VOTS and what-nots

Posted on by turbocycling

Chase kept his lead and Ben held onto 6th for a stellar start to the year for our new team.

I was not able to go, but had a pretty solid weekend.   The best ride was Saturday in a blizzard on the cross bike.  It snowed all day, and around 3:00 cabin fever cracked me and I got dressed and just went for it.  About that time, the snow went from “heavy” to “blinding”.  Good times.

Sunday Kelly and I “taught” nursery at church.  Teaching two year olds pretty much consists of watching them play and trying to keep them from hitting each other with toys.  It’s probably not Kelly’s favorite activity after watching kids all week.  And I’ll leave it at that.

I never mentioned our ski day the previous Sunday.  We had a ski day the previous Sunday.

And it was good.  Kelly has pictures.  You’ll have to scroll down as that was over a week ago.

Anyway, apparently today is some sort of holiday, but not for me.   I had Friday off, so I can only complain so much.  Plus, I have way too much to do to be off, anyway.  Such is life.

52 thoughts on “VOTS and what-nots”

  2. No, two guys got away in the road race and then they neutralized the field because of a crash. They gave the guys two minutes after the field soft pedalled to the finish. Chase had to protest to get things back in order.
    For a split second while watching the snow fall Saturday I thought maybe I should reconsider my opinion of VotS.

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  3. Smart kid. Congrats!

    I think you look too harshly at VoS for quality of racing. In reality it should be used as a warm up, literally and figuratively. One should not attend for beautiful scenery on course (bletch!) or for a great road race that will separate the men from the boys, but rather for an opportunity to blow the legs wide open in a sunny, warm envronment. Now some timing issues are to be expected…the officials need to work off their winter cobwebs. I’ve hardly ever attended without some form of timing issue or SNAFU.
    Anyway…perhaps in the future when I start my “World Domination” of the 35+ age group we can race it together.

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  4. Quality of racing, as in the racers, is good!
    As for the rest of it…

    I won’t be 35 for like 8-12 years (keeping in mind, I am not a math major), but I guess you have to finish school, so that makes sense, right?

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  5. They weren’t neutralized until near the finish and the two riders off the front were finished, and even if they did not soft pedal the last few k they wouldn’t have gotten more than a minute back and would have still lost the jersey. This Chase you speak of isn’t the real deal, just a real cry baby, but that is the norm for the usual daddy’s boy crop of up and comers. Everyone that was there knew who the winners were and now who the new cry baby is. That reputation will follow him for a long, especially with the people that know the real story.

    Funny thing is, his upgrade points won’t count if the RR doesn’t, doesn’t qualify for a stage race and there is no upgrade points for a TT win. HA. Jean Luke is going to love this story when I pass it on, will be waiting for Chase’s upgrade request.

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  6. So, I had the choice of whether to allow the above comment or not. As usual, I am giving everyone a voice, but I will say that is NOT the way I have heard it from the other people who were there. Even outside our team. Anonymous comments don’t count around here. Please man up and tell us who you are. I won’t hate you for it. I like hearing both sides of every story.
    Why are you so pre-occupied with upgrade points? Hmmmm.

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  7. anon (if that’s your real name)

    that was a dickish post, but props on the Star Trek Next Gen refrence. I don’t care what all the purists say, I’ll take picard over capt. Kirk any day. also that is the whinniest way I’ve ever heard anyone call someone else a whiner. That’s all

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  8. I wasn’t there and have no opinion… well I always have sort of one…. damn he won the TT… that is RAD… a great sign for who the B.A.M.F was…. bummer the race was neutralized…. now as far as upgrade points… I could care less and I hope he cares less.… if he can win the TT at VOS… he will get more points.. as far as results and all the crap… that is for the officials to screw up…. Which happens often… but results usually lie…. Lots of times I get last place and in my heart I win…….

    if he can’t get more points… well damn I guess he can’t……..my guess is with some time he will have no problem kicking some utah ass later this season………. I really have no idea what happened… and am still impressed he won the TT…
    Ryan…. Sounds like you guys had a great ride for your first time out….as a team…. See you in MARCH….

    Sam

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  9. “Won’t be 35 for 8-12 years” — riiiight. I’ll be 35 this year, and while I don’t have a PhD in Radness I am smart enough (barely) to know how to subtract 3 from 35…

    Bitchy anon blog comments crack me up. That’ll show ’em — anonymously…

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  10. Guess you don’t have to allow this one either, but

    http://specializedsierranevadaracing.blogspot.com/2009/02/valley-of-sun-day-2.html

    “Mike and I the were keyed up for the sprint for 3rd and we
    were also neutralized because of the cat 3 crashes. So
    dissapointing… 92 miles of setting up the race and then it all
    falls apart.”

    Dan Martin being an older guy usually isn’t off on his race reports. Why would they be sprinting for 3rd if the break was so close that it was going to get swallowed up? So what was your story again?

    But I will refer to my original point.

    “his upgrade points won’t count if the RR doesn’t”

    so why protest and lose all your points when you weren’t going to pull back the people that took your jersey away. Glad that no class is not rewarded. Was a great TT ride though, low 30’s is always a solid time out there and a sign of things to come. Glad he got his jersey and his TT/Crit omnium win.

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  11. Sweet. You can cut and paste. I don’t think they needed to bring them all the way back. My understanding is that they only needed to bring it under a minute and a half or somesuch.
    I still wish you’d use your name, but whatever. All opinions are valid, but since you say Chase is “not the real deal”, I’d just like to be able to compare you to him in 6 months, 2 years, 5 years… whatever.
    There is no two ways about it, a high scholer took 20 seconds out of 2nd place in the TT, and would have been 6th in the P-1. He’s been racing for like a year and a half (including time out after gettting nailed by a car), I would say he’s a pretty decent talent.

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  12. I didn’t any soft pedaling in the RR. We started the climb slowly, but that was just racing, and everyone waiting for someone else to take the lead. We were flying by the time we crested the climb, and things didn’t slow down until a truck pulled in front of us. By then we were inside the final K. If we had been left alone, the gap to the leaders would have come down, but by a few seconds, not minutes. The break stayed away because no one was chasing (until the last lap, I didn’t even know the break was still out there), not because the officials interfered.

    The guys in the break got screwed. They took a chance at the right time, but because of circumstances beyond anyone’s control they wound up with nothing. To a lesser degree, Chase got screwed. He rode an excellent time trial and held on for the GC win. Unfortunately, and through no fault of anyone in the race, that win will always be controversial. To be fair, I can’t see why anyone would want to (anonymously or otherwise) take it out on Chase.

    The whole situation reminds me of the Jacques Maynes fiasco at the Tour of California two years ago. No matter what decision the officials had made, someone would have been upset.

    On the plus side, there were no Utah riders among the four[?] cat 3s who left the race on stretchers, and there are still eight months of racing left.

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  13. Thanks for the input, Erik (not anonymous, despite the moniker!). I would still say we’ll never know though as two guys playing cat and mouse for a stage win vs. a field sprint can make up 30 seconds (or thereabouts) pretty quickly, which I understand would have been the difference, not minutes.

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  14. Drama, BLW, anonymous comments, and its only February!! This is better than reality TV! Thanks all for the entertainment!

    Turbo–Congrats to Chase, you and the rest of the team for an awesome first race. Regardless of the controversy, they rode well and will surely be ready to throw down again soon!

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  22. Also note the selective cut-and-paste.

    The whole paragraph below:
    [i]We got Eric up in the winning break on the last
    lap, but it wasn’t meant to be. He frigg’n flatter again!
    Argggggg. Mike and I the were keyed up for the sprint for 3rd and we
    were also neutralized because of the cat 3 crashes. So
    dissapointing… 92 miles of setting up the race and then it all
    falls apart.[/i]

    I read into this frustration about the chance nature of races, not anything specifically directed at your guys. Most especially because at no point int he post is any hate directed at Chase.

    Anon is a tool.

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  24. i think someone is bitter that they got beat by a high schooler. ha and chase is the real deal. not just a whiner, if you have been following him like i have you see he adapts quickly to any new racing enviroment.
    who wants to bet on who wins the TT in Vegas??? im gonna go with chase. not anon

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  25. Turbo, this post is a public call-out on his-radness.

    Jared, if you’re gonna link to your blog, how bout an update more than once every 60 days? Thank you.

    Thanks Turbo!

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  26. I think that there is too much BLW on the interwebs–or at least by reading your two blogs!! I don’t need to add to the syndrome and it takes me that long to come up with something good…..

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  28. I’m going to put down my side of the story. I really dont care what Anon says but hey I want to set the record straight.

    We were a ways from the finish when the neutralization happened and the pack was really starting to pick up for the finish. I believe had we not been neutralized we would have pulled enough time away from the leaders to keep the Jersey. Blake, who would have taken the lead, was almost 2 minutes down on me in the TT. The officials were not clear where the time gap was taken, but it certainly was not indicative of what it would have been if the pack had been allowed to finish. As soon as the race was over I looked up the rules on race neutralization to find out what was legal and what was not. Here are the exact rules from the USAC rule book:

    4E4. Neutralizations. Should an incident or accident occur that interferes with the proper conduct of the race, the officials may decide to take any of the following actions: (1) Temporarily neutralize the race; (2) Restart the race, beginning with sign-in; or, (3) Cancel the stage and any results of that stage

    That is the official rule. The officials tampered with the race which made it impossible to see how far we could have pulled the two riders in. Had this rule no been the case I would have (maybe not happily) accepted the ruling of the refs. The rules are there for a reason and I am sure had the situation been reversed that Blake and Evan would have done the same to me. I have had the rules work against me as well. In 2007 there was a drafting offense by a person at Tour de Gap. I lost to them by 9 seconds, because the refs could only legally religate them by 2 seconds. It sucked for me, but hey, those are the rules and they are there for a reason.
    By the way, there is no rule stating that my win will not count for upgrade points. Even with the neutralization of the stage cumulative time was still taken classifying the race as a stage race. There is no minimum stage requirement, and no rule stating that the neutralization of a stage removes the ability for the race to count for points.

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  30. Oh yeah, and Chase- don’t sweat upgrade points, you’re going to have plenty of them soon enough. I am sure of that.

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  33. What a joke. Cry about the rules the USCF has in place and call Chase the crybaby when the rules are enforced…Ironic no?

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  36. I’m happy to contribute to the 50 comment goal, even if the request comes from a med student.

    It’s pretty clear that Chase won’t be a 2 for too much longer. Rock on.

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  41. Oh c’mon Ryan… you and I did eight rounds once on saunders.com to get the hit count up to, like, uh, twenty-teen or something.

    I say we get chase back on here to school him on how to be less articulate and lower in attention span. Seriously. I mean, his post was great and well reasoned and shows poise beyond what I posses, but DAMN IT MAN he coulda carved out at least 4 normal person comments from the single one he put on the boards.

    He’ll never be a pro with that attitude.

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  45. Yes. precisely.

    I’m betting you’ll be second place at the Utah State Blogging Championships.
    …but I’m sure Kelly will let you hold her fist-place trophy.

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