Palace 20th May 2008

[Michelle]

Brilliant result for the blokes.

Pity about your flat Stu.

Well done Maria, obviously not been chucking up beforehand this week! Guess it helps, eh.

Keep racing Tamar, it's really gonna help you in the TTs, honest.

[Stu Merckx Man]

oh steve i forgot to mention you as well. well done!

[Tony]

Hey - lots of more good results last night. Well done folks.

Toks - was interested to know what was involved in the 'blocking'. Refusing to co-operate in a break etc. is fine - e.g. if you are protecting teammates further up the road (or back in the bunch with a good GC position). Also controling the pace of of the bunch is something I've seen done too effectively by Recycling Team in Surrey League 5-day combined with covering any counter-attacks. However, at no point was any "blocking" involved. It was a consistent high pace to deter attacks - but not enough to bring the breakaway back.

I can think of instances that involved 'blocking'. In one example, it involved crowding the front of the bunch, deliberately slowing it (helped by road marking - i.e. solid white lines to deter anyone from overtaking). In those circumstance, it was at best an unsporting act and in actual fact it was pretty irresponsible. It was performed by members of another large SE-based club - not ACC.

I'm not suggesting for one second you would do anything like the second example - but given we have some quite inexperienced racers who may be reading the forum it's best to be clear about what we mean by 'blocking'.

[Steve B]

No No No, Lets not go there, we did nothing of the sort. When Hal came through to join the other two up front, I went with him, but eased back to sit on the front. I, and toks too, at no point did any blocking of any sort, or deliberate slowing down, which would have been dangerous and 'unsporting'. We did however decide to 'not chase' the guy's up the road, and that was our prerogative. We kept the pace the same as it had been, but it meant anyone wanting to chase would have had to do it themselves - because we weren't, simple.

And I think we did it rather well

Steve

[Toks]

Hi Tony, as you probabaly know this 3/4 cat racing is much of a muchness. There's a minority of really strong guys but apart from that everyone is pretty close in fitness terms. In fact between myself, Hal, Kieran, Steve, and Wal (not sure yet ) there's very little in it. Change the circuit and there will be other ACC players.

Palace is a great leveller so even if you're fairly strong in my three years of racing there apart from Eric Rowsell most people have required either confusion (E12's cruising past) or help from team mates 'blocking' to get away. All I did was when on the front eased up a touch on the climb or on the bends. There was loads of room to get around me on either side and it certainly wasn't dangerous. I think some guys think I'm quite strong so perhaps were too focussed on staying with my back wheel rather than what I was actually up to. To be fair one or two guys were wise to what I was doing and eventually sprinted around me.

Its not a tactic that I'd like to rely on but its legal, safe and a good one; I've seen numerous teams (LD, DP, Quest, Economic Energy) all use it to devastating effect

[kieran]

I would add that we didn't have enough up front at any one time to really block the circuit, at most we had 2 up front at any one time (and not side by side) so plenty of room to over take, I have noticed at Palace this year a lot of people are reluctant to take the front (including me up to this race but not any more, its too boring) and seem to wait till the final lap to put in any big effort. This, I think, is a change from my first year, but then every one was trying to chase Eric Roswell, which made it much more interesting! I remember the group being ripped apart and there being no large leading group. So, when toks and steve were 'blocking' the others could easily have passed them and done a turn up front but instead semed to decide to save their energy for the final sprint. I think it is interesting to note that the dulwich rider indicates that the bunch gave up chasing the break when they had half a lap on us, we still had about 10 laps to go, if they had really tried and got their act together they should have been able to close this?

[Sylv]

i miss those 3/4 races too! it's not as much fun when all you can do is hang on for grim death
well done to everyone very impressed, esp mike and adam wow
have been too busy to race or post this week, which is just as well as been feeling total crap on the bike
roll on next week

[Andrew G]

[quote="Sylv"]it's not as much fun when all you can do is hang on for grim death

[Marek]

Nice result, not surprised Hal was up there after seeing his form at the weekend.

Cheers

Marek.....

[quote="Andrew G"][quote="Sylv"]it's not as much fun when all you can do is hang on for grim death

[kieran]

planning on dropping back to 3rd cat then? How are the others doing in collecting points to keep as 2nd cat?

[Sylv]

doing my best not to, but only 7pts so far

i'm enjoying a bit more the mtb races at the moment - at least you know that if you are even a little a bit stronger than others, you will finish ahead of them

[Andrew G]

Probably a SOTBO but is it noticably more serious once you get to a 2nd cat, need to train and focus more etc etc? Perhaps a little less "fun" or freedom to mix it up with a bit of everything.

[Sylv]

Yeah i might lose out on the tongue-out front to Snoop as well!!

[-Adam-]

[quote="Andrew G"]Probably a SOTBO but is it noticably more serious once you get to a 2nd cat, need to train and focus more etc etc? Perhaps a little less "fun" or freedom to mix it up with a bit of everything.