Tripleshot Cycling

Pics and results are up:

http://www.duanebc.com/raceresults2010/ ... sults.html

Good showing off TS - I think we had 11 racers out and Dave, Rita, Josh and Jen all scored points. As for me, I really enjoyed the race and was able to hang on in a chase group consisting of myself, Dave, Al and two other riders. Definately need to work on my cornering though!

Steve

My night went really well right up until the last sprint.
I managed to stay with the lead group the entire race. There was one guy off the front who never got caught. It was a very sporadic pace, with a lot of slowing right down before corners and then really hard attacks out of them. That sort of style is going to crack anyone in the back half of the pack, so I tried to stay in the front 3rd. It was a harder overall pace than other Caleb pikes I've done, and lots of guys were losing contact with the lead group. I didn't hit start on my Garmin, so I'm not sure how fast the pace was.

On the last lap on the bottom straightaway, a group of 4 broke away, Bob Cameron was in there for sure, not sure who else, and the guy in front of me couldn't keep the wheel. I had to jump around him and bridge back up, which was way more work than I wanted to do on the last lap, but it was either that or let the group of 4 ride away at that point. I managed to catch them, and drag most of the rest of the group back right after the corner on to the back stretch. Then there was about 15 seconds of playing around and the attacks started to the finish. I managed to get about 6th place coming down the hill, and as the sprint started, I started to come around with a clear line on the left, and was thinking I was actually in a position to come around and contest it.

Then, all of a sudden a guy right beside me made contact with another rider, and almost went down, his bike jackknifed sideways and then came veering across toward me. At this point we've got to be doing around 60km/h, with at least 10 more guys right behind us. I thought I was going down for sure, and there was nothing I could do to avoid it. Scary feeling. At the last second he managed to partially right himself, I braced myself and we hit shoulders. I think the contact helped him get his balance back. At that point the sprint was done for everybody except the 6 or so guys right at the front who were just ahead of the mayhem.
I looked around as I recovered and started to come up the hill, no longer pedalling very hard, and looked around. I didn't see anyone, and thought I was by myself. As I came to the line, I got knipped for 8th place by a guy in an IRC jersey who I didn't even know was there. You can see the look of disgust on my face I had in myself for letting him get around me. Funny.

Results:
http://duanebc.com/raceresults2010/VCL% ... _28_10.htm

Photos
http://duanebc.smugmug.com/Sports/Victo ... 9758_B6M6z

Steve's right, the was an impressive number of TS racers out last night, and we were represented in the top ten of all three races. Good going everyone, and to Dwayne et al. for managing this series so well.

Heidi was teasing me (us) a little when I arrived home. "Dominated the race" she echoed my report from many weeks back when we took five of the top six spots in the first Caleb Pike B race. "Thought you were ready for the A's" she laughed. Then some real A's showed up.

In fact, Josh was right there again last night, so it's clear that at least one of us was ready for promotion. It's still a lot of fun even though the objectives have changed. Forget points, just try not to get lapped!

Side note: Have a look at those videos of the Sardegna race that Peter posted links to; there are a few good frames of Peter, especially in the first stage (just have your finger ready on the pause button).

JT

Yes, definitely a good showing last night. This was my first Caleb Pike as a 3-Shotter. Given the shellacking I received at Newton Heights the previous week, I set a couple of modest goals for myself.

a) finish
b) not get lapped by the lead B's

I managed to stay near the front half of the pack for a while, but around lap 6 I found myself near the back, then missed an acceleration which split the group. A main group of 8 went up the road and a chase group formed including me, steve, dave, quentin and a couple other guys. The chase group thinned somewhat over the next few laps and we rode to the finish with 5.

Bit of confusion near the end though. As we came through on lap 8, the "laps to go sign" said 2. When we came around again, it still said 2. We assumed it was a mistake and we were in fact on the last lap, so the sprint to the finish was on. I burned what remaining matches I had coming up the final hill as was greeted by the ringing to the final lap bell. ACK! (Mental note: ignore the "laps to go" sign. When you hear a bell ringing, you have 1 lap to go).

Congrats to Dave for getting into the points, and thanks to Dave and Steve for pulling around the last lap.

Al

Josh has been bugging me all day to put up a race report, so here goes.

I decided to race this week. This was my first ever road race and I had no idea what to expect. My goal was to stay with the main B pack until the finish and just take whatever position I got from that.

Goal not accomplished

As Al wrote, I was in the chase group after the B pack split and I was happy to be there! I was thinking to myself, as long as I can finish with my teammates, I'll be happy.

But it was not meant to be.

I burnt a few too many matches early on by chasing down a break away on lap 2, which turned out to be a total waste and something I was warned against doing! Also, I don't have the same climability as the other B riders (too many cookies and not enough riding). You add that all up and by lap 8 a gap opened between me and the chase group and there was nothing I could do to close it.

See you later chase group, it was fun while it lasted.

I rode the next few laps (I also saw #2 twice!) solo, until a couple of shelled A riders came by. I hopped on their train and we rode to the finish together (but they had 1 more lap to go). It was at that moment that my wife showed up to cheer me on. She was really excited because she thought I was in 3rd. No chance of that!

No matter what my finish position was, I had a great time and I can't wait to do it again.