Chimney Rock CX practice (wednesdays)

Steve Vai

Steve Vai

Endurance Guy: Tolerates most of us.
That's right folks!! August is here. Time to start riding those silly bikes with the squeaky brakes and squishy tires!!

For those who haven't been, we meet at the baseball fields at Chimney Rock park and ride a short course using the area below the basketball court. I bring barriers, stakes and tape and set up things to torture you. It is primarily a skillz orientated session with a few short 20 minute mini-races just to throw it all together:getsome:

We'll start this week at 6:30. They'll get earlier as daylight goes away.

Don't let cross season sneak up on you, get on out here!!

-Jim.
 
Can I make some constructive criticism? Oh, I'll go ahead and do it anyway.

1. The time spent on skills should probably me minimized, and frankly barriers should be the vast majority of what is taught. Steps are so uncommon that practicing for them seems overkill.

2. Open up the path you guys tape up on the side of the hill. No course was remotely that tight last year. Whirlybird was 3 times as wide open.

3. Do more practice runs, more often. In the end, I think people will get more out of rolling the loops over and over than the skills and such.

PS. It's not August.
 
warcricket said:
today?
Click to expand...

No. Next wednesday. It'll be August.

Norm-A-Saurus. We need to put something techy in just to not have to do 500 loops. We did have weeks where the course was wide open, just not on the 1 day you showed up😉

The fitness side of cross can be worked out on the road, like during the Tuesday ride the day before or the Thursday ride the day after for example. Having said that, there were many weeks that wednesdays were my hardest day, by far. Eric and Mike don't just let me ride away😱

While steps are not in many courses, the technique used for running up things is always the same, so we will indeed continue working on that. You do run up something nearly every race😀

-Jim.
 
I'll be there to see what this cross thing is all about.

thanks Jim
 
Norm said:
1. The time spent on skills should probably me minimized, and frankly barriers should be the vast majority of what is taught. Steps are so uncommon that practicing for them seems overkill.

2. Open up the path you guys tape up on the side of the hill. No course was remotely that tight last year. Whirlybird was 3 times as wide open.

3. Do more practice runs, more often. In the end, I think people will get more out of rolling the loops over and over than the skills and such.

PS. It's not August.
Click to expand...

I'll criticize your constructive criticism
1) sort of agree. you aren't generally going to lose time on barriers unless your remounting really sucks, particularly if you have to remount on a downhill (thinking Granogue day 2 last year where a crowd lined up to watch the carnage) or side-hill situation (Sussex). this is probably more important for beginners.
2) disagree. if you can flow that shit during hot laps it'll make you faster on race day even if the tortuousness of that side-hill section is not representative of most courses.
3) agree
and I'll add:
4) starts. being able to start fast and move up in a crowded field is worth a more than few weeks of fitness.
 
After the first couple of practices last year we did multiple mock starts at every one.
This definitely helped when race time came to know how hard I had to go.
 
Wohooooo!

I think anybody can do what they need here. Push hard - do blocks - practice skills - it's all up to you. We did standing start practice a few times and I like the tight techy bit in the course. It hurt like hell and didn't feel like I was loosing any murder benefit for that block. Besides I like passing the super fast guys when they go down in the off camber corner - it's my only chance to make a move. 😀
 
jimvreeland said:
No. Next wednesday.


While steps are not in many courses, the technique used for running up things is always the same, so we will indeed continue working on that. You do run up something nearly every race😀

-Jim.
Click to expand...

I think having steps to run up is excellent for practice. Nothing can raise your heart rate like an all out run. Two events come to mind in the NJCX cup. Hidden Valley, although the steps were short they were still tough. The steps at the 2 Day Westwood Cyclocross were very hard. You could either make or loose time. Watching racers like Roger A and Fred Brown run this section at full stride was something to see.

Picture #1 Here Roger Aspholm is leading the Pro Men race at the Westwood NJCX Event. Watching him run the stairs at full speed was awesome!
Picture #2 Fred Brown (left) in this picture makes the pass on the staircase also in the Pro Men field.
Picture #3 Stacey Barbossa makes it look easy.
Picture #4 This is shot is from the NY State Cyclocross Championships in Troy, NY. The stairs are in the middle of a long run up. Tommy has excellent Cross skills. He is currently training very hard everyday and will be a front runner this season.



My point is if you can't beat these guys ... than you need to practice 😀
RC
 

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Today is the day. Be there. I have my car filled with barriers, and stakes, and tape, and little cones:getsome:

-Jim.
 
I know it's cross & all but are u canceling if it rains?
 
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