'Dale Posted January 16, 2012 Author Posted January 16, 2012 I have a couple of chommies in there.So, I watch the 'Stars' with great interest.
nuge Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 ok, for a start, if you've got 3 guys riding together just paceline it all the way - don't bother responding to attacks which will only wear you guys out - in any event it sounds like the guys attacking in your cat get caught pretty quickly. also, sticking together and working evenly on the flats means you'll be able to keep the pace high and wear out the light guys before you even get to the climbs - they'll be too exhausted to attack.
ROCKITRIDEIT Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 Our wolfpack took 6th, 9th and 10th places yesterday. However we obviously have "cycling etiquette" not "winning" at the core of our values it would appear, as thedailycrank who finished 6th chose not to contest the final sprint because he had, in his own words, sucked wheel all day and it didn't feel right. Now this is all well and good, except that I dropped off the bunch with 10km to go and had to solo to the finish with no water cos of the turns I had taken on the front and the early efforts....only for thedailycrank to then decide he'd rather avoid any bad karma In the post race debrief in the car on the way home, he was admonished and ordered to sprint like his life depended on it next time!! haha as I said it is all a learning curve and still very much "fun" for us!!
ROCKITRIDEIT Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 ok, for a start, if you've got 3 guys riding together just paceline it all the way - don't bother responding to attacks which will only wear you guys out - in any event it sounds like the guys attacking in your cat get caught pretty quickly. dude, we are not all as strong as you, even pacelining wears us older guys out care to tell us how your first SV race went? I saw your result on racetec....
nuge Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 (edited) dude, we are not all as strong as you, even pacelining wears us older guys out care to tell us how your first SV race went? I saw your result on racetec.... just keep an even tempo, whatever that may be for you, seriously, you'll maintain a higher average than pushing hard for a bit and then flaking out. make sure you all take short turns on the front (no more than 10 seconds) and keep the rotation going. if you can organise more guys from the hub then all the better. also, it's no use saying, "right, you attack on the climbs" and all that. at this point, then key idea is to keep your team on the front and motoring at an even pace a la team columbia in pretty much every flat tour stage for the last few years! also, suffering is part of the deal, i'm always amazed at how hard the top guys have to push themselves to get where they want to be. riding fast hurts, there's no other way to say it i'm afraid! which brings me to the next question - SV's ride hard, there's no escaping it! as expected the whole group was shattered into large shards on hels and i got dropped pretty quickly from the front sliver of about 20 riders. i ended up in no-man's land for a few minutes before the main group of about 30 riders caught me in the last third of the climb. we tried to hit the descent hard to see if we could get close to the front group (narrowly missing a taxi who was, well, just doing what taxi's do i guess...) , but the front group had bolted, nowhere in sight. so we paced through the next 80-odd km's picking up stragglers here and there (like the remainder of the aurecon team on the agter paarl rd - one of their guys was in the front group) and ended up about 7-8 mins behind the winner. apart from losing my computer and trying a stupid and (very) short-lived late breakaway (seriously, what was i thinking?!) not much happened. can't say i'm looking looking forward to the cobra next sunday - that's really going to hurt! Edited January 16, 2012 by the (other) Nuge
MTB_Roadie Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 just keep an even tempo, whatever that may be for you, seriously, you'll maintain a higher average than pushing hard for a bit and then flaking out. make sure you all take short turns on the front (no more than 10 seconds) and keep the rotation going. if you can organise more guys from the hub then all the better. me and touristvista tried that and it worked for about 9km then the people stopped helping.
stratus5 Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 I was the guy working in the front with you guys, and they guy who was robbed at the sprint as the CEDAR guys came past me....you have a sweet bike btw...you guys caught me when i was on a break away up the R44, I honestly think if they didnt hatch onto you guys I couldve mantained my lead, but you guys pulled them back....and thanks for working with me in the front...I will find a few hubbers and discuss strategy with them You worked like a dog ... Really deserved the win ... What you will find is that because of all the extra work STARS makes you do, your strength will increase dramatically without you really noticing (because you are normally pulling on the front) When you get to a race like the Argus(and 99'er) and the work load is more evenly shared, suddenly you find that you are cruising within the bunch and the moment a group of strong riders try a break, you are able to join them and make it stick. The wheel suckers tend to fall off as they have not really worked all season :>) Its a subtle change, but will bring a smile to your face and make the pain and frustration all worthwhile when you experience it. Best of all is you may not even notice that the group has shattered behind you until you see the results. I got the bike second hand here on the hub. Nobody wanted it and I got a good price. I added the Shimano C50's to it and it completely transformed the bike ... it had looked quite ordinary with the easton circuits.
MTB_Roadie Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 thnaks man, I appreciate the motivation! Wish you guys join STARS, we will make a mean team!
'Dale Posted January 16, 2012 Author Posted January 16, 2012 (edited) thnaks man, I appreciate the motivation! Wish you guys join STARS, we will make a mean team! My entrepeneurial spirit rises: MTB_Roadie, for a rather 'small' handling fee, I can negotiate that you join with touristvisa's "wolwe".Touristvisa, I offer you a sweet deal on one of the most disciplined 'Stars' riders. 3 000 moola. PM me both if you are interested in dealing.REMEMBER: Podium spots can be unlocked with this biz deal. As team manager, I will have to kit you with 2009 Leaky Gas replica jerseys. *** Edited January 16, 2012 by ' Dale
stratus5 Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 thnaks man, I appreciate the motivation! Wish you guys join STARS, we will make a mean team! I suck on the hilly races ... way too big (95kg). The same applies to the outriders team. The blue train only works during the flatter races as the individual differences are too big on a very hilly course and the group quickly shatters. Most of the outriders are seeded E or better, but we started in G so as to include more members (and go up Hels in a more controlled manner). We had not realised that we could catch the leading STARS and in so doing, mess with the results. That being said league groups are not supposed to hitch onto faster groups coming through? Lesson learned ... if we put together a fun team for some of the flatter races, we will start ahead of the STARS. If nothing else, Gerard Genis's invaluable contribution to the outriders has been to get some of the non-league riders to enjoy the benefits and fun of riding in a well organised team. Hopefully some of this will rub off and we can get some of the other clubs doing something similar. We often see City Cycles with large groups on their training rides for example. We know the Outriders would kick their butts in a team event :>)
Thornman Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 ok, yesterday was my turn to lose something along the route - my cycle computer popped off the handlebar mount as we were going past the paardeberg prison. if anyone picked up a sigma 1606 please let me know. and yes, i know it's a serious long shot. i drove back along the route afterwards to no avail. i've also already mailed the PPA. cheers I also lost my Garmin on the descent just before Paardeberg climb. Went back later that afternoon and luckily it was still next to the road... Thank goodness
Zac.A Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 (edited) I'll make it simple for the guys who've just started league or who have never raced before. As has been mentioned, race for position not time, (only applies to League, NOT PPA(@Tiny K)ok, so at the end of the day, no-one cares if you did the race in 4hrs as long as you won. The best way to go about getting positions and points, is to do some hectic interval training en route. Taking into consideration the new points system, of the smaller the bunch the more points, this is only made more important, so while keeping a steady pace at the front will drop a few people off the back, the only way to get lots of points now days, is attack, attack, attack. Discuss your attacks with some friends in the bunch so that no-one gets left behind, say the DeVere team and MTB_Roadie, if all 4 go then the group will be forced to chase you down, and if they can't well then it's a more honest race for the 4 of you. Also discuss the day before when you will make a huuuge attack, in yesterdays race, the obvious place being Helz... PM me if you want any tactical advice I'd love to help! Edit: I know it may all sound stupid, but that is the best way to shell people off of the group, they always manage to sit in when they're "dead" Edited January 16, 2012 by Zac.A
MTB_Roadie Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 I suck on the hilly races ... way too big (95kg). The same applies to the outriders team. The blue train only works during the flatter races as the individual differences are too big on a very hilly course and the group quickly shatters. Most of the outriders are seeded E or better, but we started in G so as to include more members (and go up Hels in a more controlled manner). We had not realised that we could catch the leading STARS and in so doing, mess with the results. That being said league groups are not supposed to hitch onto faster groups coming through? Lesson learned ... if we put together a fun team for some of the flatter races, we will start ahead of the STARS. If nothing else, Gerard Genis's invaluable contribution to the outriders has been to get some of the non-league riders to enjoy the benefits and fun of riding in a well organised team. Hopefully some of this will rub off and we can get some of the other clubs doing something similar. We often see City Cycles with large groups on their training rides for example. We know the Outriders would kick their butts in a team event :>) I felt quite honered after such a person congratulated me on the work I done. Also they hatching on groups is correct, that is why I was kind of pissed off when you guys chased me in and the rest just followed,haha! My entrepeneurial spirit rises: MTB_Roadie, for a rather 'small' handling fee, I can negotiate that you join with touristvisa's "wolwe".Touristvisa, I offer you a sweet deal on one of the most disciplined 'Stars' riders. 3 000 moola. PM me both if you are interested in dealing.REMEMBER: Podium spots can be unlocked with this biz deal. As team manager, I will have to kit you with 2009 Leaky Gas replica jerseys. *** Lets start by negotiating a salary I'll make it simple for the guys who've just started league or who have never raced before. As has been mentioned, race for position not time, (only applies to League, NOT PPA(@Tiny K)ok, so at the end of the day, no-one cares if you did the race in 4hrs as long as you won. The best way to go about getting positions and points, is to do some hectic interval training en route. Taking into consideration the new points system, of the smaller the bunch the more points, this is only made more important, so while keeping a steady pace at the front will drop a few people off the back, the only way to get lots of points now days, is attack, attack, attack. Discuss your attacks with some friends in the bunch so that no-one gets left behind, say the DeVere team and MTB_Roadie, if all 4 go then the group will be forced to chase you down, and if they can't well then it's a more honest race for the 4 of you. Also discuss the day before when you will make a huuuge attack, in yesterdays race, the obvious place being Helz... PM me if you want any tactical advice I'd love to help! Edit: I know it may all sound stupid, but that is the best way to shell people off of the group, they always manage to sit in when they're "dead" Shot man, appreciate the help
SeanMort Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 I suck on the hilly races ... way too big (95kg). The same applies to the outriders team. The blue train only works during the flatter races as the individual differences are too big on a very hilly course and the group quickly shatters. Most of the outriders are seeded E or better, but we started in G so as to include more members (and go up Hels in a more controlled manner). We had not realised that we could catch the leading STARS and in so doing, mess with the results. That being said league groups are not supposed to hitch onto faster groups coming through? Lesson learned ... if we put together a fun team for some of the flatter races, we will start ahead of the STARS. If nothing else, Gerard Genis's invaluable contribution to the outriders has been to get some of the non-league riders to enjoy the benefits and fun of riding in a well organised team. Hopefully some of this will rub off and we can get some of the other clubs doing something similar. We often see City Cyclesing Club (not to be confused with a shop of the same name) with large groups on their training rides for example. We know the Outriders would kick their butts in a team event :>) Bit of a bolshy sweeping statement in my opinion. From merely looking at passing City Cycling Club groups it seems you can assess racing/riding/performance/ability with certainty. Almost all large CCC groups comprise of social/fun-riders that don't enter races, nor have that mindset. Outriders has a larger proportion of higher seeded riders than CCC, but I'm sure the club does have enough quality members (see below, to name a few) to put a team together if we really need to. Don't be so judgemental. CHARLES SOLOMON ENZO LEZZI PAUL JACOBS UWE SCHMIDT STUART ANDERSON ROBBIE SETTON FRANK SMITH BRIAN IRELAND MIMMO CUTINO ZAC ABEL RICHARD DE VINK LUKAS KRUGER THEO SCHMEISSER
stratus5 Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 Bit of a bolshy sweeping statement in my opinion. From merely looking at passing City Cycling Club groups it seems you can assess racing/riding/performance/ability with certainty. Almost all large CCC groups comprise of social/fun-riders that don't enter races, nor have that mindset. Outriders has a larger proportion of higher seeded riders than CCC, but I'm sure the club does have enough quality members (see below, to name a few) to put a team together if we really need to. Don't be so judgemental. Sean, notice the big smiley behind the kick butts statement and the singular picking on City Cycles. It was meant as a very friendly jibe to another club that we often see in passing. Your named list would beat us hands down, but that is not the point. I just thought it may be fun if some clubs took up the challenge of riding as a club in one of the non-league groups. Probably something similar to the way the DC works. The hot riders would be in league leaving the rest of the less serious riders to have a bit of fun interclub rivalry.
'Dale Posted January 16, 2012 Author Posted January 16, 2012 T'was nice and cool at the start line.This is D-E starting bunch and beyond. Are you in the frame there somewhere?
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