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Monday
Some topics for today:
We need a first aid person to stand by for the Spillage party. Drop us a line if you have first aid skills and a kit, come to the party for free.
What about them new CRCA rules?
Picks for Spillage??
Monday Monday Monday
91 Comments
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Uh, what if we have 43 B’s on the team?
43 Bs? Are you joking. What team could possibly be that big?
You seem to be missing the joke
Sounds like fun, CRCA racing with team rider limits. But what about the tru blue riders? Why not extend the same number to the TTT??? The T day F starts 9 and counts 5…Why only count 3 from 4? And, while I’m on my first breath, why not have multiple TTT teams from the same sub-team hogging up more points? What is the point of all these points? Did any riders go to Worlds or Nationals based on the sub-team points standings?
Make the CRCA Open Races the Championship Races, like Grants Tomb, Bear Spring and Fall, Lou Maltese, Fred Mengoni, and then and then and then…
time for a ride…zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
;)) Good Fun!
The new rules for next season are good. I’m glad they added the club races. I’m also glad to see the TTT back, I just hope it isnt @ Floyd Bennetts!
If you had to match a character from that Mash photo to members of last year’s ML squad, how would you do it?
Frank Burns: Motor
Pierce: Andy
Trapper: Schmaltz
Clinger: Blake
Colonel whats his face: Sherry
Father Moulcahey: Euri
Hotlips: Baldwin
Switch Ken to the Colonel and substitute Lee Winter as Frank Burns.
It’s a big mistake to count every club race in the team series. That’s going to reward teams that focus on club races week in and week out, instead of trying to be local or regional powers. It’s a shame that the club will be rewarding teams that stay at home so often.
Says the guy who doesn’t do CRCA races.
But when I was doing club races the team I was on one the team cup once or twice and was a contender for several years. And I was coach of another team that won the team cup a different year. And in all these cases, the teams in question were trying to perform well regionally too. For the team I rode for, we’d have been in trouble if we had to show up in force to even more club races. In fact, we probably wouldn’t have, so while we were out trying stuff in upstate and in New Jersey and Penna and New England (and Canada, and Wisconsin and Bermuda) some other team that’s "better" than us in terms of limited ambition might have won it.
Not good.
He don’t do the CRCA races cause you guys got all those crazy ass rules.
I mean all your rules and sub rules and sub sub sub rules for races that don’t even count (except to you, yes they count). You got all the suspensions for not marshaling and being politically correct, YUCK!
What do I know Im a coward hiding in brooklyn, not wearing underwear, and riding with more then 9 teammates in a race.
I meant, when I was doing club races the team I was on *won* the team cup once or twice and was a contender for several years.
Not "every" race counts. Turkey Race is excluded.
I missed that about the Turkey Race. OK it’s all fine then.
I like the new rules. The Team Cup should go to the team that has the best results in CRCA races. Having all the races count will give the Cup to the team that does the best in the park all summer.
Well, most squads have pretty deep benches. Not all of them, but most. I think it bodes well for planning a season out instead of just reg’ing up for everything that comes along. If a team wants to do well regionally then I think they should target races that are important and let other team members contribute to local successes. There’s no hiding behind the muscle on your squad when he/she is out of town – guys are just gonna have to step up. Also, this solves the dilemma of having a Team Challenge race on the same wkend as lets say "housatonic". With this new set-up points could be made up the following club race and so on. I’m all for it. Now…..anyone have any leads on the TTT location or is this too soon to ask? Silvermine perhaps?
I think JT makes a good point, in that the Cup comp might not measure the absolute strongest team since the best riders may miss dates to race out of town. But it will be an interesting change. Maybe some supporting players have to step up under the new rules. And do we really think the top racers will pass up Fitchburg or Sommerville to do a CRCA race.
I think JT makes a good point, in that the Cup comp might not measure the absolute strongest team since the best riders may miss dates to race out of town. But it will be an interesting change. Maybe some supporting players have to step up under the new rules. And do we really think the top racers will pass up Fitchburg or Sommerville to do a CRCA race.
"With this new set-up points could be made up the following club race and so on."
Lee3, please think more carefully before you write. If you miss a club race one weekend and get zero points that weekend, you don’t get to race for more points the following weekend. You can’t "make up" points at the next club race.
is when competitors are allowed to drop their worst scoring participations, or only count points from about half or two-thirds of the events. So the competitor doesn’t have to try to score week after week, even though every week is part of the series. This is done in a variety of sports and works OK.
I like the new rules. (Granted, I’m on a team that will be racing more locally and not trying to be a regional powerhouse, so maybe I’m biased.) If there are only a handful of team cup races, those dates are inevitably going to conflict with out-of-town events. I remember one year when Smiley didn’t go to Christiana because VB were leading in the team cup standings with only a couple of races left. A team in that situation next year could afford to let a rider skip the club race because one day is not going to be so decisive. I think that’s what lee3 was getting at.
Also since fewer places count (top 6 instead of top 10 like in the past) there won’t be such an emphasis on placing more than one rider in the points, which might lead to more lively races.
Throttle back on the hate – and read JFT’s last post.
Data’s post was about the current rules.
They’re not the same thing. Your comment on "make up" made no sense.
I like the new rules. Most of the complaints seem to focus on CRCA riders doing club races rather than open races. I think that this issue is totally overblown. Some people travel to race and others don’t, and I don’t think that the club championship scoring system has much impact on that. The Smiley example is the only one I have ever heard of. Even if the scoring system did have an impact, I would guess it would have a favorable effect by placing less focus on any single club race.
What is so wrong about having local teams winning a local event, like the TC?
I like the rules becuase it makes teams decide if they want to be regional "powerhouses" or win the Team Cup. If a team has such big ambitions, lets see them win some real races or finish NRC races. The Team Cup should be beneath these super strong well sponsored CRCA teams that see the CRCA races as "training races".
Perfect examples are Lipton and Sakkonnet. They didn’t win the men and women’s Team Cup, but they scored NRC points.
The rules probably won’t change much. The fact remains that Axis probably would still have won the Team Cup last year with the new rules. They had 2 guys in the top 5 in Boyd Standings. And they won 4 CRCA races.
Opinions vary on this, but I think most club races shouldn’t have any importance at all. They should just be opportunities for club members to race together, imrove tactical skills, develop teamwork skills, etc.
The real racing should take place against people who are outside of the CRCA family. And the club races should help its members to compete in the broader arena.
I just think that the new rules favor the biggest teams, not the best teams. Was this intentionally meant to put the smaller teams at a disadvantage?
BTW, is it a coincidence that MASH aired on Mondays?
my money’s on el cupcake. schmalz, if you’ve finished that body-swap machine, i’ll come race and you can take my fluid mechanics final..sound good?
If points are cumulative, sure you can make-up the cumulative difference you lag behind. Sounds like people are reading this stuff with magnifying glass and miss the message. Even in the few ’06 team races there was overlap with out-of-town events. So more chances will level the field.
One change that might make it easier for score keeping and maybe even safer sprints is not going so deep. Give points to top 3 or 5 max and call it a day. Its not the worlds so why should being consistent # 8 be rewarded?
"So more chances will level the field. "
Yeah, level the field. How about points for all participants for just showin gup too? And let’s not make sure the system works againt the super-strong teams like Sakonnet, so even if they show up 4 or 5 times a year they don’t hurt our feelings.
How about let’s give the "best team" award for consistent attendence, and give every other team equal points for the series, so everyone can podium?
Those of you who are complaining about the new rules are ridiculous. If you race a lot out of town and go to big races, you should appreciate that the Park races aren’t serious "real" bike races, and the riders who attend them are hobbyists and not serious racers. Saying the new rules are bogus is like complaining that you can’t bring your stick and puck to free skate at the local rink to work on your slap shot. There are women and children skating around for christ’s sake! If you’re fit enough to do the out-of-town races, that you should be pretty darned happy about it. But because you are fit doesn’t make it your god-given right to "clean up" at home. Pick on someone your own size. Or prepare for a slap shot to the nuts and/or dick.
what it comes down to is that the team cups should represent an award for th teams that do best over the entire course of the CRCA club race season
Devin – no way am I body-swapping! I’ll going to witness the mastery of the cupcake first hand. Fluid dynamics? What’s so hard? Pour the fuild – it flows. Collect your A.
old rules, new rules – it’s all good. i predict i race some of them and miss others. can we just cancel any that are below 50 degrees at the start. that seems fair.
Hot Lips: "real" bike races? News Flash, no bikes races have "real" or "inherent" value. All amature bike races are just for fun. I have to laugh when people that can’t win a park race say that it is just for training, and then go out an get their butts kicked in a "real" race like Battenkill. D3 Pros would look at Battenkill and think it was some stupid training race. I mean, Battenkill is just for dilusional hobbists who think they are "real" racers. If you want to do a "real" race, do the Tour of California. But then again, real D1 Pros look at D3 pros as being losers who can’t race and should get a office job.
Those of you are supporting the new rules are ridiculous. If you don’t race a lot out of town and dont’ go to big races, you should appreciate that the Park races aren’t serious "real" bike races, and you shouldn’t be looking for affirmation of winning stuff other than a club race on the day. Saying the new rules are good is like going to a local skate rink and winning a pick-up game and asking for a special crown as that week’s "champion."
"i’ll come race and you can take my fluid mechanics final..sound good?"
Devin, if you think that’s fair, then you should get your piezometric head examined.
Bah-dump-bump!
Jon and Doc:
Thanks – I appreciate your support. Finally some people who are sensibly seeing the changes as they should be. NO BIG DEAL. It’s not like we’re ending world hunger or keeping babies out of microwaves.
And then the people that rip on park races then go out and do masters races. I mean, come on folks, masters racing is fine but it is handicaped racing becuase you are too old to race against people who are good. Just do it, but don’t think it is "real racing" and please don’t rip on CRCA racing after you drive out to do some 35+ or 40+ race. Please… please don’t do that..
I am inherently better than all of you.
"inherently better"
You should get a championship award.
If nothing else, the new rules will mix things up a bit and keep things interesting. Like the HH points races this year. Those were a fun change.
Also glad to see that Lee3 is back. I won $20 on that. Thanks Lee. You scared us with the "I’m done" post last week.
CRCA racing is better than cat. 3 racing
that the 6:00 races are roughly the same as an out of town cat 3 race. The Mengoni was slightly harder, but not that much. A California or Colorado cat 3 could probably come here during the peak of their season and have a pretty good chance at winning in the park.
I am not Hot Lips
Do we mean harder to be in the field and harder to finish 15th? Or to win? A guy like Molloy or Wiswell could clean a cat 3s clock if they were allowed in a USCF race. No cat 3 is going to beat guys recent Mengoni winners like Ciaran Powers or Melito Heredia or Joe Papp except in the flukiest of fluky races.
True, CRCA races are not that deep, but the top guys are a lot better than cat. 3
I was a top Cat 3 in Colorado and am pretty sure that when I was at the top of my game, I could have come here and been top 5 most of the time. Its just not that hard here.
I love how everyone who moves to NYC is no longer at the top of their game. Easy to say you could have when you no longer can.
you are all dum
And especially guys who say they are from Colorado, excepting Xavier of course. That one dude who wears the hammer gel kit is always talking smack, never seen him at a race though.
I’m with Shaw, everyone is raring to go in March and tired by August- move the whole season back a month, why not?
Observation:
Why is it that when nyc guys go out of town to big races in the NE they win?
It’s all easy compared to the IRONMAN where the real athletes compete. Drop your WUSSY road cycling, GET yourself a BENTO box and come out to do a PERSONAL BEST. I plan to crush you with my 17mph TIME TRIAL and a 5 hr marathon. I have eated nothing but GU and powerbars for the past 3 years, what are you WUSSY cyclists eating?
Do we have a confirmed rider list for the roller race?
btw, spillage in the village is nowhere near the village, east or west. that’s LES, maybe chinatown
Thor Hushovd has set his mind on new perspective. He’s now training in South of France. A meeting with his Cr
I love the idea of a CO racer coming here and slamming NYC racing just because hes strong enough to finish top 5. Clearly, a TOP Cat3 has a good shot of competing on the avg day, since the field is largely Cat 3 to begin with. Still, it seems a stretch that a win is in the cards even for such a rider, given the reasonable depth of our field and strength of the handfull of solid Cat 2s. Id say the only way to regularly get a top 5 finish is to assume that rider sits in and watches as the real strong men tire themselves out in a failed series of attacks. This is how I got 8th at the Turkey Race, but I have no illusions of being the 8th best rider in the field (or even 20th for that matter…) – just shows really that the diff between 8th and 1st is a pretty big gap (as is 5th to 1st), and Im frankly shocked that a solid Cat 3 would actually brag about taking 5th as if its some huge honor in a club race where half the strong men arent present on a given race day to begin with, and the other half are actually helping determine the race with aggressive riding. Go back to CO if you think you can find a deeper and stronger club to race in. Im sure it doesnt exist.
I again second the comments also made by Jason that we are long past proving the worth of NYC racing – just go to the results boards my friend…
"Id say the only way to regularly get a top 5 finish is to assume that rider sits in and watches as the real strong men tire themselves out in a failed series of attacks"
Sort of like Pettachi? Or Zabel? Or Thor? Isn’t that bike racing, dude?
"Spillage in the LES" doesn’t ryhyme.
ADM, I hear you and your basic point is correct, but it aint quite the same thing is it at our level? Thor still has to keep up with a massively strong field, incl the hills etc., and then power to the line against a much harder charging field than the CRCA (or any US amateur) field. Clearly they stay out of the wind, but its all relative to the field, which in the pros is deep all the way down to the last man, vs our field that is typically like 5-7 strong guys (on a given day – more in total clearly…), half of whom go for the break routine, leaving a more moderate set of riders to sprint against. Key diffs incl the lack of big lead-out trains for us (so slower last 3 mi), lack of total field depth, and sort-a lack of pure sprinters other than a couple of guys like Lowe, who rarely gets a real leadout anyway. Since my point was really about the difficulty of getting 5th (not beating Lowe et al), I think you can see my point here…
everyone needs to race Mt. Evans, then tell me hard hard park races are.
We can race Mt. Washington.
BTW unless you can follow Ned up Mt Evans or Mt Washington the race is only as hard as "you" can go.
You know, like a 112 mile TT….
IRON MAN 4-EVAH.
i would have loved to do it but the entry was like 300 or something crazy like that.
My basic point is absolutely correct: "Spillage in the LES" doesn’t rhyme.
I don’t know what your point is.
Chris M.-
The courses in NY are so much easier than in Colo bc the mountains just don’t exist. To say a top 5 in Colo, with the mountains and the altitude, isn’t better than an equivalent result in NY is just nuts. And that’s putting aside the competition, which is clearly superior in Colo.
In the Colorado vs. NYC discussion, are we talking about the "real" race or lower cat races like 3s, 4s and masters? Obviously, the pro-1/2 races are harder in CO becuase there are real pros there. But I am not conviced that the lower cat races are harder in CO. It’s not like they drink special water out there.
Dude – The field makes the course. FBF races are on an easy course but I wouldn’t call them easy races. It might be easy to sit in on Park races but with the exception of a few sprinters that’s a good way to gun for 8th place. Altitude doesn’t make much of a difference if you’re not living at sea level – evryone’s presumeably on the same playing field.
abcess in the LES.
that rhymes.
falldown in chinatown.
this could apply to the race or getting drunk
whoever wrote the response to Dude post makes good points.
Shaw . . where were you 8 weeks ago? You’ve got a talent for this naming thing. Nice.
Whoever thinks riders here are comparable to the ones in Colorado or California probably thinks the adult ed acting students in Poughkeepsie are the same as the ones in Hollywood. It just isn’t true. People in Cali can train all year round and have better, longer races to do. Its a simple fact that racing and training makes you better. Duh…
I think there is an inverse correlation between hours worked and racing ability. People work more in NYC and less in CO and CA.
to the comment of the riders make it hard not the course,
I think this makes zero sense. Do you think any pro woudn’t do a race because of the people in it?
Riders do ride the Giro or Flanders because they can’t climb or ride cobbles. I think the same applies here. I you don’t like climbing or can’t, you are not going to do Green Mt. or even say Union Vale.
I’m looking forward to some easy raging head and crosswinds at FBF this season.
Westies hate east coast NORBA races. "It’s too technical" "Too many rocks" "It’s too muddy" They do climb better though.
YO.
This is lookin’ like some East Coast / West Coast shit!!
But don’t be forgettin’ bout Hawaii bitchez.
Chris Cummings – you prove the point about the riders making the course hard. If you aren’t a climber and won’t do Green Mountain its because the other riders are stronger than you for that course so you’re self selecting yourself out of the mix. If a bunch of schlubs were riding it would be an easy race. Put a bunch of pros in a CP race like Mengoni and suddenly the race isn’t so easy.
i shot tupac
In Colorado, races are usually 500km with several 100,000ft climbs and 85 mph sprints. In the hilly races you have to wear a space suit and half the peloton drifts off the race course from lack of gravity. Not only are the courses way harder, but riders face killer bees, 200 mph cross winds, and fire breathing robots that win all the primes. Ever notice how Colorado riders all ride titanium bikes? It
I knew a Colorado CAT5 who put out 900W at FT, slept standing up and ate nothing but pine cones. They are way better in Colorado.
….if you dig chicks with hairy pits and dreads that reek of the sweet sweet stench of patchouli.
….if you dig chicks with hairy pits and dreads that reek of the sweet sweet stench of patchouli.
Am I the only one completely outraged that the CRCA TT’s have been banished to the minefield known as FBF when 400 cyclists with no handling skills are able to drown the park at 7:30AM on April 1st??!! What is up with this shit? Why the double standard? Most of these guys can’t avoid a pothole, let a lone a pedestrian yet they can start their race 90 minutes later (when the park is much more crowded) and have twice the number of riders. While we have to hike out to the wind tunnel known as FBF to TT on the cracked concrete and pray we don’t ruin a $1000 wheel. This is bullshit.
In Colorado we do our TTs out in the desert because we go too fast for regular roads.
If true, that is bullshit about TTs only at Floyd, but what can you do and what did we expect? You’ve got to pay to play and CRCA doesn’t give much cash to the city–runners and tris do. And there’s that thing that happened.
That Navigator guy already proved 5 lap spring series races can be nearly impossible for everyone but Harris. The Navigator dropped everyone by himself.