It was a great day of racing, excellent weather, and good size fields in every category.
This year the NCNCA stepped up to help take ownership in the District Championship by cover the cost of the Chip Timing and Finish Line services of One2Go.
The promotion this year was a combined effort by InfoVista Cycling Team, a small group of athletes dedicated to off road racing, and ThristyBear Cycling, a premier road team.
We are interested in racer's feedback, and commenting on this blog is a great way for us to capture your opinions and pass them on to the appropriate people.
It would be helpful if you would use these topics with your comment.
Race Promotion and course set up.
Scoring/Chip Timing (these comments will be forwarded to the NCNCA BOD)
On behalf of all my hardworking teammates on InfoVista Cylcing Team, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for making our event a success.
Cheers
Ron Castia,
Race Director/Hack Commentator
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7 comments:
Ron -
You're timing experiment cost 2 people broken clavicles, untold medical bills, broken equipment, and a lot of pain and suffering. Narrowing a short criterium finishing straight for the the purpose of testing an unncessary timing system is completely irresponsible.
Combining the 50+ and 55+ was almost as bad. It made for negative racing and I'm sure contributed to yet another crash in the final corner where 55+ guys going for the win were sprinting into and around 50+ guys just cruising in. This is after we were told via email that you were in fact going to separate the fields and tatoo us on our calves to distinguish the 2 categories in the event of a lapping situation. What happened to those ideas?
There should be no combining of fields where fields are larger than some threshold (say 30 riders) and certainly not in a championship event.
As a traffic engineer it surprises me that you would narrow the finish from the outside where the natural line out of the final corner places people. Same thing with where you placed the offical truck. I think all who raced would agree that IF you have narrow the finishing straight again (FYI - a timing system in a criterium is not a valid reason), do so from the INSIDE of the course.
Tony Reid
To Ron and all the others that put a lot of time into Sunday's race:
THANKS! It was really nice to have a master's championship in the bay area. The field size for the 45+ made it feel like a proper district championship. Alta Alpina has always done a great job, but it is nice to move things around (and a little closer to more racers). I hope some promoter steps up to have the masters RR championship in a new venue next year (Panoche, Pescadero, Patterson Pass, Leesville?).
With regards to the chip timing at a crit, I have to agree with Tony. I don't see any meaningful benefit in a crit, and if you have to narrow the course, that seems like a significant negative.
Thanks for hosting,
Rick Martyn
Like the Reverse Win n Out, timing chips in a crit have been tested and should now be retired. Waiting on the 40+ line for 10 minutes while the chips were mucked with alone was a reason to move on.
Thanks for having the championships close to Bay Area though. Much better than Minden.
I was one of the 55+ riders that had to avoid the yard sale in the last corner on the last lap of the 50/55 race and was lucky to have had the skills to avoid running over anyone over, bunnyhop the curb, and avoid slamming into a family with two young kids. as it was I was brought to a immediate halt from 33 mph to zero in less than a few heartbeats. I was also lucky to be able to lift my bike and myself up and finish the race in last place with minor damage to myself and my bike. I fully understand and accept the risks and responsibilities of bicycle racing. I did experience many riders on the last lap coming into the last corner who just sat up and had no legs. When I returned after the race to where I had crashed looking for my computer which had been launched, I witnessed the downed rider who had not fared as well. Still down and bleeding with people holding compresses to stop the bleeding. I turned to the family that I had almost creamed and offered my apologies. They were ok with that. That was my second crash in 39 years of road racing. My first was in 1981.
Pete Piepul
Thanks for the jersey Ron. Thanks for the race.
-Mary
I felt it was a great race. Like some others, only issue I had was with the narrowing of the field on the same side as you're pushing up against when you take a wide fast turn on the last turn. Saw people nip those barriers multiple times. Personally, I made sure to stay somewhat inside on the turn and not risk it. :-)
I hope the next one is somewhere in the bay area again!
Thanks for the fun race. Are results posted anywhere?
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