Tour de Mike

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ft_critical
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby ft_critical » Mon Jun 20, 2011 1:14 pm

sogood wrote:Good gutsy ride!
+1 Mike, well done.

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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Tue Jun 21, 2011 10:27 pm

This is what we looked straight after the ride, not particularly glamorous :)
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We will return Fitter, Stronger, Faster, more Aerodynamic
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby eon » Tue Jun 21, 2011 11:36 pm

Nice going there mike. Sounds like a fair bit of work on your end. Congratz on the placing.

Wish we got the chance to have a crack at it too. Oh well, next year.
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Wed Jun 22, 2011 6:45 am

eon wrote:Nice going there mike. Sounds like a fair bit of work on your end. Congratz on the placing.

Wish we got the chance to have a crack at it too. Oh well, next year.
Yeh, at times my 3rd rider struggled to hold my wheel, forcing me to soft pedal. It's a team event, there's always going to be a discrepancy between the riders and you need to work the most out of the team, however that may work.

It was the wind that killed my team, 2 riders blown apart by it. My other rider is very good at riding in the wind and I was probably on my best ever form.

I've entered the NSW ITT champs. I'll be up against dudes who have TT bikes, so I'm not expecting to bring home the bacon
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby Ross » Thu Jun 23, 2011 11:47 am

I had an invite to hook up with a team in the Goulburn TT but I declined because I know I'm not as strong as the other guys and IMO a TTT only works with riders of similar ability. What grade do you normally ride for road races, Mike? Sorry CBF reading 39 pages to find out.

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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Thu Jun 23, 2011 2:14 pm

Hi Ross, back on page 1 I was riding C grade, but nowadays I'm riding A grades at Vets, A or B grade everywhere else and I'm intending to ride Div 2 on the track this winter.

Team members are never even and you need to take that into account in your strategy and be prepared to change that strategy during the race.
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Thu Jun 23, 2011 9:08 pm

Its an emergency
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Sun Jun 26, 2011 8:32 pm

Race all Winter (RAW) - Friday 24/6/2011
With 8 RPM classes and about 180k of bike commuting in my legs (Mon – Fri), what moment of insanity occurred to make the decision to race on a Friday night? Even transportation was legalistically complicated. Friday commenced with riding down to Rockdale, for the 6.15am RPM class and riding home afterwards. Then I took my track bike to work on the train. After work I was picked up and taken to Dunc Grey velodrome. The home journey was with someone else.

So how did I go?
I signed up for Division 2, in the previous 2 years I’d ridden Division 3 and when I first went to Div 3 I was dropped in the races for a couple of weeks and was expecting the same in Div 2

Warm up race
We had 25 riders, one more than the maximum so they split the race into 2, with 12 of us going out. With 2 ½ laps to go I found myself on the front, accelerated and rolled, but failed to find a good wheel. 4 riders got off the front and I came 5th, best of the rest but not in the hunt.

One lap screamer
This is possibly the race that I am worst at for all track racing, to be good at it, you need to be able to get quickly off the line and I don’t possess that skill, so I came where I though I would – 4th out of 4 J

Snowball
Points are awarded for the winner of each lap and as the race progresses you get more points, ie lap 1 is one point, lap 2 is two points etc. The entire field goes out (not split like the warm up). I find myself boxed near the rear and elect to sit in and wait till I’m further near the front before going for points and that happened about ¾ way thru the race, where I tried to roll around 4 other riders contesting the sprint, but I was a little way back and didn’t get there. After that one rider got off the front and took the points. So end result was zero points, but it gave me an indication that I will be in the hunt for placing’s this year. A fellow club member commented on how high the pace as, but as I’m new to this grade I don’t know if its fast or not.

Combines
Misunderstood what race I was suppose to be in and missed the race. Shrugged my shoulders and headed for the canteen where I had a sausage roll on order, hey it even came with onions.

Time Blaster
Missing the combines meant that I was eligible to ride the time blaster, pace is something like 51kph, not a lot different to what I did in the NSW team time trial championships, so quite possible for me to do it. I sat down and waited for the thought to disappear…

Information about the series is here => http://www.rawtrack.com.au/ and here => http://www.dhbc.org.au/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2456



Dulwich Hill Omnium - Saturday 25/6/2011
So what could be more silly? Lets add another RPM class - Saturday High Performance, taking it to 9 classes and some track racing at Tempe Velodrome on Saturday afternoon.

Flying 200
I arrive on time but find I’ve forgotten my shoes and go home to get them. I arrive back just in time to do the flying 200mtr and go out with zero warmup, only to find that the northern bend of the track is wet, I do the flying 200 but push a tad softer thru the wet section for a time of 14.1 seconds, 0.9 seconds slower than my PB for Tempe Velodrome, quite slow.

We think the reason that corner of the track is wet is due to the sprinklers being on earlier

Points Race and Kerin
I decide not to race either of these races. January 29th 2009 I had a major accident at Tempe Velodrome and have fond memories of how hard the track is.

Half Kilo
I decide to do this race, but I don't accelerate thru the wet section, resulting in a time that would be a tad slower than what I was capable of racing on the day. Time is 44.1 seconds, but is pretty much not applicable.
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby rogan » Mon Jun 27, 2011 7:25 am

mikesbytes wrote:Race all Winter (RAW) - Friday 24/6/2011

Combines
Misunderstood what race I was suppose to be in and missed the race. Shrugged my shoulders and headed for the canteen where I had a sausage roll on order, hey it even came with onions.

Time Blaster
Missing the combines meant that I was eligible to ride the time blaster, pace is something like 51kph, not a lot different to what I did in the NSW team time trial championships, so quite possible for me to do it. I sat down and waited for the thought to disappear…
Jeez Mike, this track racing, is it real? The sort of racing I'm used to, any sausage roll ingested before a race would be coming straight back out.... Or was the sausage roll your way of getting used to the idea that racing was over for the day?
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Mon Jun 27, 2011 2:10 pm

Eating before racing never affected me, I guess that everyone is different, for me its just extra weight
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby scotto » Mon Jun 27, 2011 2:39 pm

when the races arent more then a kay or 2, the odd bit of junk food is insignificant.
though i reckon the div1 guys doing 51km/h for 9 minutes might dispute that ... :wink:

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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Mon Jun 27, 2011 2:43 pm

scotto wrote:when the races arent more then a kay or 2, the odd bit of junk food is insignificant.
though i reckon the div1 guys doing 51km/h for 9 minutes might dispute that ... :wink:
How many laps was the time blaster?
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Fri Jul 01, 2011 11:40 pm

1/7/2011 RAW track racing

My second week in Division 2, tonight was a real stuff up, but that's racing

Warmup race (Div 2 all in)
The warmup race qualified you for the wheel race. The pace was real hot for the first few laps and I suffered but then found my Rhythm. With 1 1/2 laps to go, I was in second wheel and the rider in front just basically stopped. The pack rolled around me and there was nothing I could do, I was pinned in - the end

Winners race (Div 2 split)
4 laps to win and then an extra lap for each of second, third, fourth. 8 laps in total. At the top of shoot I got near the front as I am crap at the first 50mtrs on these short sprint races, but other riders pushed past and it meant was near the back of my split group. The accelerated too quickly for me and I didn't get on, fought for 2 laps and as I was nearly on, I realised that I was burnt anyway, so it was time to quit.

Mystery laps (Div 2 all in)
10 laps plus between 0 and 10 extra laps depending on a card drawn. The riders do not know the number of laps until the bell is rung. The pace was hot and I hit the front on the 10th lap, I roll and the bell is rung 80 metres later. How unlucky is that :roll:

Combines (Div 1 all in)
I fronted for the Div 3/2 combined and there were too many riders, so Crafty decided to bump 4 of us up to Div 1, which included me. I started near the front with the other Div 2 riders and we went for it. I did my bit on the front and rolled and all I could see was a huge single line. After rolling a full 3/4 lap at the outside, I made my mistake in not seeing the split develop and jump in, I missed it. I ended up on the back of the second split and they chased, got back on, but it split in front of us again and that split sat up, so that was it.

My primary objective of the Friday nights is to get some on bike training in and to have some fun. Both were achieved tonight.
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Sat Jul 02, 2011 9:50 pm

Saturday 2/7/2011

Heffron Crit - B grade
Last time I raced an RBCC Heffron crit was 2009. The computer said I was B grade, which gave me a yellow number. I wanted a red one to match my jersey, but the wouldn't give me one. I didn't have high expectations, having raced RAW last night and done a High Performance spin class in the morning. So it was time compare a rooted body 2011 with a fresh body 2009. In 2009 I struggled for the entire race to hang in there, average speed 38kph. BTW wind was minor both in the 2009 outing and today.

I took off after a couple of breaks and had one myself, but it was left to a bunch sprint. I came across the line in about 7th and then they rang the bell, they had added an extra lap...bastards... we did that sprint for nuff'n. Next lap around I used the same strategy, but that side of the track was blocked. Average speed 40.0kph according to my speedo. I hit 48kph in my break attempt, but only 57kph in the sprint, should of done 60.

Compare 2011 rooted vs 2009 fresh. 2011 rooted wins easy
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby foo on patrol » Sun Jul 03, 2011 8:19 am

Hey Mike, are these types of races the same all through the country now or are they specific to you club? I ask because they are nothing like when I raced, but I can see that they would add some variety to things, not knowing when the bell would happen. :mrgreen:
I don't suffer fools easily and so long as you have done your best,you should have no regrets.
Goal 6000km

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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Sun Jul 03, 2011 11:40 am

The track racing above is not club based. The crit is a club race run by rbcc and they make up about 50% of the the riders

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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Sun Jul 03, 2011 7:48 pm

Sunday 3rd July 2011

ATTA Individual Time Trail (ITT)- Calaga 25k

It was a lot colder than last time, though I didn't have any extra warm weather gear, time to toughen up.

First couple of K's I was fine, but hitting the hills, I could tell that I wasn't riding well. At the turnaround, I could see that I was a lot further off that last time, to my fellow team members. On the way home I found better speed and made some ground on my fellow team members, we had an informal handicap, with one member having a 4 minute handicap and the other having a 1 minute handicap. The end result was that the both bet me, I only made a 20 second inroad into the 1 minute handicap.

My result was 40.07, which is 56 seconds slower than last time. I think that was an average of 37.4kph. The drop in performance being due to;
- colder air, ie higher air density. All riders had slower times
- poorer performance, due to the quantity of stuff I did on the weekend, with lots of racing on top of my spin classes. It was quite noticeable on the hills.
- Staying up to 2am watching Tour De France didn't help either.
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Sun Jul 03, 2011 8:03 pm

Photos from RAW, available for sale at Action Snaps

Division 2 racing;
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Division 1 race, I was in second wheel at this point...
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Thu Jul 07, 2011 2:19 pm

Ah crap, I've been ranked Div3 for the Mudgee scratch race on Sunday, that means I've got to ride 80 instead of 40 :(
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Sat Jul 09, 2011 5:41 pm

Saturday 9/7/2011 - Mudge 90k handicap

BNA present;
Strawburger bunch 10
Kev bunch 9
Leximac bunch ???
Mikesbytes bunch 8

My Bunch
The bunch split in half before 8k, I didn't notice exactly where it happened. After the first hill, there were 6 of us left. After the second hill there were 3 of us left. The 3 of us made good time and then we were caught by the other 3 after about 10k separated. At 40k I knew I wasn't in good shape.

Bunch 7 + others
45k bunch 7 caught us, it was huge, consisting of riders from several bunches, made a great block from the strong winds. Almost straight away we caught Kev's bunch and then the whole thing disintegrated, twice I rode across the split, then at 70k I blew.

Home Run
The race was over so I just rode tempo, almost straight away Strawbuger turned up, sucked my wheel for about 500mtrs and then disappeared behind me. A couple of bunches with small numbers came past and then scratch overtook on a downhill and I was on. Stayed on for about 5k.

Result not known, average speed 36kph, heaps better than last year.
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby Kev365428 » Sun Jul 10, 2011 9:05 pm

I'll add to Mike's report.

Leximac was in my bunch.

The first real hill of the course was at the 10 or 12 km mark. Bunch 9 was averaging close to 40 up to that point. Once we hit the hill, 2/3 of the field went out the back door, including me.
On the descent, I was sitting on 62km/h and picking up riders as we went, but we had no chance of catching the bunch. As the km's passed by, one by one riders were dropping off the back, and then it was my turn.
I tried to stick with the group and managed to get back on, but when Mikes extended group passed us there was nothing left in the tank to hold on as they disappeared in the distance.

At the 65km mark I caught back up to Lexi and we swapped turns with a couple of other riders, until I blew again. Then I caught him again, then I blew again. Sounds like a pr0n movie. :D
By 80km I was totally stuffed, so I found a group and stuck with them until the finish, where I out sprinted them for 139th position. :roll:

The wind was the killer. Once you found yourself out of the group, it was almost impossible to get back on. My big mistake was not driving harder up the hill to stay in contact, although I probably would have just delayed the inevitable.

A good weekend of racing all up. I suggest more people try it next year.

Good to catch up with Mike and Don again, and Strawburger for the first time. We both rode in Div 4 today also, and i was blown away again. Hope you did better than me mate.

Kev.

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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Sun Jul 10, 2011 9:10 pm

Sunday 10th July 2011

Mudgee Scratch Race - Div 3 - 80k

Temperature was 4 deg and that was before counting in wind chill and it was howling

About 60 riders, it split in half before the first hill and I was left in no mans land in the middle. I worked my way over the hill and rode largely solo all the way to the corner where about 2k in I got myself on a bunch that formed from riders being dropped by the front bunch. We started to work reasonably well. The front bunch had a huge lead, not for one moment did I think we could catch him, but I had been climbing well all weekend and then we reached that really long shallow hill. The dubbo guy and I took turns on the front and hurtled ourselves up that hill at between 29 and 32kph, pulling in some huge distance to be only 50mtrs behind at the top. Other riders joined in and we pushed hard, but that last 50 mtrs was not coming, as that bunch had responded to the threat of having us catch them. It took about 3k to pull it off and we were on at about the 35k mark. I knew this wasn't the front as I recognised that one of riders was missing, but I didn't know how many. After the race I found it there were 4 missing.

At the 40k mark there was a major attack and the bunch split. I rode across the split but only lasted about 2k. I couldn't see anyone behind me, they had disappeared, so it was solo for me and I rode the entire lap solo. Let it be known that the wind was even worse on that second lap.

While I don't know where I came, I suspect it was somewhere in the high 20's, will find out when the results are published.

Average speed was 31.9kph, slightly faster than Div 4 who rode 40k but heaps slower than yesterday, showing how much worse the conditions were.
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Sun Jul 10, 2011 9:21 pm

Kev, You did good

It was a tough weekend, that was the 3rd time I'd been to Mudgee and I am a much stronger rider than last year, but look at my average times;
Sat Handicap;
2010 (group 9)- 36.0kph
2011 (group 8 )- 36.0kph
Sunday Scratch;
2010 (40k div4) - 35.5kph
2011 (80k div3) - 31.9kph

In 2010 I was in group 9, same one you were in and I was dropped on the hill on the way out. In 2011 I was in group 8 with 5 less minutes handicap and dropped the entire group, down to 3 riders at one point, but at the end of day average speed was the same and that was due to the horrid winds.

BTW, I think the riders that came 1st and 2nd in div4 were the same 2 riders that broke away with me on Saturday. If I'm correct, then they were way to strong for Div4
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby Kev365428 » Mon Jul 11, 2011 9:51 am

Results are out Mike.

You came in 45th, and I actually came home in 121st.

At least I know I should be able to improve next year.

Still waiting for Sundays results.

Kev.

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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Mon Jul 11, 2011 1:37 pm

45th !!!!! pleased with that. Last year I came 101st, starting in the bunch you were in this year, so that's an improvement of 56 placings despite having 5 less minutes handicap.

Where are the results?
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