Air Force Classic

[cvcalhoun]

My wife is Welsh (not to be confused with English!), but has been here for 14 years. Most people here still think her accent is British. But one time when her cousin came to visit, and she turned practically incomprehensible for a couple of hours, I realized just how much her accent has changed due to being in this country.

The good news is, Americans tend to believe that all accents that sound British to us (and that includes Australian accents) are high class. This is a continual source of amusement to my wife, whose accent derives from the coal mining area of south Wales.

@APKhaos 87933 wrote:

That’s funny. After living here for 20 odd years I’m a bit over being asked if I’m British, which is doubly galling since I’m Australian. In Oz, they are confused but generally assume its an American accent from an obscure corner. Linguistically stateless.

[PotomacCyclist]

[Tim Kelley]

I crashed at mile 62 or so making the turn off of 27 into the Pentagon North Parking lot. Went wide to get around some slower folks and had to ditch into a couple inches of gravel. The front wheel caught, I went over the handlebars and got some holes in my kit and some nasty rash on my back and side.

Ended up with a slow roll to the finish line and results said I was 17th with a 23.1 mph average after laying flat on my back for awhile.

Oh well–there is always next year.

[Fast Friendly Guy]

@Tim Kelley 87960 wrote:

I crashed at mile 62 or so …and had to ditch into a couple inches of gravel. The front wheel caught, I went over the handlebars and got some holes in my kit and some nasty rash on my back and side.

Sorry to hear this. Hope you have a speedy recovery. How was the bike?
Dave

[bobco85]

@Tim Kelley 87960 wrote:

I crashed at mile 62 or so making the turn off of 27 into the Pentagon North Parking lot. Went wide to get around some slower folks and had to ditch into a couple inches of gravel. The front wheel caught, I went over the handlebars and got some holes in my kit and some nasty rash on my back and side.

Ended up with a slow roll to the finish line and results said I was 17th with a 23.1 mph average after laying flat on my back for awhile.

Oh well–there is always next year.

Oh man, I remember that curve. Both the off-ramp and the portion going through the underpass had rough areas on both the outside and inside of the curve which meant less room for passing. Not trusting some of the slower riders who had trouble maintaining their lines, I had to just take that single-file every time I went through there.

I hope you get a new kit and recover. But still, 23.1 mph average?! (genuflects) I am not worthy.

[dasgeh]

@Tim Kelley 87960 wrote:

I crashed at mile 62 or so

Oh no. Heal up quick. Sounds like all the cool kids crashed, if it makes you feel better.

[Vicegrip]

@bobco85 87971 wrote:

Oh man, I remember that curve. Both the off-ramp and the portion going through the underpass had rough areas on both the outside and inside of the curve which meant less room for passing. Not trusting some of the slower riders who had trouble maintaining their lines, I had to just take that single-file every time I went through there.

I hope you get a new kit and recover. But still, 23.1 mph average?! (genuflects) I am not worthy.

yes you are. You had a good time and did a ride that would have flatlined 1/2 the US population.

[APKhaos]

@APKhaos 87930 wrote:

You are not alone. No results for my bib number or name either. The MyLaps transponder matches the bib number too. Strange. Good thing I’ve got a Strava record of the event, but it would have been nice to see where I landed on the non-leader list.
Just for grins I’m emailing the AFA CC crew. PM your bib number and I’ll add that to my list. Same for anyone else who had the cloak of invisibility on Sunday.

Email in from Cadence Sports, who ran the timing. “Sorry for the inconvenience, unfortunately it looks like your chip didn’t pick up at the mats. If you tell me how many laps you did as well as Greg, I can manually enter them into the results.”

Electronically flat-lined, although physically OK. Gamin + Strava > MyLaps transponder chips.

[consularrider]

Nice they at least replied to you, I’ve heard nothing back.

[APKhaos]

@consularrider 87990 wrote:

Nice they at least replied to you, I’ve heard nothing back.

PM sent

[bobco85]

@Vicegrip 87985 wrote:

yes you are. You had a good time and did a ride that would have flatlined 1/2 the US population.

Thanks, man, I really appreciate it.

[consularrider]

@APKhaos 87992 wrote:

PM sent

Thanks, I note that at Cadence, the individual results are currently not searchable. I’ll check back later and see if they have been trying to correct errors before trying the contact.

[chuckb]

Here’s a histogram of all the rider speeds, averaged over however many laps they rode, with a Gaussian fit to the data. Mean is about 16.5 mph, standard deviation about 4.7 mph. I came in at 20.3 mph over 6 laps, a PR, (red dot) and Greg Butler came within 20 seconds of lapping me as he scorched the earth for 7 laps at 23.7 mph. Kudos!

[Jason B]

The very important thing to remember in all this statistical analysis, is that Butler (Rule #10) didn’t lap us! Way to go on the PR!

[PeteD]

Had a great time and ride; one doesn’t get the chance to (for the most part) just hammer it for that long on roads inside the beltway.

I left home at 5:45am, and made it down to the Starbucks at around 6:30. Spotted sjclaeys and chatted for a few before going and getting in line. Saw consularrider as we walked to the back of the line. Seems there was some confusion as people were telling us they were being told we were all going to have to turn around, but that soon passed.

Walked the first couple hundred yards but was clipped in as we hit the start line. Steve’s observation that it would be better to be in the first corner on the outside was well placed, we had no slowdowns there.

The first bit out to Rosslyn was a bit of slow/fast as we dealt with the varying lane sizing. It was amazing to see Tim just floored at the front of the peleton, but equally astounded at the sheer number of flats that the lead group were incurring. I didn’t think the roads were that bad, but then again I run 25mm gatorskins on aluminum wheels…

I lost Steve after the turn around in Rosslyn; I got claustrophobic being around so many people so I was moving into open space and didn’t realize he had come un-hooked until I got to on-ramp from 110 to 27.

So for the next lap and a half I just kept riding to the front and wasn’t all that concerned with drafting anyone; they could follow me if they could keep my wheel. Eventually vicegrip pulled around me and said I needed to let him return the favour a bit and let him pull. So for the next 3 laps we spent time in front, sometimes latching onto another fast mover or two, before eventually taking over for them.

Most fulfilling moment was me pulling from the Rosslyn turn around to the middle of the 27 on ramp, then Kurt taking over to the foot of the Air Force Memorial climb. I heard some freehub clicking, and thought we had maybe a couple people behind us (a guy in a Pearl Izumi jersey and another guy that basically kept with us the entire time). When Kurt hit the bottom of the hill, and pulled off, I was expecting one of those guys to come around and get us up the hill. Instead there were about a group of 20 that fanned out across the road. Old guys on the front for the win I guess

I did keep yelling at people I recognized (Was that dbb? Dickie on the front of the cutters twice, quick Hellos for consular and Rod).

Got around for lap 6 in 2:38, but I guess we missed the starting lap 7 cut off by about 8 minutes; using flyby there were a few in front of us that started 7 and made it around, and others that started 7 but were pulled off before getting off of Rt 1 onto 110.

Picked up my medal and hung out with Arlingtonrider for an hour congratulating people as they came off the course. Saw quite a few forum members just chatting and high-fiving.

Spent an hour afterwards, and by about lap 15 of the Elite Mens race, figured it was time to mosey home. I turned a couple laps at Hanes Point, and found my way ’round thru to a couple of federal buildings I needed to figure out how to get to by bike, then really headed home. I only had to add (after that) another 5 or so to hit 100.4 by the time I got home. Fastest century ever! (probably the flattest one I’ve done too).

[Author]

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