Next practice, Tuesday, Sept. 9th @ 6pm, Kenney Park behind Graceland on High St.
We're moving practice to Kenney Park behind Graceland. The course will again be marked with marking flags (red on right, yellow on left). The lap is ~1K, and lap times will be 3+ minutes. The course will feature some off-camber turns, 180-degree turns in sand, a run-up, single track, and a tough little technical part. A double set of barriers will also be out on the course for practice.
We'll set up on Monday evening, if you're interested in coming out and helping.
Here's the format:
6:00 pm: Meet and greet; sign up for drawing.
6:10 pm: Parade lap to learn the course.
6:15 pm: Mount/dismount practice (get rid of that stutter step)
6:25 pm: Win-and-out practice starts
6:30 pm: 3-lap race (~12 min. effort)
6:50 pm: More practice starts or mount/dismounts
6:55 pm: 3-lap race (~12 min. effort)
7:15 pm: More practice starts or mount/dismounts
7:20 pm: 3-lap race (~12 min. effort)
7:30 pm: Drawing for Cap City Race Coupon
7:35 pm: Course tear down
Bring your helmet, two friends, and at least two water bottles.
BE AWARE OF THE YOUTH SOCCER PLAYERS, AND BEWARE OF THEIR PARENTS!
Seriously, keep an eye out for kids chasing soccer balls.
To get to Kenney Park from the bike path, take Henderson Rd. or Broad Meadows Blvd. (across the bridge south of Antrim Park), then take High St. to Graceland Shopping Center. Use Graceland Blvd. to go all the way to the back where Kenney Park is. There is parking and one Port-o-John (not a nice one).
Each week we will tweak the format based on your needs and input. We will gradually make the mini-races longer and the rest between them shorter. You will benefit from spending at least an equivalent amount of time at your race effort compared to the amount of time you will be racing: typically, Cs race 30 minutes, Bs race 45 minutes, and As race 60 minutes.
As always, our goal is to help with the learning curve involved with improving at cyclocross racing. We all benefit from practice, as once polished skills become rusty during the road season.
The best way to learn is to ask, ask, ask and ask again. Ask about bike setup, ask about technique, ask about tire pressure and choice, ask about what is the best line in a turn. It's how we all learned at one time or another (and are still learning). Ask at practice or ask on the blog, but please ask. And if you have knowledge to share, please do. There are no experts, we are all learners.
And as always, please invite everyone and anyone who is interested in learning more about cyclocross, whether they have a cross bike or not.
Hope to see you Tuesday.
-Ryan & Jon
4 comments:
Which direction no the loop?
JMS
Counter clock-wise for now, but we can make a decision on Monday when we set up.
On the off-camber turn on the Foster coarse most riders were ignoring the last yellow flag and cutting the turn to go down the hill. This took most of the challenge out of this turn which should have been one of the harder ones. A tweak to that would be to put one more short loop before the down hill to force riders all the way through the turn.
Don't know what you have at Graceland that will be similar.
LDP
Good thought. I cut that yellow flag a couple times myself. Always have to be careful where you put the markers; remember this? http://tinyurl.com/6b8atu
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