said:
What groupo are you running on your bike?
In a crit it's nice to be a able to up shift going in to the corner and of course easily downshift when pace pics up. Taking hands of the handle bars to reach for shifter in the middle generally not advisable.
Click to expand...

According to the way I read the rules I have to swap out the bars or I would race it as is. Currently 3x9 with Deore XT.

My Dawes has what ever you would expect a Wal-Mart level bike to have (in the background).

http://www.bayarearidersforum.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=443704&d=1400981681
 
I do at least 25 mi on weekends (Sawyer - Crystal Springs) on my Cannondale Super6.
 
I have a heavy terrible Univega Sportour from the early 80s that I started riding last month 3 days a week on a 15 mile roundtrip commute to work.

I can only imagine how nice a new road bike would be especially when my new mountain bike is way way nicer already.
 
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