Sunday, June 26, 2011

Monday Night Madison

It rained last Friday but here is a photo from a couple of weeks ago showing me faking an attack. It worked just as good as the real thing - got the group up to full speed quickly.

http://www.wheelsinfocus.com/2011/MVA/617/pages/903C3768jpgmva6.htm





Last Monday Mark and I raced the Madison together. It was fun to be partners in a race. I felt like our slings were nice and close. I hope it works out for us to be partners again. It is hard because there are usually other riders wanting to partner with both of us.





Sunday, June 5, 2011

Friday Night Racing

My first race went pretty bad. I ended up last, blowing up 1/2 way through. It was a tempo race which means there are sprints every lap. Very hard.

Then a miss and out which was fun. I made it about 1/2 way before being eliminated.

The last race was the points race. Going into the first set of points the group slowed down so I went up high on the bank. I always do this so when the acceleration happens all I have to do is drop down the bank. I was the only one on the bank though. No one was paying attention to me either. I casually pick up the pace. I tried to be as smooth as possible so no one would realize what I had in mind. We came around corner 4 and I attacked hard down the banking. I quickly got a large gap. At that point no one wanted to chase because they would be leading out the others for the points. Perfect for me. I held the gap and was able to ease up before the line and still get the 5 points. I quickly rolled up the bank and dropped back on the back of the group and held on through the counter attacks. I didn't want to attack that early in the race but the opportunity was too good to pass up. I sat in for the rest of the sprints but I might have gotten one more point on the last one. I got fifth in that race and was pretty happy. The group this year is very strong so fifth is a good place for me.

Here are a couple of photos -

http://www.wheelsinfocus.com/2011/MVA/63/pages/903C9237jpgmva6.htm


http://www.wheelsinfocus.com/2011/MVA/63/pages/903C9156jpgmva6.htm

I also had a fun track practice today. Got in some good sling-shot practice.