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Race Road Race in Ishikawa

Yeah, it looks like we don't need to concern ourselves with overheating this year. But if there isn't too much rain, I think we should be fine. (In any case, I am glad I am on disc brakes.)
 
jdd it's Ishikawa town in Fukushima prefecture.

Usually steaming hot but this year has been a bit more tolerable up to now.

Andy
 
Great effort, @GrantT, a solid 8th place in E2 is quite impressive. A great thanks to @baribari for coming to the race and cheering us on from the start line. Oh, and a shoutout to @andywood for sending me a JCF sticker — I was able to wear my beloved orange POC helmet during the race. I made 49th out of 107, and am quite happy with the result: my best 20-minute power was 97 % of my FTP, and my average/normalized power over the whole race 90/104 % of my FTP. During my first race, was 107th out of 148.

Race conditions were not ideal: it had been raining since the evening before. My goal was to not crash. That and to learn to better conserve energy by closing gaps earlier (sometimes it just takes two or three rotations at high force), and paying attention to my strengths (downhills) and weaknesses (uphills) relative to others. And honestly, I am happy with the outcome — and that includes that on race day, there were no accidents that I know of. (The day before, someone from a neighboring team broke his collar bone while pre-riding the course. Ouch.) Fortunately for me, a lot of racers were very timid on the descents due to the bad weather, and I could put my two secret weapons, disc brakes and 28 mm tires, to good use.
 
Nice to meet you today @OreoCookie and congrats on getting round in one piece. Sounds like E2 played out similar to E3, lots of timid descenders quick on the brakes. Look forward to seeing you at another JBCF race!
Oh, and I finished a solid 4th. :)
 
4th? Even better! Didn't want to diminish your achievements.

BTW, I took the results from here, and it states you made 8th place (in the second wave). But I checked the official results and you are right. This discrepancy is quite weird, though.
 
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Lap Clip seems to be showing times from the third lap. Having the finish in a different place might have something to do with it. JBCF is not quite the well-oiled machine!
 
Yeah. The first official results had our average speeds at ~12 km/h, too :warau: (I know I wasn't the fastest, but I think I would have been faster than that on a mama chari.) La Clip is quite nice, because it spits out the lap times and your placement (which should be correct in most cases). I was able to confirm what I thought was happening during the race (e. g. that I was able to make up quite a few places during the second lap), which goes beyond the official result sheet.

In any case, 4th is a seriously impressive feat, I have an idea how competitive the field is. Have you been racing long?
 
I saw on Twitter that one of the kids in E2 did something like 5.5 watts/kg for 10 minutes and has a better sprint than me despite being the typical sub-60 weight of the average Japanese racer. WTF? Also, Yukihiro Doi said his peak FTP during his career was 6.0 watts/kg. Shouldn't that be closer to an international pro rather than a domestic pro?!

Yeah, there definitely needs to be a fifth category.
 
I saw on Twitter that one of the kids in E2 did something like 5.5 watts/kg for 10 minutes and has a better sprint than me despite being the typical sub-60 weight of the average Japanese racer.

WTF? Also, Yukihiro Doi said his peak FTP during his career was 6.0 watts/kg. Shouldn't that be closer to an international pro rather than a domestic pro?!
WTH are these guys participating in such low categories? Is it just easier for them to podium, and that's why they don't want to upgrade to the next better category?

I had a look at the results of the E2 and E3 races, and basically, for E2 and E3 the tempo was virtually identical. Yes, the E2s would have had to do one more lap, but these are short races one way or another. The overlap between those categories seems rather large to me. The only thing separating riders is how long you can keep up with the pace set by the lead group set the pace. The fastest guy in our team separated from the lead group during the last lap, and then his lap time was within a few seconds of mine. (Under ordinary circumstances, he might have held on, but he is injured at the moment.)
 
In any case, 4th is a seriously impressive feat, I have an idea how competitive the field is. Have you been racing long?

Not long, just last year and this year in JBCF. Still learning how to race smart since I don't have the raw power to win from the front.

I think the general gist of things is that young guns are always joining the scene and taking the top spots in E3 and E2, then behind the young guns are the cycling enthusiasts/hobby racers/(pack fodder), who compete for scraps while the young guns are busy with exams or have all been promoted to E1. A good example is this guy: https://jbcfroad.jp/ranking/detail/cyclist/288/3047/
Third at his first race and promoted to E2, then 5 races in E2 before he got the win and promotion to E1, where he has now placed 5th in his first two races.

@baribari Yukihiro Doi did ride the Vuelta twice back in the day, so the 6 W/kg is probably from that era. A couple more categories could be a good idea, though at the moment there are already quite a few non-JBCF races ridden at Gunma CSC and Shizuoka CSC, plus a whole lot of enduro events and hill climbs, for which you don't need to be a member of a team. Check out the JCRC series here as one example: http://www.jcrc-net.jp/ . Many people are aware of the difficulty of JBCF and know to enter these other events to get some technical skills, test their fitness, and gain experience in pack racing before mixing it up in JBCF.
 
Not long, just last year and this year in JBCF. Still learning how to race smart since I don't have the raw power to win from the front.

I think the general gist of things is that young guns are always joining the scene and taking the top spots in E3 and E2, then behind the young guns are the cycling enthusiasts/hobby racers/(pack fodder), who compete for scraps while the young guns are busy with exams or have all been promoted to E1. A good example is this guy: https://jbcfroad.jp/ranking/detail/cyclist/288/3047/
Third at his first race and promoted to E2, then 5 races in E2 before he got the win and promotion to E1, where he has now placed 5th in his first two races.

@baribari Yukihiro Doi did ride the Vuelta twice back in the day, so the 6 W/kg is probably from that era. A couple more categories could be a good idea, though at the moment there are already quite a few non-JBCF races ridden at Gunma CSC and Shizuoka CSC, plus a whole lot of enduro events and hill climbs, for which you don't need to be a member of a team. Check out the JCRC series here as one example: http://www.jcrc-net.jp/ . Many people are aware of the difficulty of JBCF and know to enter these other events to get some technical skills, test their fitness, and gain experience in pack racing before mixing it up in JBCF.

Only one criterium, though, and JBCF has more races at more locations that are a more reasonable distance (five or six are within two hours, Gunsai is at least four hours away, CSC is simply too far and too steep). That's why I signed up for JCRC but haven't entered any races. Also, I can't abide those silly helmet covers (joking). I do appreciate how they have so many categories for different "legpower," including one just to determine which category beginners belong in.

Oh, I guess he was an international pro, then. Haha.

This particular kid was promoted from E3 to E2 after just a couple races, I think. The other guy on his team is already mixing it up in E1 starting from E3. Both are aiming for the pros. I won't be at all surprised if somebody gets cut from a certain pro team to make room for one of them...
 
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This particular kid was promoted from E3 to E2 after just a couple races, I think. The other guy on his team is already mixing it up in E1 starting from E3. Both are aiming for the pros. I won't be at all surprised if somebody gets cut from a certain pro team to make room for one of them...

It's great to see these young guys coming through and mixing it up in E1 then the pro ranks. If things go well, it would be amazing to see them on the international scene at some point as well.
 
@baribari Can you post a link to the twitter post? I'd like to see what I was up against!



It should be noted that he has been racing for at least several years, though, and he's still only about 21. In another post he quotes his best peak power as 1,350 watts, which is more than I can do on my bike (I have seen higher on my trainer, but I don't trust those numbers) despite having probably 80 pounds on the kid. Hah.
 
Not long, just last year and this year in JBCF. Still learning how to race smart since I don't have the raw power to win from the front.
If I may ask, what are your power stats? (I just want to have an idea how much I have to gain in form and how much I have to learn about strategy and tactics.)

I think the general gist of things is that young guns are always joining the scene and taking the top spots in E3 and E2, then behind the young guns are the cycling enthusiasts/hobby racers/(pack fodder), who compete for scraps while the young guns are busy with exams or have all been promoted to E1.
The time and money aspect is quite big for most amateurs who aren't university students anymore: my wife is happy to see me racing once a month. But every week? Hmmm, that sponsorship would dry up real quick. ;)

A good example is this guy: https://jbcfroad.jp/ranking/detail/cyclist/288/3047/
Third at his first race and promoted to E2, then 5 races in E2 before he got the win and promotion to E1, where he has now placed 5th in his first two races.
Puh, impressive. And I have to say, even the young guys are decked out with gear. (Not that gear is everything, I'm just saying they are very serious when it comes to cycling.)
 
@OreoCookie

Don't have a power meter and never done an FTP test so don't know my power stats. Doing it old school by trying to be competitive with the guys I ride with, which includes some very strong riders. As for strategy and tactics, conserving energy in the pack, noticing which wheels to follow in case they jump, and positioning for a sprint all seem vital for winning. Racing in a huge pack is sensory overload so takes time to deal with, but that's probably what makes it fun. Having a huge engine certainly makes it all much easier though!

Not many racing every week. I think their bodies would break down as quick as their finances. But they say good training should feel harder than racing. Racing is the easy bit apparently, lol. Once a month seems a nice sustainable pace. Lucky that your wife agrees!
 
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