FYI

-----Original Message-----
From: Alden Tanaka [mailto:atanaka@...]
Sent: Wednesday, September 08, 2004 11:10 PM
To: NCCAConfDirs@...
Subject: FW: [CalCycling] weekend at the velodrome

Hi everyone,

Here's one of two reports from one of my Cal Berkeley riders on their
experience at our track conference championships at UC San Diego.
Thought you might like the read.

Best,
Alden


----- Original Message -----
Subject: [CalCycling] weekend at the velodrome

I thought I'd throw my perspective of the weekend out there. Before I go
Any further, I have to thank the UCSD team for putting the weekend
together.
It is truly a shame more schools/people didn't take advantage of having
a collegiate track race weekend. I was pretty intimidated about going,
as there are typically few women at such events and as Paul alluded to
previous to this weekend my track/fixed-gear experience amounted to one
3-hr clinic.

But a collegiate race setting allowed me to ask a zillion questions and
Get very good support from our far more track-experienced compadres to
the south. Also a huge thanks to Alden for letting me use his bike.

Paul was very excited about stopping to get pea soup along the way, and
I acquiesced, despite fears of many hours in a car with Paul and Dan
after consumption of all-you-can-eat pea soup. I survived the car ride
probably b/c I fell asleep, but I thought that I was being serenaded by
a large family of trumpeter swans in Gabe's living room when trying to
sleep later on. Saturday morning was particularly noteworthy for me as
we did the ride of Emily's Housemates Past and Present.

We proceeded to sit in traffic the entire way from LA to San Diego, but
the gas station incident certainly livened things up. The embarrassed
looks on Paul and Dan's faces when I walked up were priceless.

Track racing is very different from road racing. The bikes are fixed
gear and you don't have a brake. Overall, Paul, Dan and I did the best
at events that didn't require much use of "velodrome tactics". There are
ways to strategically utilize the banking of the track, which our paltry
experience did not teach us very well. The other thing is that there are
a whole bunch of races. Ideally (and apparently typically) one knows
their strengths and picks and chooses their races. I heard many
conversations about "track is all about conservation of energy" this
weekend. So of course Paul, Dan, and I did every single event (we wanted
to earn our second place). We even entered the team pursuit, in which
two teams start at opposite sides of the track and try to catch each
other. This was a men's event, but needed three people, so Paul on a
rented bike, myself on a borrowed bike, and Dan (picture us like we are
about to start a crit) went up against three UCSD guys in full aero
getup, including the fancy bikes and aero helmets (and a coach on the
sidelines yelling advice). Our goal was to hold out for 6 laps...we made
it three. But in the spirit of collegiate competition and gaining
experience it was a lot of fun. That is, I decided it was fun after I
was able to catch my breath and color returned to my face from trying to
stay with them. Paul and Dan were very good sports about my limitations
on our team speed.

As Paul mentioned, we didn't really warm up properly for our races.
Also, the events are such that a person could really benefit from
practice. I learned that I was better at the shorter time trials, and
that it is really hard to sprint well immediately after doing a TTT with
two guys. I think a lot of why I really enjoyed the weekend was due to
it's novelty. It was really very different from road racing. The sprint
matchup between Paul and Dan did in fact make my day. What Paul failed
to mention is that out of all of the race finishes in all the events the
entire weekend, Dan's victory whoop as he crossed ahead of Paul was the
only one.

So, in all, I finished third in the women's omnium! Out of three :-) I
am happy to say that I did not finish last in all the events (as I'd
feared I would after I realized that Ashley's "I haven't been doing much
on the track" meant "I did the beginner level class and the intermediate
level class and I come here a couple times a week and have been doing
the races all summer") Paul had his first mass start race victory ever,
and Dan got second in the sprint tournament, beating Paul in the
process. And it was a tough one, but we managed to pull out second
place. I think we were all glad we went and had a really good time. And
we can vouch for the fact that UCSD does put on a good race weekend, and
the drive wasn't too terrible, so maybe if the road race weekend also
starts on Saturday afternoon we might be convinced to come.

Emily