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Thursday Night Points Racing

Thursday Morning, I got up and rode into work. Its been a rough week and a half, for reasons I won’t go into on my blog. Anyway, around the shit shoot(a hairy intersection about a mile into my commute), I get to thinking of the scene of A League of Their Own where Tom Hanks says “Are you crying? There’s no crying in baseball!!!”

I’m not sure if I was thinking of it because of work or cycling, but it brought a smile to my face, and at the very least got me thru the shit show that is the shit shoot.

Thursday night, I left work at about 6:10, and headed over to the bulldog(25th and Pennsylvania Ave) for the Philly Points race series. I got over there and rode around a bit to loosen up. Dudes showed up at about 6:20. People hung out and shot the shit for 10 minutes. The whole time I’m thinking great, these guys girlfriends are their bikes, this is never going to get started.

And then 6:30 came around and we were immediately off. I was fairly nervous and intimidated. lots of nice bikes, lots of fit young people. Basically no familar faces either. Except this one guy who is tall enough to be a center in the NBA with a Ned Flander’s moustache. This guy, I have ridden with on the Saturday morning ride. He blocks the wind fantastically. He didn’t recognize me. Its probably my new beard. and the lack of a ski mask.

Here is the course.

We got there. Everyone stopped. The rules were explained: Every 5th lap is a sprint lap. Oh yeah, and there was a gearing restriction: inside ring only. If you get spit out the back, keep going and hop back on.

First set of 5 laps, I hang with the pack until the lift for the 5th lap, and get spit out the back. Second set, I finish in the middle of the back. Third set, spit out the back at the beginning of the 4th lap. Fourth set, I finish in a second bunch. Away from the lead pack. Fifth set, I get dropped by the main group towards the end of maybe the 3rd or 4th lap. Sixth set, I maybe stay with the group for 3 laps and the rest I do on my own.

Thing that are scary: Riding in the dark in a pack. Although over time, the fear became managable. Perhaps not for the people who were riding around me, because my pack riding skills are not where they could be.

Things I have to work on: warming up properly: I’m pretty convinced I could have held it together for at least 2 sets if I had been warmed up. Holding wheels on turns: my cornering was rough, really rough at times. I would end up going wide and not holding my line thru the exit of my turns.

Things I was pleased I with:
Holding wheels on straights, even as the pace accelerated.

Figuring out how to come out of corners strong.

Figuring out when to accelerate and when to hold a wheel.

There was alot of spin up, coast, spin up, coast, repeat. I’m starting to get confident about doing a bit more work, knowing that the pace will let up a bit and I can rest.

I didn’t get lapped. Also, after the end of a set where I got dropped, folks would slow down and let you catch up so that you could sit in for as many laps in the set as you could. This is really helpful if you are working on your pack riding skills and are not super fit. I would characterize this as a friendly, open ride.