Masters Up

Well it is official: PruDog has a Masters Team in 2011. Fielding a nice little hit squad for the local crits based on attacking style ninjas with some serious finishing power after everyone has spent the day chasing us.

Plus, looks like we'll be able to promote kids events and do something special in terms of presentation.

Whoever is worthy

Now this looks cool. Some definite Ages of Thunder influence which is, well, awesome as well.

The Girls are all right

The womens race is back by popular demand! Starting with the Masters but scored and awarded seperately. Go make the old guys look sad and slow!

All Your Old Cross Kit Are Belong To Us

So you want to race the Ronde Ohop. But you are worried, NAY! You quake with fear of the infamous dirt section. What to do? You've been told you can use a road or cross bike but aren't sure which.. you're thinking you may want the extra handling of the cross bike on your first tilt at the epicness that is RONDE OHOP!!!!! (<-- imagine a mwah hahhah in there). Well.. go get yourself some used cross equipment then! And lucky you, Undem has you taken care of with the CycleU Cross Swap August 7th! Great deals to be had plus a raffle to benefit Wick. Just remember: you can use either a cross or road bike at the Ronde but you will want to use road tires (25-8 recommended!). It's rough and epic but not technical.

Ronde Ohop: Now with Upgrade Points

Thanks to Andrew Martin who pointed out that the Cat 4/5 Ronde Ohop race was one-mile short of the requirement to count for an upgrade. Well don't let that hold you back because the total mileage is actually 26! A full mile more than the minimum. I had planned to update the flier anyway but now I have a reason to tell you about it.

Hit from both sides

Last night's Seward Park, in which Jamie attacked at the start and then lapped the field with Andrew Martin, brought home a depressing reality. There are a lot more dominant riders than there were back when I was competitive. A solid rider could do well in races by being combative, making the break and then winning a five-person sprint. But that was back when the winning break formed sometime after the half-way point and the guys in the break usually couldn't sprint cause the sprinters couldn't ride the break. Sure there were a couple dudes who were really fast but you could mark them out or they were off riding NRC.

Now you have a stack load of guys (see McSickness, Todd, Richter, Jamie, Ian, Fleischhauer, et al) who not only can make the break, but start the break on the first lap, take monster pulls and then launch vicious sprints (or so I hear; I haven't seen one yet cause I am so far back). And because there's a stack load they're all in the damn break.

Damn these guys are good.

*Depressing in the sense that I not only can't match these guys now, but I don't think I'd be as competitive as I was "back in the day" against the current field even if I was fit. All of which is good for local cycling because the races are harder and guys are getting faster.

The point is moot

I just want to remind you that I am right and you are wrong.

Eurosport Forever

After watching both, I must say I vastly prefer Eurosport's coverage. Sean Kelly does a very good job of telling you what's going on and when he says "Cunego will attack here" he's usually right.

I saw nothing!

Amidst all the debate over whether it was sporting for Contador to attack Robbie Hunter summed my feelings up best:

“If Contador had waited he would have won the heart of the world. Like this he got a yellow jersey on his back, but it’s always gonna be a (question mark).”

For those who keep saying Contador didn't see what happened.. er.. BS as shown in the pic above. This was pretty clear on the eurosport feed. Maybe an overhead shot on Versus obscured the sequence because you couldn't tell he had dropped his chain until after Contador went by. But the head on shot I watched was pretty clear that he had gapped Contador (who originally tried to get on his wheel but had opened the gap)and only after he dropped his chain and it was clear he had did Contador react.

Update: Even Contador agrees with me!

King of Smallville

While I think Contador will win the tour this year, my support is now firmly behind Andy Schleck. It's hard to deny that Contador saw Schleck drop his chain and countered immediately and then put the hammer down hard. Personally, I think that is lame. And the "don't attack the yellow jersey when he has a mechanical" is self interested as well. This can and eventually does happen to everyone. Now, Andy is free to screw Alberto if the tables are turned as they eventually will be (although maybe not this year).

Anyway.. Boo!Boo!

Update: Apparently the crowd got the memo. The eurosport feed had the booing of Contador in all it's glory.

Deep Thought

Not sure why this popped into my head (I think I was reading a policy blog) but I never hear it pointed out that because the cost of oil production is heavily subsidized the cost of gas is actually much higher than people realize. We pay a large percentage of the cost in taxes that end up used to support oil production.

Which means that those of us who don't drive very much subsidize drivers who do.. which is something to keep in mind the next time a driver or anti-bike yapper shouts off about how we don't pay our fair share of the road.

We're the mother*&^ing Starforce

PruPuppy is letting his hair grow long cause he wants to look like a rock star. I was telling him he looks more like Derek Wildstar but he doesn't know who that is. So I googled a picture and discovered there's a live action movie coming out.



Apparently someone saw Star Trek and thought "wow, what a nice little movie. Let's copy the beats and deliver to the mass market". Or maybe they were just copying it cause Star Trek made a ton of money.

Leather jackets.. not sure that'll work. Very X-Men.

I read someone complaining about the "yellow-fication" of the casting. Umm.. yah the characters were rather non-racial specific (except Dr. Sain) but it's being made in Japan. There really aren't that many good actors there that aren't asian. And Yellow-fication isn't the word I would use. Sounds a tad racist.

Finally.. yah it will suck. But at least stuff will blow up good right?

You just got skooled

Because I sat up on the final lap (I rolled the dice with five to go and wasn't going to mix it up for 18th) I didn't know Robert had won! Check that kid's id cause he's rolling WSU kit to a Masters Race... 35+ my ass.

Seriously though great job to a guy I was flipping crap to before the race and a guy that's been plugging away forever.

Everyone is so sketchy!

"That was a sketchy race" may be the most common phrase in cycling. I hear it a lot more now that I've started doing Masters crits on a sorta-regular basis.

In defense of the squirrels.. yah it is sketchy. But that's because a bunch of dudes who've only been racing for a few years are mixed in with some dudes who are used to being able to ride "assholes-to-elbows" as they say. Mix in that a lot of Masters started riding in small groups and have idiosyncratic tics that developed over years of practice and aren't going away and the best thing to do is just learn not to fall off when someone tags you at 30 mph. And accept that once in awhile you'll end up on the deck too.

Despite what my blog may lead you to believe, I think i am probably one of the more forgiving riders in the field when it comes to sketch moves; I always try to offer sketchy rider helpful pointers rather than lay into them. It's only when the rider indicates that they are being sketch on purpose or thinks that being a thug in a Masters race is pro that I am likely to hip check them.

Fact Checking

PruDog fact checks himself so you don't have to: it looks like I confused Evans actual two MTB World Cup overall wins with a World Championship win. Depsite being wrong, so very very wrong, I think this actually bolsters my point: stop forgetting that Cadel is a hard hard man (if a little wierd).

Masters Racing isn't for the young

Random question.. why do most crit promoters spread the kids and Masters races? It seems to me that most of the Masters racers have kids and would be more inclined to participate if the kids race ran in between Masters waves. And it may get more kids out too.

And don't give me that Kids races are hard whine. It's super easy; 3-5 go 1 lap and 6-9 for two laps. Start everyone together. If it's a short course, double it up. It only gets tricky if you overthink it.

No Gifts

As predicted, the Stage 4 Mini-Hell of the North was epic. I've got nothing to add except that I feel bad for Frank Schlek but kudos to Sparticus and Andy for giving it to the race. And why doesn't anyone ever seem to remember that Cadel Evans knows how to ride bad roads? Dude was a MTB World Champion too ya know.

I think that the race would have been epic if Stage 3 hadn't neutralized; if the Giro taught us anything it's the crazy tours like this may knock guys out but it also knocks them back in.

Rhonde Ohop Recon

Prerode the 10.5 mile Rhonde Intro loop Saturday. Different for sure! The road section is going to be pretty fast and much easier to manage than I expected. There are really only four intersections that need to be controlled. For the February version of the race it looks like we can definitely do 4-5 bigs laps (1 mile dirt; 9 miles road) easily.

The Mashel Sector if dirt is.. well.. the Mashel sector! I am not sure how it will pay at speed but felt like it was more cobblestone like and less dirt like than in the past.. a lot fewer potholes to avoid. The Mur Mashel was hard and rough but seemed more even so you don't need to choose a the best line. It's all hard. I road on 700x23 and was good. Definitely racing on 700x25 or 28 though. Looked to me like the road bikes will have the advantage this year.

Broken link to the race flier? Here's one that works until Evan gets it fixed: http://www.dirtymoose.com/2010ohop/index.htm.

Shut up you!

I guess I am doing too much whining on my blog 'cause last night I felt quezerific and this morning I have a raging headache. Trying to decide if a ride would be good or bad.

I don't need your help!

Not that the riders this post is aimed at will pay attention but let me just say that, in the 20 years I have been racing, I have seen maybe 20-30 guys who've gone from cat 5 to Cat 2 or 1 in a year or so. And most of those guys have ridden like Douchebags because they were strong enough to ride like that and still win. And each has thought "I'm the first guy who has ever done this and all those guys who have been around are idiots and I don't need to listen to them".

Sooner or later all of them stopped winning because sooner or later the raw talent wasn't enough when they finally got to the level where everyone has that raw talent. Some figured it out and learned to race their bikes. Most just faded away. And there was always an excuse (my favorites are the ones who quite because cycling isn't challenging enough).

I'm just suggesting here that just cause you haven't been racing more than two years doesn't mean the rest of us haven't. And just cause some of the guys aren't winning every race doesn't mean they haven't been there. And maybe, just maybe, it would be more impressive if you learn to win on skill and not just raw talent. Cause raw talent is something you are born with but skill is something that reflects your actual ability to learn.