Orwell League R7

buffalo

One boardsie was resplendent in his boards.ie regalia, taking his maiden win on his debut. Hopefully someone got a photo!

ROK ON

The boardsie winning L/SL tonite was great value for the win - he was rarely out of the front three and worked hard for the duration of the race.
Well done.

I had a horrible race. I have been feeling crap for a few weeks and am on antibiotics at present. I didn't want to race at all and seriously contemplated not coming out. I then thought I would go out and do five laps, collect the points for turning up and pull out.
After a few laps of sitting in at the back I found myself off the front on my own for almost a lap. I didn't want to be there so I sat up and waited to be caught - that was a mistake in that I lost so much momentum that I was spat out.
Dropped like a stone. Ended up about 1/3 - half a lap down with two other blokes.

Didn't want to be there so spent about five laps working to get back on - simply used it as TT practice and worked a steady pace until I dropped my compadres at finally got back into the front group.

Sat at the back between 8th & 9th place and wheelsucked for final 10 minutes. Did no work whatsoever and continually wanted to pull off and drop out. I saw there was only a few laps left so I just kept in touch and rolled home.

Mentally I wasn't there at all - I almost brought down a rider as I almost hit her wheel and had to brake - thankfully a near miss.

I was never out of breath and found the pace handy even when dropped, I simply didn't want to be there.

Glad I turned up and completed nonetheless.
Thanks to all marshalls.

Nice turnout in L and SL tonight but the handicap given to us in limit was way too generous and possibly unfair on the guys in SL.

buffalo

ROK ON wrote: »

Nice turnout in L and SL tonight but the handicap given to us in limit was way too generous and possibly unfair on the guys in SL.

It's something the league committee are aware of, and will hopefully get better at. With the smaller numbers in the bunches this year, and the fact that racing at Corkagh Park is so different from a road race... I mean, tonight wasn't even a minute's handicap, and the catch wasn't made. SS have likewise stayed away in Corkagh Park with a minute's handicap. But in last week's road race, Scratch were five minutes behind Limit, and caught them within a lap and a half of the Lakes circuit. So we're on a learning curve still, and the Corkagh Part of that curve is steep.

Ideally the SL group should work together and push hard until the catch is made, recover, then attack. I spoke to one SL rider who pulled out because he didn't feel SL were working together at all. And there was at least one (imo) league debutant in L who would better belong in SL. But yes, the handicap was very generous.

Starting the two groups together in the A race led to a real start-stop race. Guys would go off for a lap, come back, pace would stall for a lap, then another attack. My own legs weren't great, been tired all week, but tried to jump once or twice. Happy with my sprint.

Remember no race next week due to the Rás, and then we have two road races. So there's SL's chance to get revenge on L, before a R10 Crit, and R11 10m TT Champs. The champs are your chance to win a club medal - top three overall get gold, silver and bronze at the end of the year.

Dowee

buffalo wrote: »

It's something the league committee are aware of, and will hopefully get better at. With the smaller numbers in the bunches this year, and the fact that racing at Corkagh Park is so different from a road race... I mean, tonight wasn't even a minute's handicap, and the catch wasn't made. SS have likewise stayed away in Corkagh Park with a minute's handicap. But in last week's road race, Scratch were five minutes behind Limit, and caught them within a lap and a half of the Lakes circuit. So we're on a learning curve still, and the Corkagh Part of that curve is steep.

Ideally the SL group should work together and push hard until the catch is made, recover, then attack. I spoke to one SL rider who pulled out because he didn't feel SL were working together at all. And there was at least one (imo) league debutant in L who would better belong in SL. But yes, the handicap was very generous.

Starting the two groups together in the A race led to a real start-stop race. Guys would go off for a lap, come back, pace would stall for a lap, then another attack. My own legs weren't great, been tired all week, but tried to jump once or twice. Happy with my sprint.

Remember no race next week due to the Rás, and then we have two road races. So there's SL's chance to get revenge on L, before a R10 Crit, and R11 10m TT Champs. The champs are your chance to win a club medal - top three overall get gold, silver and bronze at the end of the year.

I appreciate there is a learning curve but the handicaps have been ridiculously generous in all the races. In 3 of them SL finished over half a lap down. There is either an unwillingness or inability for the SL group to work to catch the L group. As an SL rider who starts the race wanting to catch the riders ahead it is very frustrating that there's only 5 or 6 others who are like minded or able to close the gap.

In the one week we did catch the L group the handicap was smaller and 5 or so of us had to leave the SL group immediately to catch up. Even at that only 3 or so of us managed it on the last lap.

Beasty

What's the length of races you do at Corkagh Park guys? I know the circuit is 1.3km, so half a lap is 0.6km or so - not much more than a minute. I know in the Swords League we could have up to 5 minutes between groups over an hour or so race (although I appreciate the flat course makes staying away a bit easier, at Sundrive the gaps in a "Hare and Hound" is typically around 250m over a 5km race and usually gets closed down)

buffalo

Beasty wrote: »

What's the length of races you do at Corkagh Park guys? I know the circuit is 1.3km, so half a lap is 0.6km or so - not much more than a minute. I know in the Swords League we could have up to 5 minutes between groups over an hour or so race (although I appreciate the flat course makes staying away a bit easier, at Sundrive the gaps in a "Hare and Hound" is typically around 250m over a 5km race and usually gets closed down)

Scratch race was 30mins + 1 lap. Worked out as 21km. I think the Limit groups did the same, and overall only did a lap less from the looks of Strava.

buffalo

But yes, the track seems to have a beneficial effect on the handicaps.

I think the main difference is that the chasing group is not able to work together as well as on the road due to all the corners - though this should affect the chased as well.

Perhaps it's because you only need a couple of strong riders in a group to keep the pace high because the groups are constantly lined out, so a few strong men in Limit will mean they can keep SL at bay. I think it might be somewhere between a TT and a road race, so the first week we raced, the group I was chasing had a couple of good testers in it, and we didn't dent the gap at all.

Dowee

Beasty wrote: »

What's the length of races you do at Corkagh Park guys? I know the circuit is 1.3km, so half a lap is 0.6km or so - not much more than a minute. I know in the Swords League we could have up to 5 minutes between groups over an hour or so race (although I appreciate the flat course makes staying away a bit easier, at Sundrive the gaps in a "Hare and Hound" is typically around 250m over a 5km race and usually gets closed down)

Tonight was 30 mins racing plus one lap. A significantly larger Limit group were given 50 seconds.

Personally I think it's a combination of large handicaps, a insignificant gap in average talent between the groups and an SL group which apart from the same few riders doesn't seem to work together.

There seems to be a lack of understanding that it isn't really a race until we catch Limit.

Beasty

Do you always run 2 separate races or have you tried one with all groups (which would limit handicaps further)?

(We're looking at putting a couple of events on for Swords members and I'm thinking about what format works best)

buffalo

Beasty wrote: »

Do you always run 2 separate races or have you tried one with all groups (which would limit handicaps further)?

(We're looking at putting a couple of events on for Swords members and I'm thinking about what format works best)

So far it's always been two races. I've no idea what the committee have in mind for the future, but I imagine if we combined everyone, most of limit and semi-limit would be dropped sharpish. The accordion effect is quite pronounced on the track. The smaller numbers are safer too.

FrankGrimes

In fairness, racing in Corkagh is so different to both road and a standard oval track that it's hard to apply handicap principles from other disciplines to it. The committee probably just need to be given time to figure it out which is understandable given it's a new experience for all. I would suggest that they err more towards the shorter end of the spectrum of what they deem viable as worst case is then Limit get caught a little earlier than they otherwise would, but they're still in the race. As it is, it was quite frustrating to be busting a gut tonight and not having a realistic chance of catching them. I definitely think the track can't take a larger group - overtaking is hard enough already.

But the handicap was only one of three relevant factors. The second is that the boardsie that won it is, by all accounts, a powerhouse and apparently did the vast majority of the work in Limit (I'm always happy to hear guys that put the work in getting their reward). One of my mates used to work with him and thinks he may have raced before, and based on tonight's performance I'd imagine he won't be long being upgraded. No doubt he'll have a strong impact in Semi-Limit too.

The benefits of the group effect do really seem to be limited on what is a narrow, technical track versus what they are in the road, but yet on the flip side, it's definitely a lot harder to open and maintain a gap on a group than it is on the road: both the guy in blue in SL (initials RG) and I tonight put in very big digs at times that I know from experience would generally open a decent gap in A4 Open races (chances of sustaining the gap is another matter) but in Corkagh they led to max 20 yard gap. So it's hard to describe, but there's definitely something different about it.

The other factor was the lack of a collective effort in SL. Personally, I was on the rip till 2am in London after a work do last night and flew back and had a hectic day in work and made it to Corkagh at 18:48 so barely had time to sign-on and change let alone warm-up. So I was consciously using the first few minutes to warm-up as I didn't exactly have an ideal preparation. That said, it was no bad thing as I generally take a 'we need to first worry about the handicap before competing against each other' approach and get impatient when so few are willing to work, so I generally get drawn into doing more than my fair share of work, so holding back for a few mins saving energy was no bad thing.

But I could only do that for 5mins or so as the lack of a collective chase was really dire. There were mainly the usual 4 suspects prepared to do the work and everyone else was just sitting in - they didn't look to me like they were suffering so it seemed to be a conscious choice. From that point on I took the 'regardless of the outcome, the purpose of a club league race is to develop' approach and said I'd at least get a good workout out of it so started sharing a lot of the work. We did up the pace a lot for the second two-thirds, but the gap just wasn't coming down and with 5mins to go it did look like a no-hoper but we kept the hammer down to get the full workout under the belt.

For me it was one of those cases where I find the benefits of looking at power data afterwards to be invaluable: I'd otherwise have left thinking it was a bit of a write-off race but then I saw I'd done 320watts for the 32mins (356w normalized) and was delighted with that as that's towards the top-end of what I can achieve at my peak so walked away happy knowing a workout like that after the less than ideal prep is certainly another step in the right direction. Frustrating as it was at times, tonight definitely felt like we were in a race and everything above is basically all the rough and tumble that goes with it and for me the talking and thinking about it and anticipating the next one is half the craic and it all keeps it interesting...so roll on the next one (away with work next week so amn't exactly down about there not being a race next week, though if I was hear I'd be gagging for a race!).

pprendeville

Is the Orwell league open to other club members or strictly Orwell only?

seamus

buffalo wrote: »

So far it's always been two races. I've no idea what the committee have in mind for the future, but I imagine if we combined everyone, most of limit and semi-limit would be dropped sharpish. The accordion effect is quite pronounced on the track. The smaller numbers are safer too.

I'm sure there's a way of structuring it so that there's a half lap handicap between each class, meaning that the scratch guys are 1.5 laps behind the limit guys. Still though, if you had 12-15 riders in each class, it could become very messy when everyone starts to bunch up, not to mention impossible for the marshals to see who's who.

Maybe mixing it up a little could be fun, e.g. do L -v- SS and SL -v- S with a lap handicap, or even L -v- S with a two lap handicap.

pprendeville wrote: »

Is the Orwell league open to other club members or strictly Orwell only?

It's only open to Orwell members who've signed up for the league specifically.

Hmmzis

Was my first time out in Corkagh park and absolutely loved it.

In the warm up had a chat with a scratch group rider who kindly gave me a tour through the corners to show how grippy the surface is. I'm still in dropped jaw mode from the grippines of it. Thanks to him I knew that dive bombing the corners was not only doable but also very advisable.

On the first lap sat in a bit just to get the feeling back for a tight bunch, last race I did was back in mid March and hadn't cycled in a bunch since. On the second lap or so started moving up and not long after that found myself on the front. I think I was doing a good amount on the front, taking some laps in between to get a breather. Midway through was keeping an eye out for the chasers. The gap appeared to be stable for a while but towards the end they were not in the usual spot anymore so thoght that they must be close. Decided to add a bit more pace to try and keep them at bay, it worked since we didn't get caught. With about 2-3min left decided to sit in a bit give the legs a bit of rest before the gallop. On the bell went for broke, the bunch lined out nicely, on the last corner a guy in deep sections went on the attack, dug in to reapond and was side by side for a second, looked up to check where the flag was and then sprinted for dear life, calves almost gave up but manged to hold on to the line for the win. Delighted with my first ever result and in front of the family, too. Looking forward to the next one, might be with the chasers then.

makker

Hmmzis wrote: »

Was my first time out in Corkagh park and absolutely loved it.

In the warm up had a chat with a scratch group rider who kindly gave me a tour through the corners to show how grippy the surface is. I'm still in dropped jaw mode from the grippines of it. Thanks to him I knew that dive bombing the corners was not only doable but also very advisable.

On the first lap sat in a bit just to get the feeling back for a tight bunch, last race I did was back in mid March and hadn't cycled in a bunch since. On the second lap or so started moving up and not long after that found myself on the front. I think I was doing a good amount on the front, taking some laps in between to get a breather. Midway through was keeping an eye out for the chasers. The gap appeared to be stable for a while but towards the end they were not in the usual spot anymore so thoght that they must be close. Decided to add a bit more pace to try and keep them at bay, it worked since we didn't get caught. With about 2-3min left decided to sit in a bit give the legs a bit of rest before the gallop. On the bell went for broke, the bunch lined out nicely, on the last corner a guy in deep sections went on the attack, dug in to reapond and was side by side for a second, looked up to check where the flag was and then sprinted for dear life, calves almost gave up but manged to hold on to the line for the win. Delighted with my first ever result and in front of the family, too. Looking forward to the next one, might be with the chasers then.

Well deserved bro, sounds like you were good value for the win.

Dowee

makker wrote: »

Well deserved bro, sounds like you were good value for the win.

We could have done with your legs last night. Between Frank partying and being hungover and me doing a marathon the previous Sunday there wasn't too many more candidates willing or able to drive the group along