Well, the Cat 3 race went off without a hitch, no crashes, no yelling, no crossing the yellow line- although, getting a paceline together was problematic. Yours truly was able to slot in 2nd right behind Geoff Wade Wade Goff (sorry man) (who got to take home quite a big cake). Almost all the other races had no problems.
That said, the Cat 1/2 race had some issues with centerlines and crashes. The 4 Women’s field was also had its share of controversy.
Riders must remember the following rules:
Stay to the right of the yellow line unless permission has been given. Blatant violations will be dealt with- which they have been. Those in question have also apologized (yellow line violation).
DO NOT yell at officials. When emotions are running high, go take a ride. Come back after you have cooled down and are able to talk reasonably and quietly.
DO NOT strike another rider.
DO NOT yell profanities at other riders.
DO NOT ride in a manner that could endanger other cyclists.
DO NOT pull to the left for service.
Piece of Cake has always had narrow roads, I understand that folks can get antsy, especially toward the end- wanting to move up. Please keep your and the safety of others in mind when you race. Many riders have families and kids, and most riders race for fun, not as an occupation.
proofreader guy wrote,
Uh, are you kidding? It’s Wade Goff.
Link | March 30th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
G wrote,
the 1/2 race was FUBAR. i couldn’t believe all those guys deliberately moving left over the line and drilling it, before a corner, shortly after someone else had already swerved over into an oncoming mini-van and detonated his bike and who knows how much of his body. ever see a fork attached to a wheel flying 12 feet above your head? its a weird sight.
Link | March 30th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
stevef wrote,
well the 3s are a whole new thing for me. Towards the end I got literally bounced between riders and people fought for a good position. After the 2nd time I almost went down, I thought: “You know, we don’t do this for a living, chill on the body checking!”.
Of course next time I’ll just push back.
Link | March 30th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
K-Man wrote,
Yah G- read your blog- that sounded horrible. I took a picture of the car damage- yuck. I saw the bike you mentioned after the race. Unfortunately, the guy who caused it didn’t even apologize. Last time I saw someone flying through the air like that was at the Senior Men Crit Champs 2 years ago. I’m just really glad no one was severely injured.
Steve- yeah, that course is really funky with the tight roads. For next year- remember that you have to move up with about 1 lap to go and try to maintain your position. You get locked in pretty quick after that, like the Vancouver Crit.
Link | March 30th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
am wrote,
From “http://commoncyclist.blogspot.com/”
“…then suddenly the whole Rubicon team is on the left side of the road and riding hard”
If this sort of stuff is corroborated, isn’t that grounds for suspension? I don’t race with them a lot, but the Rubicon guys tend to have a reputation for being exceedingly liberal with the yellow line rule.
Link | March 30th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
response to am wrote,
who are you to point out rubicon guys? do you even race with them all year? Maybe leave the comments when you see them, and tell them up front
Link | March 30th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
K-Man wrote,
I had a great chat with Norrene. Team Rubicon brings young guys over from New Zealand (guys like Tuckerman etc). The new folks are told that crossing the yellow line is prohibited- but as many young guys do, they’ll test until they are burned. They were burned, and the team handled it professionally and correctly.
Mind you… I wouldn’t want to be in the Rubicon household tonight.
Link | March 30th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Anonymous wrote,
waiting until the final 200m to open up the road for the sprint causes more harm than good. i only anticipate its done in this format though due to permits and the counties not allowing any more to occur. but it would seem to be better if the road could be opened up at 500 or 700m instead. this could only help alleviate some of the congestion and antsiness of the riders by allowing them more space to move around and find a position sooner. it just seems waiting for the 200m mark is too close to the finish line to finally open it up.
Link | March 30th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Kennett Peterson wrote,
I heard that the cat 4 race was pretty rough at the end too. I agree, opening up the road 200 or 300M earlier would probably make things much safer for most finishes. On a different note, I have a report of the Collegiate race this weekend.
http://kennettron.wordpress.com/
Link | March 31st, 2008 at 12:14 am
G wrote,
Waiting until 200m to open up the road sucks, since we’re going warp-speed in one lane when everybody and their mother wants to get around, start sprinting, attack early (pull a Cancellara) and the 200m rule ends up negating some of those tactics. However, logistically, you can’t try and close down the last couple k’s of a race, and we’ve all seen cars ignore officials and flaggers and drive right on through the finish line and against the course with a race coming down. At least at 200m the field is a) visible from the finish to any oncoming car and b) maybe 10s from the end of the race. If the last 1k was open, even, the likelyhood of someone getting smacked against an oncoming car ignoring the officials would increase dramatically. Maybe 500 or 700m would be OK on some courses, but I think it’s better to have consistency.
It sounds like in this case, there racing situation was clarified after the fact and there were consequences and a resolution. I hope that’s the end of that.
Link | March 31st, 2008 at 8:00 am
Steve wrote,
Kenji- Why does OBRA somehow refuse to DQ people on sight for crossing the centerline? There’s been lots of opportunities, and lots of warnings, and I hate to say it but by continuing to dish out not much more than warnings this crossing of the centerline is a learned behavior that’s going unchecked.
My personal favorite was in the short, fast circuit race at the 2006 Willamette Stage Race when a couple of dudes from the Symmetrics team would cross the centerline any time their services were needed at the front. That sort of rubbed me the wrong way, considering that plenty of us would have loved to have been able to get to the front that easily.
Another of my favorites was at the 3rd Banana Belt in 2005 in the Cat 3 race. The last lap, going across the dam, tere was a line up of cars in front of the peloton (and cars coming the other way as well). So instead of waiting, in ones and twos some riders crossed into the other lane, into the three or so feet between the traffic in both lanes, and passed a bunch of cars (including the official’s car — which is always illegal). The official on duty totally failed to take control. Which is pretty common in OBRA races. And the race winners rode off up the road at that moment while the rest of us who followed the rules were left to contest something like 20th place.
OBRA needs to enforce its rules. The racers aren’t in charge during a race, the officials are. And they need to know the rules themselves, and enforce them.
Link | March 31st, 2008 at 8:05 am
Kristin wrote,
The women’s cat 4 race was INSANE. I have never heard so much yelling in my life, and a rider pushed another across the center line (from what I could tell). Holy crap ladies, its cat 4. Seriously.
Link | March 31st, 2008 at 8:20 am
SB wrote,
The issue with the centerline in the cat 1/2 race was not just at the end of the race. There were centerline violations the entire race. It was too bad Rick was not in our follow car. A firm hand on the first violator could have kept things a lot more safe.
Apparently the judges were the ones to point out the Rubicon guys. I don’t see any one else with a dq next to their names.
Link | March 31st, 2008 at 8:26 am
Norrrene wrote,
SB and All,
I spoke to Terry who was the chief official and she said there where others who violated the centerline rule, however she only issued DQ to the Rubicon riders because she could make out our team kits clearly. She did not want to jeopardize the safety of the field by driving up there during the sprint to take numbers of all the other violators.
We accept the DQs, we made a mistake, we have new riders this year and sometimes the best lessons in life come from making mistakes. Going forward this won’t happen again.
If anyone has issues with the team please either call me at 503-806-2215 or send me an email at trubicon@comcast.net. we can discuss them and hopefully come to a resolution.
Respectfully
Norrene
Team Rubicon
Link | March 31st, 2008 at 9:15 am
Dave wrote,
The Cat 4 mens race was actually rather aggressive, but with decorum. The Portland Velo team crashed in the last corner, but it wasn’t bad, illegal, or overly aggressive riding, it was just bad luck. The guy couldn’t have been doing anything more right, his front wheel just went away on that slick, freshly hailed on pavement.
Otherwise, there were no other crashes. There wasn’t much yelling, either.
The race was good overall. Lots of good racing, and for the most part, cool heads prevailed all day.
Link | March 31st, 2008 at 10:14 am
Not There wrote,
I missed the Piece of Cake race this year for a few reasons, however I have raced that course numerous times in the past. And there always seems to be issues. Last year at the finish of the CAT 1/2 Race the offical car drove up next to the peleton to DQ those crossing the centerline in the last 3K, however this cause more harm then good caused riders to panic and squeeze in tighter on an already tight section of road. This year it sounds like riders crossed the centerlin, but the offical made the decision not to drive up next to th peleton at the finish. Which IMO is the smart thing to do, it’s sad though that riders can’t follow the rules, although that is not a great road for a fast finish.
Maybe we should just stick with having OBRA races in -gasp- OREGON! Not Washington
Link | March 31st, 2008 at 11:26 am
K-Man wrote,
Steve- as Norrene said, it’s pretty tough to do instantaneous DQ’s - and do so safely - on that course given how narrow the road is. At BB, the roads are a little more forgiving in terms of width. That said, because of the issues raised at this course, I am looking to find more motorcycle refs- that can get in tight spots and do the instantaneous DQ’s.
As far as opening up the road further than 200m, there’s a couple of issues that prevent us from doing that. From a logistical standpoint, to close down a longer length of road, is a lot tougher- and may present permitting issues. In addition, 200m is a standard length to open up the road- pretty much across the US.
Kristin- I am currently working on this issue.
Link | March 31st, 2008 at 11:53 am
Tim Jones wrote,
I think as racers we need to realize that just because the road is open at 200m that doesn’t mean the sprint starts there. As racers we need to start picking the speed up a lot in the last 2k so we hit the 200m open road at 30-35 mph. As we are currently racing we are all going too slow (me included) in the last K. If we are going faster than we won’t be 5 across the front line on the road and people will be able to move around a lot easier. Stronger riders will be able to move up and weaker ones will fade back. The old piece of cake course seemed to be raced like this. The last corner was far enough from the finish that people were able to ramp it up from far out. That combined with wide shoulders made for a safe and fast finish.
If we are going into the finish fast enough we don’t really need closure more than 200m. If we keep racing like we currently are it would be really nice to have 500m.
Link | March 31st, 2008 at 12:49 pm
stevef wrote,
Hey “Not There”, it sounds like you solved the centerline problem for sure! Who knew it was just the Washington races that had the problem? Or maybe its just having lots of egos packed into one lane at high speed, I’m sure anyone who raced the Cat 4s last year at Silverton can attest to that. Any road race with the centerline rule (which is all of them, I think) is going to have these problems here and there. Piece Of Cake’s only problem is that its essentially PIR with tighter turns on a one lane road.
Link | March 31st, 2008 at 12:58 pm
matt wrote,
HeyKenji, where’s the video cam footage from POC? I wanted to see the footage of the break starting and some dialogue going on in the peloton during the chase. MW
Link | March 31st, 2008 at 2:10 pm
K-Man wrote,
I’ll work on the video- but I have a whole bunch of things I have to work on first.
Link | March 31st, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Not There wrote,
Hey “Stevef” You missed my point! After doing this for 15 years I am perfectly aware that centerline issues are everywhere. However, my point was just a little gripe about having an OBRA race in WASHINGTON!!! While I am thankful to all promoters who put on events, it isn’t like the Piece of Cake course is so great that it needs to held. The course in Willamette Valley were it was held for years was great and best of all located in Oregon. Not mention, the course w/ cross winds and such seemed to do a great job breaking up the pack.
Link | March 31st, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Not There wrote,
edit from last post.
isn’t like the Piece of Cake course is so great that it needs to held in Washington. The old course in Oregon IMO was better and centerally loacted to all Oregon riders, not just the Portland folk.
Link | March 31st, 2008 at 3:40 pm
stevef wrote,
Not There. I get your point (I think), and thats fine. But you say the course in Oregon was better. Better for who? The racers? The promoters? You? If it was so great the way it was, why did they move it?
Should the race cater to Oregon riders because its OBRA sanctioned? I guess you could say that if you want, but what real significance does the Columbia river have besides being a line on a map? Like it or not OBRA serves a region, not a set of political borders, regardless of its name. The state championship road race was four hours + from Portland. Should it be moved north to be “centerally located” or is that okay because as long as its located south of the Columbia river its cool with you?
It may be unintended, but your comments reek of some sort of elitism, and that is bothersome. I (of course) live in Washington, and I’m happy to drive to Oregon to race 98% of the time, so why the whining when people have to head north 2% of the time?
I’m happy to race piece of cake wherever it is, but take the location “problem” up with the promoter if it bothers you. Unless I’m mistaken, It isn’t OBRA’s call.
Link | March 31st, 2008 at 4:02 pm
matt wrote,
everyone seems to be missing the point of this particular problem. It seems like certain teams are taking advantage of the peaceful side of competitors. I would like to think that we don’t have to send out our “enforcer” like in hockey, old 70’s-80’s style NBA games, etc. Someone just needs to take the race by the horns and show who’s in charge. Attack, send teamates off the front, be relentless, show who’s in charge. I think there are a couple of teams that could do that but are afraid to.
Link | March 31st, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Anonymous wrote,
I was in the 1/2 race. There were ~20 riders that were over the yellow line leading up to the last left hand turn. Unfortunately for Rubicon, there uniforms are very easy to spot…….however, in last years POC 1/2 race only one rider was DQ’d DQ 185 Carlsen Kirk Team Rubicon Vancouver 20
Link | March 31st, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Not There wrote,
Stevef, you’re reading WAY to much into it man. Let it go, just let it go!
Link | March 31st, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Norrrene wrote,
Anonymous,
Yes you’re right, Kirk did get DQed last year and he accepted his punishment as he did cross the yellow line, but he has never gotten DQed since then. It stings to get DQ from a race and Kirk learned his lesson well as he went on to join the Slipstream’s U23 squad. Kirk will make more mistakes as he is only 21 years old but he will also continue to grow as cyclist.
That’s how we learn.
Cheers
Norrene
Link | March 31st, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Ken wrote,
It was our team Prestovelo, that promoted POC. The course was moved from the old location due to narrow roads, one section which was not even striped with a centerline. It was deemed unsafe by several involved parties and so we moved it. The current course, as I understand it, was used years ago for another race, and therefore had some history. I’m all ears for other locations if people have suggestions. But they better meet the criteria; low traffic, safe, easy to permit, decent pavement and a willing (or non existant) local populace. We are also intent on keeping the POC signature, which has always been flat, exposed, windy.
Or, maybe we should just look at moving the finish line? I don’t know if it would work but maybe somewhere before the last turn? It sounds like that last turn might be throwing a few people off. Although I have to admit, I liked the comment about you guys keeping the speeds ramped up well before that. It seems to me if you got stuff strung out a bit well before that last corner, you might avoid all those hugh bunch sprint problems. Yeah, what about that?
Ken
Link | March 31st, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Anonymous wrote,
Ken,
No worries. Keep the current course. It’s located nicely between Portland/Eugene and Seattle, low traffic etc. You will never make everyone happy…..
Link | March 31st, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Tim Jones wrote,
Ken,
Thanks for promoting the race. I didn’t make it up this year due to illness, but it sounds like it wasn’t much different than last year. I would really like to see the finish line moved to somewhere there is a longer run in or full closure from 1k out - I mentioned this a month ago on the PrestoVelo blog. It seemed like last year there was a bunch of discussion after the race about the course as well. I personally liked the old course much better and there didn’t seem to be as many complaints after races there - although that could be because of the ease of the internet these days.
Link | March 31st, 2008 at 11:38 pm
john wrote,
harden up and get a life
Link | April 1st, 2008 at 1:40 am
Brian wrote,
Good call John!
Link | April 1st, 2008 at 6:54 am
matt Foreman wrote,
Rubicon keep doing it!!!!!! show them how to ride in New Zealand Romy, Hit them Hard!!!!! Just get over it guys and harden up!
Link | April 2nd, 2008 at 7:52 pm