Tucson?

Scott wrote:
On Mar 15, 8:53 am, Fred Flintstein
wrote:
wrote:
On Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:55:37 -0700 (PDT), Scott
wrote:
Just spoke with a friend who was riding in the cat 2 race, and from
the description of the finish line area as he explained it, they put
the finish line in a new spot this year in what was arguably the worst
spot on practically the entire loop. He (my friend) was in the
breakaway and sprinting for bonus points on one of the laps and topped
out at over 50mph due to the severity of the downhill at that point.
No surprise that the cat 4s had problems with that finish.
What the hell was the CR doing before the race? That not only makes
for a bad finish, it makes the whole officiating of the finish that
much harder. OTOH, putting the finish line at the top of a 15% grade
and you can take the finishers down in long hand with no camera and
hand the list to the last racer across to post on the bulletin
board...
http://www.tucsonbicycleclassic.com/...2010/02/TBC-Co...

Interesting reading.

Fred Flintstein

What specifically do you find 'interesting'?

Item 14 tells me that the race will be hard pressed to get approval
next year. In my experience mouthing off to cops is right up there
with public urination.

Item 5, failure to set up a sprint line before the riders got there,
was notable.

Fred Flintstein

On Mar 15, 9:53*am, Fred Flintstein
wrote:
Scott wrote:
On Mar 15, 8:53 am, Fred Flintstein
wrote:
wrote:
On Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:55:37 -0700 (PDT), Scott
wrote:
Just spoke with a friend who was riding in the cat 2 race, and from
the description of the finish line area as he explained it, they put
the finish line in a new spot this year in what was arguably the worst
spot on practically the entire loop. *He (my friend) was in the
breakaway and sprinting for bonus points on one of the laps and topped
out at over 50mph due to the severity of the downhill at that point.
No surprise that the cat 4s had problems with that finish.
What the hell was the CR doing before the race? That not only makes
for a bad finish, it makes the whole officiating of the finish that
much harder. OTOH, putting the finish line at the top of a 15% grade
and you can take the finishers down in long hand with no camera and
hand the list to the last racer across to post on the bulletin
board...
http://www.tucsonbicycleclassic.com/...2010/02/TBC-Co....

Interesting reading.

Fred Flintstein

What specifically do you find 'interesting'?

Item 14 tells me that the race will be hard pressed to get approval
next year. In my experience mouthing off to cops is right up there
with public urination.

Item 5, failure to set up a sprint line before the riders got there,
was notable.

Fred Flintstein

Thanks.

On a related note, I was asking my friend who was involved in the
breakaway what in the world the race director was thinking when 'he'
moved the finish line. I was told that the long-time director of the
race isn't the director any longer. The race director is now a woman,
and while there's nothing inherently wrong with that, it seems that
part of the problem is that a first time director with no significant
personal racing experience (and certainly not elite level racing
experience) made the decision to move the finish to a place that was
convenient from the perspective of having plenty of places to park and
never gave any thought to how the finish line placement was going to
affect the race itself. I think the CR should've caught it, but
apparently didn't.

On a related note, that particular loop was first used as a road race
course in the early 90s in a race that I promoted. The area was not
so populated then, so it was a bit easier, but the terrain hasn't
changed so I can comment on alternative route design. When I used the
course, I set up the staging/start area in Green Valley at the corner
of Duval Mine road and La Canada (http://preview.tinyurl.com/
yfd5584). I wanted the race to be as difficult as possible, given the
terrain, so instead of finishing in the same area, after the
completion of the appropriate number of laps, each category did one
last climb up Duval Mine Rd, with the finish just before the turnoff
onto S Mission Rd (http://preview.tinyurl.com/ygvuers). Putting the
finish line there resulted in a 'hilltop' finish with no significant
pack finishes.

The TBC didn't start using that loop until a few years ago (after the
death on the old Gates Pass loop) and initially the start/finish was
set up just far enough up the hill from the La Canada/Duval Mine
intersection to make the intersection not that critical to the
sprint. It was safe enough set up that way, but with the ever
increasing population growth in Green Valley I can understand why they
may have been forced to move the S/F. I wish they'd have moved it to
where I had set up my finish line, instead of at the bottom of the
steepest hill on the course. Oh, well, maybe next year.

Fred Flintstein wrote:
I was involved in the planning for a race that had inline skate
events

Ah, there you go.

along with the bike races. The event organizer had hired
a chip timer, and had forgotten where the finish line was supposed
to go. So she

Ah wait, *there* you go!

asked the skaters who told her to give them the
longest finishing straight possible, set the finish up right in
front of the hay bales closing the road at the first turn.

When I arrived I immediately noticed that riders would be sprinting
into hay bales. When I brought that up with the timer he said
that he set it up where he was told

What a spineless Nazi collaborator.

and it'd take two hours to
move the mats. Which would totally hose the road closure time
frame.

We ended up moving the hay bales which allowed riders to sprint
into a road that was empty since it didn't go anywhere anymore
because of the race. The timer declared that he would never
work another USAC race again, which the crew that officiated the
race considered to be an acceptable result.

On Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:53:59 -0500, Fred Flintstein
wrote:

Item 14 tells me that the race will be hard pressed to get approval
next year. In my experience mouthing off to cops is right up there
with public urination.

Item 5, failure to set up a sprint line before the riders got there,
was notable.

Fred Flintstein

Don't know about the results of mouthing off to cops. Depends. A lot
are athletes themselves and those are the ones that roll their eyes
and get on with it.

The ones leaning on their cruisers, eating donuts and drinking coffee,
OTOH, would make you dead on. Something for them to complain about...

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

On Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:11:32 -0500, Fred Flintstein
wrote:


When I arrived I immediately noticed that riders would be sprinting
into hay bales. When I brought that up with the timer he said
that he set it up where he was told and it'd take two hours to
move the mats. Which would totally hose the road closure time
frame.

This was always my idea. You place them inversely to the order they're
peeled from the bales. Best to funnel them at the same time so you
only have one layered spot. Otherwise you have these ingrates
complaining that their side was ahead of the other...

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

On Mar 15, 11:10*am, wrote:
On Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:53:59 -0500, Fred Flintstein

wrote:
Item 14 tells me that the race will be hard pressed to get approval
next year. In my experience mouthing off to cops is right up there
with public urination.

Item 5, failure to set up a sprint line before the riders got there,
was notable.

Fred Flintstein

Don't know about the results of mouthing off to cops. Depends. A lot
are athletes themselves and those are the ones that roll their eyes
and get on with it.

The ones leaning on their cruisers, eating donuts and drinking coffee,
OTOH, would make you dead on. Something for them to complain about...

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

I know the story behind that, too. Well, I know the story as it was
told to me second-hand.

Apparently one of the members of the breakaway was having a
'discussion' with the chief referee about trying to get them to assign
two finishing times, with the same time for all members of the break
and the appropriate gap back to the group when it showed up to the
same spot where the race was neutralized. A cop came over to enter
into the discussion and was told by the rider in question that the
discussion dealt with the running of the race and not involving a
matter of law enforcement or traffic control (the only two roles the
cops played at that point). There was no near arrest, the cop
actually understood the point once the official explained that he
didn't require any assistance. It goes without saying that the cop
was initially unreceptive to a rider telling him something wasn't any
of his business.

Fred Gringioni wrote:
"Scott" wrote in message
...


Just spoke with a friend who was riding in the cat 2 race, and from
the description of the finish line area as he explained it, they put
the finish line in a new spot this year in what was arguably the worst
spot on practically the entire loop. He (my friend) was in the
breakaway and sprinting for bonus points on one of the laps and topped
out at over 50mph due to the severity of the downhill at that point.




Soooooo dumb. Especially since they've already had a fatality at that race.

=============
The fatality was a yellow line violation. Head on collision on a descent.

"Cicero Venatio" wrote in message
...
Fred Gringioni wrote:
"Scott" wrote in message
...


Just spoke with a friend who was riding in the cat 2 race, and from
the description of the finish line area as he explained it, they put
the finish line in a new spot this year in what was arguably the worst
spot on practically the entire loop. He (my friend) was in the
breakaway and sprinting for bonus points on one of the laps and topped
out at over 50mph due to the severity of the downhill at that point.




Soooooo dumb. Especially since they've already had a fatality at that
race.
=============
The fatality was a yellow line violation. Head on collision on a descent.


Dumbass -

Given that, doesn't moving the finish line to a descent strike you as a dumb
idea?

In a downhill sprint, as riders attempt to slingshot around each other,
there's no way anyone would dare a yellow line violation. I mean, if they
did that 5 miles away from the finish line on the old course, there's no way
they'd do it meters from the finish line on the new one. No way.

Dumbass.

thanks,

Fred. presented by Gringioni.

On Mar 16, 8:56*am, Cicero Venatio wrote:
Fred Gringioni wrote:
"Scott" wrote in message
...

Just spoke with a friend who was riding in the cat 2 race, and from
the description of the finish line area as he explained it, they put
the finish line in a new spot this year in what was arguably the worst
spot on practically the entire loop. *He (my friend) was in the
breakaway and sprinting for bonus points on one of the laps and topped
out at over 50mph due to the severity of the downhill at that point.

Soooooo dumb. Especially since they've already had a fatality at that race.

=============
The fatality was a yellow line violation. *Head on collision on a descent.

On Mar 15, 6:10*am, wrote:

What the hell was the CR doing before the race? That not only makes
for a bad finish, it makes the whole officiating of the finish that
much harder. OTOH, putting the finish line at the top of a 15% grade
and you can take the finishers down in long hand with no camera and
hand the list to the last racer across to post on the bulletin
board...

dumbass,

at our nationals one year the finish was paced at the bottom of a
gradual descent - myself and others raised a concern about that but
nithing was done. of course in the 40+_ masters race there was a crash
which resembled a plane crash/train derailment. that was the worst
crash i've been a witness to.