Welcome to the forum
Walden Velo 3/4
Rather strange race today for Neil and myself, no real HQ so a lot of car park chat and it didn't really feel like there was any social atmosphere that there normally is on a sunday morning.
3/4 regional B, only 50 miles on a relatively flat circuit with one steep hill and a couple of technical moments. Not a hard circuit at all and it certainly didn't justify the amount of crashes going on. The race felt really choppy, lots of riders not keeping their line, switching across the pack and generally being a little bit unpredictable (not in a good way). An unfortunate snapped chain led to a bit of a pile up on the climb on the 3rd or 4th lap which was then followed by a crash on a straight bit of main road for no reason at all. I think there was a shout of "car" going down the bunch and a few guys panicked and pulled in too quickly, riding into people. One guy looked like he might have broken something apparently, but aside from that no major casualties! No breaks managed to stay away, one VC Revolution rider kept off the front for almost a whole lap on his own, but aside from that it was one bunch for the majority of the race
I sat in the bunch for the whole race and sprinted at the end, going too early off the front and fading before the line but still managing to grab 5th place with Neil coming in in 14th. Hopefully this will be my last 3/4... I can't say that I will miss them at all if they're like this for the rest of the season...
3/4 regional B, only 50 miles on a relatively flat circuit with one steep hill and a couple of technical moments. Not a hard circuit at all and it certainly didn't justify the amount of crashes going on. The race felt really choppy, lots of riders not keeping their line, switching across the pack and generally being a little bit unpredictable (not in a good way). An unfortunate snapped chain led to a bit of a pile up on the climb on the 3rd or 4th lap which was then followed by a crash on a straight bit of main road for no reason at all. I think there was a shout of "car" going down the bunch and a few guys panicked and pulled in too quickly, riding into people. One guy looked like he might have broken something apparently, but aside from that no major casualties! No breaks managed to stay away, one VC Revolution rider kept off the front for almost a whole lap on his own, but aside from that it was one bunch for the majority of the race
I sat in the bunch for the whole race and sprinted at the end, going too early off the front and fading before the line but still managing to grab 5th place with Neil coming in in 14th. Hopefully this will be my last 3/4... I can't say that I will miss them at all if they're like this for the rest of the season...
Comments
Stuart
I've got no real desire at the moment to train as hard as you need to to win 200 points so I'll be happy with 2nd cat if I can get that last point. As a 4th cat in road races you can only ride 3,4s and 2,3,4s with the race organisers seemingly favouring the 3rd cats to get places as they often have more points that season so it can be hard getting a start for these races. As a 3rd cat you can race pretty much any road race apart from an E,1,2. As a 2nd cat you can ride any road race apart from a 3,4, so I think this is the best category for me to be in at the moment. There seems to be a broad standard of riders here too, so people who are just grabbing enough points and riders chasing their 1st cats... As a 1st cat it's harder to find the races as you can only do E,1,2s and E,1,2,3s and to race every week you often have to drive for miles to get a start. And you have to be really strong too. And maybe not quite as flippant about your diet as I am etc etc...
You can get points on grass track that count towards the road rankings.
I, for one, will most certainly not be doing that.