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Do You Road Bike?

aram said:
Ok, I'm really enjoying the track. One more race and I can upgrade to CAT 4!

Only 3 Cat 5's showed up today so we ran with the CAT 4 group and it was so much more fun than the 5 races. It wasn't just a couple people going off the front, the group actually stayed together. First two races I just missed getting points doing dumb things (lesson: don't pull the field for 2 laps into finals sprint. :( ) but the last race I eeked out 5th place which felt way better than any points I got in the 5's.

I was thinking of doing the CCCX road race on the 23rd, or maybe try a crit sometime this month. But it seems way more intimidating than the track.
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Congrats! :thumbup

You can also do Winters RR. It's basically flat with a short climb.
University is in your back yard, but it's a bitch of a course.
Most crits this month are boring as fuck. Oh Hey come out and do Suisun this Sunday! It's a 4/5 combined field. We can race together. I am on the way, we can just load your bike on my hitch and drive up there.
Vacavile is a fun crit. Has a short over pass that gets to you after few laps. Actually they are combining 4/5 there also.
 
finally rebuilt the fuji after the crash (and after raping it for all the dura ace parts).

new beater bike yay
 

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UDRider said:
Congrats! :thumbup

You can also do Winters RR. It's basically flat with a short climb.
University is in your back yard, but it's a bitch of a course.
Most crits this month are boring as fuck. Oh Hey come out and do Suisun this Sunday! It's a 4/5 combined field. We can race together. I am on the way, we can just load your bike on my hitch and drive up there.
Vacavile is a fun crit. Has a short over pass that gets to you after few laps. Actually they are combining 4/5 there also.
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Thanks for the info. I sent you a pm.

Boring races sound fine to me. A goal would be to finish so I could upgrade. :)
 
aram said:
Looks good!! My beater bike looks a lot worse!

Saddle up, bars down!! Drops look uncomfortable. :x
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yea i still havent fine tuned the fit yet. i am still fiddling with the rear deraileur getting it dialed in so i havent even given any thought to the saddle fit. also, that saddle is old and tired. creaks too much. i need a new one
 
Probably one of the fastest races on a calendar. Kind of weird, because it's too early, prizes suck, and it's in the middle of nowhere. Another 11th. :(
[youtube]byvcEQPdSaM[/youtube]
 
I think you know you have a problem when you get excited for topping the leaderboard on Strava (for Tri Club San Diego) :D

UDRider said:
Probably one of the fastest races on a calendar. Kind of weird, because it's too early, prizes suck, and it's in the middle of nowhere. Another 11th. :(
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Damn, that looks flat and fast. Is it just me, or do they corner super slow (crit in general)? Of course with the burn in my legs right now, I am having flashbacks. The Carlsbad has a minor climb coming out of the turns, and they are 180 degrees (but smooth).
 
Since we have videos here. I might as well. My view (note the lack of a shift cable on the left :D):

[youtube]0ZvVGB727DY[/youtube]

And from someone else. I pop in on the left at 11:16, you can see all the reflective tape since it is my commuter bike. Oh, and the side pull brakes :D :

[youtube]iZ9liHgmfks[/youtube]
 
Sidewalk said:
Damn, that looks flat and fast. Is it just me, or do they corner super slow (crit in general)? Of course with the burn in my legs right now, I am having flashbacks. The Carlsbad has a minor climb coming out of the turns, and they are 180 degrees (but smooth).
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I thought we were going through those corners at a brisk pace. Specially with people sometime inches from me. Hard to see on the camera. It's also CAT4, higher categories will go through them faster. That is for sure.
 
Sidewalk said:
Since we have videos here. I might as well. My view (note the lack of a shift cable on the left :D):

[youtube]0ZvVGB727DY[/youtube]

And from someone else. I pop in on the left at 11:16, you can see all the reflective tape since it is my commuter bike. Oh, and the side pull brakes :D :

[youtube]iZ9liHgmfks[/youtube]
Click to expand...


If I may offer some unsolicited advise. You need to be much closer the the wheel in front of you. Looking at random places in the vid you seem to be hanging back way too far and doing way too much work.
 
UDRider said:
If I may offer some unsolicited advise. You need to be much closer the the wheel in front of you. Looking at random places in the vid you seem to be hanging back way too far and doing way too much work.
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Yeah, next time I will stay farther up front (now that I know better) and get closer. Part of the hanging back and learning was getting with the more shaky riders. I love stealing wind on my commute though. I shaved 5 minutes the other morning drafting a guy who was cruising in the low 20's. Difference between your morning workout on a nice bike and your morning commute with food and clothes on the luggage rack :laughing

UDRider said:
I thought we were going through those corners at a brisk pace. Specially with people sometime inches from me. Hard to see on the camera. It's also CAT4, higher categories will go through them faster. That is for sure.
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Sorry, I was more thinking about the race I was in. Maybe because I stayed back and was with less confident riders, but I kept passing people going into corners while coasting, I wasn't even trying to move forward.
 
The LBS near my work (that also supports my tri club) is chainging owners, so they are liquidating everything to overhaul their space. I stopped by to see what they had left (near nothing) and got a couple stems (100 and 110) for $5 to hopefully take care of my hand numbing problem. It is better today, but still there. I will try and mess around a little more and try to find something. Unfortunately I need another stem spacer as these are thinner. I ended up having to use a roll of electrical tape as a spacer to get the new stem adjusted :laughing
 
Sidewalk said:
The LBS near my work (that also supports my tri club) is chainging owners, so they are liquidating everything to overhaul their space. I stopped by to see what they had left (near nothing) and got a couple stems (100 and 110) for $5 to hopefully take care of my hand numbing problem. It is better today, but still there. I will try and mess around a little more and try to find something. Unfortunately I need another stem spacer as these are thinner. I ended up having to use a roll of electrical tape as a spacer to get the new stem adjusted :laughing
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If you are using the electrical tape on the top of the stem, you can just tighten the stem, then take the tape off and it won't really matter if there is a spacer under the top cap since the stem holds everything tight. Keep those stems around and maybe try some longer ones and putting the bars lower. I have everything from 90mm to 140mm sitting around in case I need to adjust something, but I think my fit still sucks, so there's that!

Did my (hopefully-need to submit upgrade) final race as a track cat5 on Wed and there was a small turnout but they didn't race the 5's with the 4's so I got first place in the Omnium (overall) Cat5 . Won the 1st scratch race (1st to the line wins) by about 6 inches and came in second in the snowball race, then won the final points race (every 5 laps you sprint for points and 1-4th get points).

There was this young guy that was a really good sprinter but was really fresh to endurance stuff and I knew I was going to have a hard time sprinting against him so I just took off on lap 8 and tried to keep ahead for two laps, ended up putting half a lap on the group and kept the lead- rode 12 laps solo and won the final race. :teeth It was a smaller group, the cat5 group, and no really fast riders there but hey, it was nice to win.


This is from the sprint on the first race (me in the middle with red bike). Photo by Eric Cho.

ahkgyZ0.jpg
 
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aram said:
If you are using the electrical tape on the top of the stem, you can just tighten the stem, then take the tape off and it won't really matter if there is a spacer under the top cap since the stem holds everything tight.
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That's what I ended up doing. But I also stopped by the store again and he just gave me a spacer out of a drawer, so I'm good there now :D


aram said:
Keep those stems around and maybe try some longer ones and putting the bars lower. I have everything from 90mm to 140mm sitting around in case I need to adjust something, but I think my fit still sucks, so there's that!
Click to expand...
Since I got that other spacer I flipped the stem at work before heading home and adjusted the bar angle. It was much better after that. Still some numbness, but I think I'm going to need something closer to a 140 or so. But much improved so far.

aram said:
This is from the sprint on the first race (me in the middle with red bike). Photo by Eric Cho.
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I made some wheel discs for my TT a while back. I don't have hard numbers proving that the aero is better. But I did notice a 4 or so MPH increase (40-45 or so) on my top speed on a hill near my old house afterword, and I'm pretty sure there was no wind involved there. Not the best picture, but all I have on hand at the moment. Made at home out of scrap shower liner material.
 

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Damn, this road commuting has got me from "Hey, this is a great, cheap commuter bike" to "Hey, this is a great cheap bike, lets make it a better!"

I need some fenders, looking as some cheap disc brakes (and obviously new wheels/hubs). Oh, I desperately need a seat. A better luggage rack would be nice. I better get some rain gear...

Now, if only I wasn't broke :D
 
Ah common we all know it doesn't rain in SoCal. :p

I like crud racers fenders. If your bike runs 23mm tires, and doesn't have mounting points.
Tally for this weekend. Two 8 finishes in CAT4 and 15th in 3/4.

The frustrating part I know I could have done better in Giro. Jumped too late. Most people are telling me to upgrade to 3s based on top ten finishes.
 
UDRider said:
Ah common we all know it doesn't rain in SoCal. :p

I like crud racers fenders. If your bike runs 23mm tires, and doesn't have mounting points.
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Luckily since the bike is a CX bike, it has mounting points. And who ever bought it paid extra for the carbon fork with fender and disc brake mounts. Score!

I'm going to see if the fenders from my wife's beach cruiser will work. She doesn't need them anyway :D

UDRider said:
Tally for this weekend. Two 8 finishes in CAT4 and 15th in 3/4.

The frustrating part I know I could have done better in Giro. Jumped too late. Most people are telling me to upgrade to 3s based on top ten finishes.
Click to expand...
You only get better by racing with better, right? :thumbup
 
UDRider said:
Ah common we all know it doesn't rain in SoCal. :p

I like crud racers fenders. If your bike runs 23mm tires, and doesn't have mounting points.
Tally for this weekend. Two 8 finishes in CAT4 and 15th in 3/4.

The frustrating part I know I could have done better in Giro. Jumped too late. Most people are telling me to upgrade to 3s based on top ten finishes.
Click to expand...

You do the red kite and giro de SF (or whatever it's called)?

Nice job!

Is 8th just out of the points? :(
 
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