Monday, April 05, 2010

Helmet Cam - 2010 Bethel CDP Gold Race

So, if a picture is worth a thousand words, and I have over 9 minutes of 60 pictures per second of video... then I have about 32,400 pictures or 32,400,000 words, give or take a million or two, to describe what happened during the Cat 3-4 race on March 28, 2010.

Complete with ghastly music, as one of the viewers likes to call it. If you don't like the music you can turn it down. The audio actually works, and where the screen mentions "Big guys to look after me" it's actually funny.

There's a surprise gap closing, some moves, lotsa teammates, and a two-step sprint.

Without further ado, here is a selective edit of the helmet cam recordings from that race.





And, get this. Available in HD! Yeah! Check it out before you get halfway into the clip.

Ph34R me and my ContourHD1080p helmet cam!

Enjoy :)

6 comments:

Connor Sallee said...

hey aki, do you know who was taking pictures of our race on the scooter? thought it was navone studios, but can't find any. thought they would be cool to check out!

Anonymous said...

Nothing against your win but that looked like the slowest race I've ever seen... I mean people were coasting with 1.5 laps to go? Pathetic.
Good job on the sprint.

Anonymous said...

@Anon: 24.9 mph average, last lap was 1:35, which is just about the fastest I've seen on that course. So no, it wasn't a slow race at all. I don't think anyone actually racing found the pace pathetic.

SOC said...

Great video, as always - made even better by the win (which is still a win no matter what some think the speed "looked like").

I'll just have to remember next time to not try and eat lunch while watching. Adrenaline isn't so good for digestion!

Anonymous said...

Great race, congratulations!!

Aki said...

Connor - Navone Studios was snapping shots but P123s weren't on the site for some reason. I even went off the front in that race, solo, while you guys were having a coffee break or something. Oh well.

Anon - Whenever someone in the field yells "Come on, keep pedaling!" I would yell "Come on up!". I don't do that anymore because inevitably the yelling rider wouldn't come to the front, nor would they stop yelling.

Since this is in font, I'll extend an invitation to you, in all seriousness - you're welcome to race the 3-4s and make it harder.

However, to give credit to the racers in the race, much of the race was much harder than that second-last lap. Since two teams (mine - Expo - and IRSMedic) both felt confident in their sprinters, there were a good 10-15 guys chasing moves or maintaining pace to discourage attacks.

This means there were probably 20-30 riders who were launching moves (if 40-50 riders were relatively inactive).

If you check out the Nutmeg State Games clips I have, you'll see that there is some serious coasting going on. Crits with a short hill usually make for some decent amount of coasting, which is why I like them :)

My teammates pretty much blew themselves up working the race, like they have for the last 3 races. The pictures of the race illustrate that pretty well.

I chose to show the last two laps because they illustrate vividly the fallacy of the myth "You have to stay near the front" or related myths. You don't have to stay near the front, not really, although eventually you need to get there.

The last move Paul made, chasing down those few riders, that's what the race was like much of the time. But to show a strung out line of riders, it's not interesting. Tactically it's static. I prefer motion, action, a stirred pot, not a still one. A string of riders from a helicopter, showing effort, is interesting. From a helmet cam, showing one rider's butt for a minute or three, not that interesting.

btw my average said 25.1 mph :) Since I walked my bike to the line I had no pedaling data before the race. About 1 mph slower than the P123s on March 21 so not bad.