BVC Friday Night racing - 3rd

We had a 20 lap scratch, elimination and a 5x10 points race tonight. Nothing much in the first two but a nice 3rd in the 5x10 points. Getting a early start out of the blocks with a 3rd in the first sprint. Then 5th in the 3rd sprint, 2nd in the fourth, 3rd in the fifth to get an overall 3rd place. Actually tied Lido Crema for points but he took the last sprint so takes first overall. Probably could have got that one, but a dropped rider blocked us for the final sprint and Lido had a clear line above me.

BVC Friday NIght racing - 4th and 3rd

Improving ... slowly.

The B Group did three races: 5x5 Win and Out, 30 Lap Scratch and 5x7 Points.

Surprisingly I managed to snag a 4th in the Win and Out. I was just hanging out at the back of the pack when I saw 7 laps to go... was already nice and high on the blue, well rested and the pace was a not terribly fast 45kph... Just dug in, went over and dived down in my old favorite, corner 3... big gap, just cruised to the start finish... :-)

The 30 lap scratch race DID NOT go to plan... about half way in Dave Stevens and Bart Ludbrook ramped the pace way up and the entire field fragmented into multiple small groups... I had to work my way up bridging from small group to small group. At one point having to do a almost a minute at > 50kph to bridge a big gap. To no avail. I was lapped by Dave in the last lap. With the rest of the group he was with finishing with just behind me (almost but not quite a lap up.) So I was out of the top five entirely.

In the 5x7 Points I moved to the front to get the pole position out of the neutral lap. There was some quick laps and I (luckily) ended up behind Dave Stevens at the front of the pack. After about one lap at 45 Dave just put the hammer down and started to move away from us off the front. I followed and just barely manged to get on his wheel. We got a good initial gap which grew quickly as Dave lead me around for about four laps at > 50kph... By which time we had about a half lap, he took the first sprint with me as second.

Carried through to the next sprint, I manged to nip him at the line for that. About then we where joined by Bart Ludbrook. I thought he was a lapped rider so didn't worry about him. We kept going, trading places for the next two sprints. With a couple of laps to go Dave and Bart finally finished lapping the field.

Because I thought Bart was lapped I didn't think I needed to follow and just hung back, I would have a lock on second and nothing could get me first. Bad move. Bart had actually bridged up to us. So both of them got 20 points for lapping the field while I took only 5 for being first in the final sprint. If I had just followed into the field I would have taken second. Instead I ended up with third... Moral never assume you know what you know is correct ... this of course assumes I was not so utterly whacked by that time that I could have followed... of course I could have... :-)

At least I can look forward to is Dave and Bart getting some more B races under their belt so they can move up to the A's... clearly they are already strong enough.

BVC Friday NIght racing - B Group 2nd in scratch

Well the Computrainer and weekly track interval sessions seem to be paying off.

Last night we had three races in the B Group. Elimination and then a 4x5 points race. It was a huge 21 rider start, and I just didn't really get going in the Elimination. And the 4x5 just started with an immediate acceleration to +50kmph, before I could get my heart rate up and my legs moving I was spit out the back :-) Just for fun I jumped back in and managed to stay between the breakaway riders and the rest of the field till the end of the race...

The last race was a 40 lap scratch. Much more my type of race. Started easy and built up speed. Just stayed at the back of the big field as attrition worked to my favor. Was near the front with about 14 laps to go.. David Stevens and Adam Barlev jumped off the front, I followed and got on their wheel. We had about 12 laps to go with almost a half lap gap. We took half lap pulls staying well off the front. With two laps to go we jockeyed about a bit. With David Stevens getting the best position behind and above while I was leading out (bad planning on my part...) I moved him up track by going to the blue. He went, I followed. I almost got it at the line, missed by a few centimeters.

Final sprint was about 25 seconds, 600 watts average, speed started at 43kmh, hit 59.4 and averaged 51.6.. Still not quite back to my best results last winter. But definitely an improvement of the dismal and best forgotten 2009 Fall series :-)

There was a bad crash in our first B race. With Scott Jutson, Jasmin Glasser and a couple of other people going down hard coming out of turn one. Almost taking out some bystanders as they slid across the Cote d'azur. Email from Scott today say's he is in hospital waiting to get a pin or plate for a broken collarbone. Sounds similar to my break two years ago.

BVC Friday NIght racing - winter series started

Last week was the BVC Maximum Entry weekend series... Total bust up.... I was tired, TSB negative and was racing on my training wheels (mega-spoke mavix with Tufo tubular...) Legs felt like lead pushing a concrete bike around... Only did two races on Saturday... One in the B group and then one with the C's (to get the number of B's down to 20, I was going so slow anyway...) And then I had a flat on the training wheel in the C race so didn't even race on Sunday. Just did the results.

Friday was the first night of the Winter Friday night track series. Felt a lot better... Had the disc back with a new Vittoria tubular.. The B group had a huge turnout, full field of 20 riders Did the first two races, 30 lap scratch and 4x5 Win and Out just cruising using a 52x15 (90.5") gear. Switched to 51x14 (95") for the last race, 4x10 Points. That felt a lot better. Managed to take fourth by taking the second sprint. Same old same old, big jump over the field, push the big gear, get a huge gap with about 3 laps to go. Then just ride it through.

As always, huge difference in racing success once I get back into the big gear. Although it also needs legs that can turn it minimally.

Other than that I have been attempting with some success to push CTL back up with copious amounts of L2/L3 on the Computrainer. From a low of 44 in early December I'm now (today) back to 60.

Spring Series is only about eight weeks away....