Coach Thrasher
Bicycle Camera Mount Test
Here's a test clip from a camera mounted on my front fork. I'm riding down Woodside road (84 East) from Skyline to Portola Road, which is a great local decent into Woodside, California. The camera is only taking 10 FPS, but you can make out most of the landmarks on the way down. I was surprised by how much I'm actually leaning the bike over (roughly 38+ degrees). The camera mount is a piece of 6061 aluminum bent into an L-bracket and drilled to fit under the Q/R skewer bolt of my front wheel (which you can clearly see spinning). The camera is a Aiptek SD camera with AAA batteries and a 1GB SD card, taking AVI at 10 fps, with no sound. There's no dampening from the wheel to the camera, so you can see the road vibrations in the image quality. I've got a bolt through the tripod mounting hole to hold the camera in place, along with some rubber bands to keep it from rotating. The assembly weighs about 1/4 lb.
Here are some pictures of the camera mounted on the bike:
Posted at 11:39PM Nov 20, 2006 by jason in Cycling | Comments[2]
Race Report: Sea Otter Classic Circuit Race
Event: Sea Otter Classic Circuit Race
Category: Elite 3
Teammates: Matt, Greg, Ben, Mike, me
Result: OTB, DNF, of 73 starters only 49 finished Official Results
Ugh, my first road race of the season did not go well, but all is not lost! I really wanted to start at the Sea Otter since I've never raced at that event and it's a huge 4-day bike festival with many pro riders attending. So, I registered and headed down to gorgeous Monterey CA for the Circuit Race.
The course is actually -on- the Laguna Seca race track. This really adds to the event since all of the corners are nicely banked, and all of the pavement is really smooth (~2.3 mile circuit). From the start, you climb gradually at first, and then you have to stand, to get up a 200ft elevation gain. There's a screaming decent through the "corkscrew", and some nice tight banked turns and winds around back to the start/finish.
I was well warmed up and stretched for the start. I made it up the hill with the pack easily the first time up. The second time was a little harder and I anticipated this by moving to the front and letting myself drift back as we climbed the hill. The third time up I used the same drift technique but just barely lost contact with the tail of the pack. We were only 15 minutes in to the race though, so I tried to chase back on. I managed to keep from getting lapped for about 46 minutes.
Every minute or so I'd ride past another rider who had been dropped. A few of them worked with me to try to chase back on, but there was really no hope with that hill in the way. What was left of the pack at that point came flying by on the uphill and I pulled out to become a spectator. We only had Ben, Greg, and Mike left in the field.
The last two laps looked fast. The finish came down to a field sprint in which 6 riders were head-to-head to the line. Eric Barlevav from the "Bicycle John's Serious Cycling" team won.
I need to get more miles in to be competitive. Coaching has taken a lot of time this year away from my own training. Realistically, I've got to get 12-16 hours of riding and rowing in per week which likely won't happen until the spring rowing season ends.
Posted at 09:56AM Apr 07, 2006 by jason in Cycling | Comments[0]
Race Report: Watsonville Crit Elite 3 + pictures
Race Report: Watsonville Crit Elite 3
34 laps (20 miles)
Teammates: Matt Beebe (1st), Rob MacNeill (3rd), Brad Goodson (4th), Greg Davis, Brian Peterson, Peter Dinolfo, Peter Cazalet, Mike
Vella, Bernhard Stonas
Result: 10th
Matt and Brad gave a rundown of the race previously, so I'm just adding my domestique perspective here...
First, some pictures of the AV 3's group at this race:
http://www.gogodoit.com/AVE3_at_Watsonville_2005/AVE3_at_Watsonville_2005%20001.jpg
http://www.gogodoit.com/AVE3_at_Watsonville_2005/AVE3_at_Watsonville_2005%20002.jpg
Note: that's the Velo Promo van behind us. Also note the strawberries - yum! Pink shirts are for top placing.
My goal for this race was to support Rob and Matt with their race goals: Rob wanted his last few points, and Matt wanted to try for a winning break. I had volunteered to be a block and cover guy for them both.
I rode the first 3/4 of the race at or near the front, providing block for Greg, Brian, and Rob in their break attempts with a few riders from other teams. When there were attacks by other teams without AV riders, I tried getting on their wheel while dragging the pack with me. All that work hurt quite a bit. A couple of times I did fade back to mid-pack and realized that I needed to stay at the front to prevent the constant re-accelerations due to all of the turns. I was at the front with Matt made his winning break. The pack rode for a while with Matt and his SJBC partner just within reach, but the pack never bridged. It was pretty cool to see Matt committing to that move - he really made it work, and stuck to his plan.
With 2 laps to go I had faded to about mid-pack. We rounded the last two laps fairly quickly and from the final corner I gunned it for 10th. I feel like I should have tried more aggressively to maintain my position and try for a real sprint finish - it's a lot harder to pass 10 guys who are going for a top-10 placing than the 10-20 placing. It was very satisfying to see Matt win though - and I think we really had a great team race as well. Congrads to Rob for acquiring enough points to make the 2's.
Posted at 03:12PM Jul 20, 2005 by jason in Cycling | Comments[0]