Mice: Jake and Sam in Bs. Nole in As.
This was my first Tuesday night out at Hellyer (Tuesday has fewer, longer events and Wednesday has more, shorter events) and the first time I was racing on my new Felt TK2. It was great not to have to rent a bike... especially once I got the carbon seat post clamped down enough to not keep slipping. The bike definitely took some getting used to, since the position felt a lot more forward and aggressive than even the rental track bikes.
July is points racing month. Yay! A reason I want to be going down on Tuesdays is to use it as a replacement for sprint/AT intervals I'd otherwise do on Tuesdays, and the longer format seems perfect for that. Plus, the points races are like mini criteriums, with lots of tactics.
All in all, I think most of the gains for the evening were mental. I figured out pretty quick in the first event that racing the Bs meant that I couldn't do anything willy-nilly and expect to score points. I put in a few big efforts (great training), but either at the wrong time or using the wrong attacking technique.
The first effort was a case in point. There were a couple guys 100m off the front and a couple laps before the next points sprint and I moved around high to prepare for an attack off the banking, but moved too far forward up the pack before going hard, so the guys on the front saw me and I lost the element of surprise. Everyone was fresh at that point, and they got my wheel. Good news was that the break got closed down and Jake went on to get 2nd in the sprint. Given that there were only 3 sprints in 30 laps I was also measuring my efforts a bit, hoping the second race would have more sprints. For the last sprint, there were 3 guys with a gap off the front, and I was in a decently organized chase group of three for a handful of laps. After the bell, one of the guys attacked out of our group and got a decent gap on me. I counted the places up the road and didn't see a reason to sprint for 5th (no points past 4th), so I sat up.
The second race was more interesting tactically, but not for the reasons I'd have expected. With 8 sprints in 40 laps, I was hoping the pack would stay together and I could jump out of the pack to pick up points here and there. Instead, a break of 3 went away from nearly the start of the race. Great news: Jake was in the break. I was about to try to cover the move myself until I saw him go past. Team tactics mode kicked in and I sat back down. (I've bridged up to teammates in the past, taking riders with me and that's just bad form.)
But the good thing about having a teammate up the road is that I could have some fun with the pack. I tried out a variety of blocking techniques: sitting second wheel and slowing down to let a gap open up until someone sprinted past then getting on their wheel; slowing down when it was my time to pull until someone sprinted past; pulling off right after someone else finished their pull and then pushing back into the second or third wheel of the paceline. The pack was being way too nice about it. I won the pack sprint for 4th on the first sprint, then the fit guys started attacking to bridge. I covered a move or two, then didn't cover a counter move. That was the one to go away. It took him a long time to bridge up, but in the meantime, he grabbed 4th on a sprint or two. The pack got agitated and tried to organize, but I kept blocking and generally messing around.
If I'd known better, I might have tried to convince the pack to slow way down so that break would catch us faster and the sprints would be up for contention again. Tactics in a situation where the field was getting lapped seemed to be a new concept for the Bs, since apparently it's pretty rare. Jake got a lesson in a different aspect of this. His break of three rejoined the pack, but left the fourth guy behind. But once they lapped the pack, the fourth guy became the first guy on the track and started picking up big points, then also rejoined to get the 20 points for lapping the field. In the meantime, as confusing as it was to have riders up laps and down laps, Larry Nolan shouted out that there was a cookie prime for the pack, so I finally had another chance to sprint. I went from way out and thought I had it, but got passed at the end. The final sprint was also up for grabs, and after starting the lap at the front, I tried moving off and up to sprint off the banking, but found that was a waste of position. Jake and I sprinted it out side by side, with me in thesprinter's lane for the shorter line. I had a gap on him, but he got me in the end.
Grand total for the evening: 2 points (two 4th places). Results link: http://www.ridethetrack.com/blog/res_tues.html
Not only was it good mental training, but I also definitely got the interval/intensity training I was looking for. The races were a good length for having big efforts mixed with sub-threshold recovery riding (first race was 15 min and the second one took 20 min).
Love the Points racing tactics. I'm thinking of doing Larry Nolan's Points Racing Clinic on 7/13: http://www.ridethetrack.com/pdf/08pointsrace_clinic.pdf
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