ITT analysis

In a change of form (from the usual Cutters love-in), this blog is becoming a vehicle for the Beta Boffins!
An analysis of ITT +/- when compared to Quals!

ITTs

The final act in the L5 career of Chris West.

The ITT men to beat

Prepared by the boffins within the Beta machine (Eric Anderson). Interesting reading, 8.55 is the time to be at the track today. Don't forget Chris West, broken wrist last year prevented an ITT ride but this year back and presumably eligible to contribute toward the White jersey?

For my $$ it's between Sharp and Stuart, with the DTD man having the slight edge.

Quals

Seemed like a beautiful day for Quals and the media-styled favorites Beta delivered in fine style. Full results are here. Not a hugely surprising day, just highlighting that the same teams are always there or there-about and other teams just don't train enough. Obviously CSF are the big shocker in 2nd place! Are they for real or the SNU of 2012? Phi Psi in 33rd, surely not what they were hoping for as they keep the streak of always qualifying alive...just! Tester put the expected marker down, great ride by Army and ChiO but Wing-it must surely be disappointed given the depth of their program?
Betacycling YouTube have some quals vids for your perusal..

I see Chris West didn't ride, not much chat about that on BVN but seems a little disappointing that he can't ride especially given last years eligibility issues!

It's time for Little 5!

Beta Pre Quals

A time of 2m17 would have put them on pole every year of the past decade. Solid looking run, a couple of close exchanges and please tell me the second rider didn't sprint away with his hands on the tops (it's difficult to see)? Clearly a fast track but Beta put a marker down!

Pre-quals 2011 (that I missed)

Little 500 2011 Promo from Smithville on Vimeo.

Quals-week

I LOVE QUALS! There, I said it! Yes the race weekend is great because of all it brings but for a single day then I would pick Quals every time. If you haven't got to the track at 8am with the FiJi mob and stuck it out until dusk then I recommend you do so! The simple pleasure and pain that is involved is like few other events. Every year throws up little plots and subplots that are a joy to behold because to each team they have huge importance even if they seem minor to the viewer. From the joy of qualification for ZBT to the horror of dropping off the board following the last run of the day (especially when, as in the case of the Asian Cultural Centre, they posted their time at 8am), Quals day has it all!
The aspirational differences between competitors are as great as you will find across the sporting experience. You couldn't get much more of a difference than between Eric Young crashing in turn 3 because he was going too fast to SDT literally taking 4minutes for their qualifying run (because two other teams had failed a 3rd attempt).
My favourite moments in memory come on the negative end of things.... Brandon Hurey raising the yellow flag to eliminate ATO from Quals the year after winning the race and the Gamma Phi Beta girl, who, on her 3rd attempt, after seemingly completing the 3rd exchange, amazingly lost control and rolled into the gutter....and out of the race!
Therefore between today and saturday morning it'll be great if people could share their favourite Quals memories in the comments section! I'll be jealous of you all on Saturday!

MSR

Seems quite quiet in Bton atm as people hunker down with their final preps for quals (just a week away btw). In lieu of that there is a pretty big race going on tomorrow in Italy and this is a nice preview of MSR with two guys who know the race. For the record I TOTALLY averaged 500W when I climbed the Poggio a few years ago! Sidenote: BVN welcomes the new arrival in the Sanders/Shanahan household, I hope this is still going in 18years when you destroy Little 5!

Bloomington in Velo News' Ultimate Ride (the journal!)

Bloomington, Indiana one of 9 North American Hotspots for cycling! Read about it in the recent edition of Velo News Ultimate Ride journal.

SB news?

It's perfect weather for the SB L5 camp on the track. What's the news? Any surprising teams going up or down? Nice picture from the Theta tumblr

Bloomington Dominates Sub-9 Death March

While most of the checkpoints for the second annual Sub-9 Death March lay just outside the sphere of most Bloomington cyclists' normal training routes, proximity to the course still seemed to proved advantageous to the winners of two of the team categories. Don Galligher took his second consecutive men's team category win along with partner Chris Wood (he paired with Andy Messer for the 2011 victory) using a gravel and singletrack heavy route to hit all of the possible checkpoints on 29er mountain bikes. Conversely, Death March newbies Sarah Fredrickson and Liz Cobb went for a different type of efficiency, burning up the pavement on their cyclocross bike and skipping a possible time bonus at Callahan Cemetery. The strategy proved to be quite effective, as their adjusted time of of 1:24 was a full two hours and twenty minutes ahead of any other women's duo.



Full results have not yet been published, so apologies go out to any other Bloomington folks not included in the report.

Wednesday Worlds a week away!

You can curse your alarm clock for waking you up early all next week, but you'll be loving the evenings as daylight savings time kicks in and spring training jumps into high gear. The new clock setting means it's the start of Wednesday Worlds, kicking off this coming Wednesday, March 14, at 6 p.m. from Sample Gates with the traditional beginning of year Knightridge circuits. See you there!

You can check out the full WW calendar and maps at www.scholarsinncycling.org/calendar/calendar.php


Colin Allen