Early
Bird Criteriums and Clinics
Events
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Early Bird Criteriums and Clinics | ||||
Dates
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Five Sundays from January 5th through February 2nd, 2014 | ||||
Group
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45+ 5 | ||||
Bib #
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multiple | ||||
Results
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01/05/14
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01/12/14
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01/19/14
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01/26/14
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02/02/14
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11/41
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9/38
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7/20
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4/26
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2/12
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Course
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A flat, wide, 1.3
mile, non-technical criterium course in a business park. Excellent
road surface.
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Details of Races
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The
Early Bird Clinic and Race series is a valuable pre-season refresher
for anyone planning on racing. Each
Sunday leaders and mentors provide instruction, tips and drills, focusing on pack riding skills. While we ride year-round
here in California, the actual road racing season basically ended
in Septermber for most. And many, like me, haven't actually raced for years, or not at all.
After the clinic, each category has their own race. We raced eleven laps each time. These are pre-season
races, so no results are recorded. Any results I listed above
were based on my own observation.
Besides
the valuable training, some categories earn upgrade points for
participating. I participated in all five clinics and races each
of the, earning 7.5 upgrade points. I had one point from the Mt.
Tam Hill Climb back in September, so I only needed to pick up 2
more points in the Early Bird Road Race and the Cherry Pie Criterium. A simple matter of submitting a request to upgrade
through USACycling resulted in an official move up to category
4.
My
yellow, steel Ron Cooper, Tweety, drew a lot of attention (who knows?... maybe it was my
amazing prowess on the bike;-)) and each week I made several new
friends who are now riding buddies and fellow racers....
I highly recommend
the Early Bird Training Series.
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Advice
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Attend as many as you can. This is a great time to practice moving around safely in the pack. It's also great practice for trying out different plans for timing your sprint. I never quite got it right, but you can see by the progression of my results I was making progress. And it sure beats making the same rookie mistakes during the actual season... now I just make other rookie mistakes. | ||||
Links
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Results |
not recorded
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| Strava |
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