Hellyer Friday Night 16 June

Race: Cat 3
Field: 14
Teammates: Erik O, Steve M
Did a little informal rolling resistance test and found that the Vredestein tires I have been using for the past two years were bad, only a little better than the cheap Ritchey Race Slick training tires I use on my road bike. Michelin pro race 2's were tremendously better, and the Vittoria Corsa Evo CX's a little better on top of that. 20-30 watts doesn't seem like a lot but I did much better this week with the good tires than last week with the poor tires.

Got to the track a bit early. This was really good because I quickly realized I left my wallet at home. My warmup consisted of driving home and driving back, got to the track with five minutes to spare. On the plus side I remembered the heart rate transmitter during my first visit to the track, unlike last week. Next as I was trying to set the zero offset I managed to change the recording rate to 10 seconds instead of 0.5 seconds. I gave up trying to figure out how to fix it and went into the first race, and figured out how to change it back after I got the butterflies out of my system during the first race. So the first race is not in the screenshot since the SRM downloads data that is recorded at different rates in different files and I did not feel like posting two screenshots.

Attacked early, got caught after two laps, George M went, I waited a bit and attempted a bridge, saw someone on my wheel after three laps so I eased up so I didn't pull them to George as we both use pretty much the same race strategy - attack and attack until you can't attack any more - why fight each other?, and when I saw the whole field there, just let them pass me and cruised in after the field.
10 lap win and out with 10 second recording interval
T: 5:08
S: 41.9
C: 99
Pavg: 290
Pnorm: 321
H: 186

Attacked at the gun and had Jared and Specialized for company pretty quickly. Got in a rhythm and we shared the first three sprints. After about five more laps I could see Elliot bridging. Was not pulling as much but also was not getting any sprint points, we stayed away until the end and managed to get fourth.
12 lap snowball
T: 5:47
S: 44.2
C: 106
Pavg: 303
Pnorm: 323
H: 191

George attacked early and another rider bridged up. I patrolled the front to prepare to jump on anyone's wheel that attempted to bridge up, kept the pace up a bit and no one wanted to work to chase them down for a while. After three laps of this someone finally upped the pace and I spent the rest of the race on Scott R's wheel except at one point, Specialized hooked me when I was behind him and in the sprinter's lane and he was above the sprinter's lane but I just went into the blue band to avoid any issues and he later apologized, no worries. On the last lap George was only about 50 meters ahead and Scott turned on the afterburners and started his move. I do not think he realized I was on his wheel as he gave up very early after turn four and with about 10 meters to go I pulled even but he was able to put in a micro sprint to take fourth with me fifth.

15 lap scratch
T: 6:42
S: 44.0
C: 105
Pavg: 245
Pnorm: 261
H: 186

A small group got away and I just followed wheels until 11 to go when my turn to pull what was left of the pack. I started upping the pace to see if we could get back into the race when behind me on the home stretch I heard the sound of wheel spokes breaking then the sound of bike on concrete. What I was told was someone permitted their front wheel to overlap slightly with someone elses rear wheel and when that rider in front moved a bit, it started taking out spokes in his front wheel, and he almost saved it but lost too many spokes and landed a bit hard on his knee and hip. He did not want an ambulance but I think we should have called one anyways given his difficulty in walking afterwards. Our race was neutralized and restarted after this - my legs didn't have a good start from the rail in them so I was dropped immediately and just did the 8 laps solo.
20 lap points race
before crash
T: 6:24
S: 43.8
C: 104
Pavg: 221
Pnorm: 225
H: 183
after pause for crash (solo off the back immediately. wah.)
T: 3:49
S: 41.7
C: 100
Pavg: 291
H: 181

For the evening I got in the equivalent of three vo2max intervals when I spent time off the front or off the back. No real sprint efforts except for the standing start restart of the points race. I possibly should have done more work in the scratch race at the end, and forced Scott to work more for his placing as that was purely an aerobic effort until our micro sprint, and next time I will go for more points in the snowball...