Red Hook Criterium London

Watched the whole race one now.
First few laps where a bit lairy with loads of skidding, calmed down after that.

On the run in to turn 5 nearly every lap i can hear a short screech, is the noise from the drivechain under reverse load or actual skidding ?
The noise crops up a few other times but it's more on turn 5 with it's long run in and sharp turn.

There was paint or something on the road surface that made tyres squeak every time. Was a bit unnerving for the first few laps, thought my rear tyre was slipping.

853Superfly
Oh and if anyone has drunken memories of being chased by giant pokemons....... the O2 was full of them and the trains :)

HA! I saw a group of them in Surrey Quays on my out to a gig....

yeah, right about half way round the corner.

Cheers Umop3pisdn, not being able to walk the track i never went down to turn 5 before it all started.
Get a similar thing with my car in multistorey carparks, something about the contact surface, so i can relate to the noise now :)
As it was a regular sound on the lap i put it down to speed for turn 5 and braking, not the actual track.

Made the mistake of wandering into the O2......loads of hyped up manga fans for the Hyper japan show, did spy a free sake bar but didn't have a pass for the compound :(

Forums own @umop3pisdn

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Not leaning enough

Some more photos if you haven't seen enough shots of people cornering; mainly of Das Rad Klub Facebroke link

Warning: Explicit Raleigh Rush Hour imagery.

@B0N0R

If anyone has any shots of the KYCU Velo team (excuse our ghetto kit, we sewed the patches on that morning due to a classic FedEx error) this is one of our riders here,
it'd be great to see some more shots, our rider numbers were #211 (Jacob on a red pre cursa), #209 (Dan on a pink Aventon), #210 (Felix on a white track champion), #208 (Ben on a green pre cursa) they qualified 125th, 140th, 161st and 194th respectively. We were disappointed about the last chance race being cancelled but the guys enjoyed their first time out.
It was our first crit, we had lots of fun and it was nice to meet everyone.
We were the guys handing out free iced coffee.
@HoKe any chance we could have some of your photos I found of us from that flickr album?

Go for it! =)

Looks too happy to be racing

Boom, this your blokes Velosurmer ?
Group 5 quali lead out lap

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Oh yes, I also learned why pista concepts shouldn't fit 32c tyres...

dick

Again not brilliant photos, couldn't see the camera screen to see what the autofocus had locked onto, was a bit bright and sunny :)

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@HoKe Thanks man!
@853Superfly yeah that's our guys, thanks! Any chance you could send them over to me for us to use if you've got any more of them?

Only those two and camera was set to low res as well so unless the forum auto downsizes they could be full file size as you see them.
If they are of use feel free to use them.

That's Alec Briggs who finished 13th! I guess he is da boss

@Sam_Dunn 's photo set is bombarding all my feeds this morning! Some great pics in there!

Blimey

where's my thanks?

When's Barcelona?

Thanks very much for the free coffee, a godsend after drinking water all day, and a pleasure to have you near us (Rider Area volunteers), your company and party vibes were much needed.

Anyway, after all the prior deliberations, what gears did people run, and what worked?

My 2c. Some good things about this event:

• The location. Not too far out in the sticks. Nice to be next to some parkland. Bringing a 2-year old to something like this means you need to have other diversions, so having access to the cable car as well was great. Also good to have a shop nearby with reasonably priced beer and food. It was also a good way to show passing pedestrians and tourists how fun bike racing can be.
  
• The setup for the womens final (we did not stay for the mens). Sweeper bike pushing the lapped riders out of the way, great TV camera angles on the monitor at the finish line so we could see what was going on around the other side of the course. Very professional, engaging to watch, interesting to see how the four lead riders were caught by the following two. Glad that we managed to catch this at least.
  
  

Some not so good things about this event:

• The format of the mens qualifiers. Incredibly boring to watch. Absolutely zero competitive edge to it at all apart from setting your own best time. Lots of people pootling around at ease every second lap, made the 'race' concept a bit of a joke. They should revisit this. Or even just have small prizes if you place 1,2 or 3 in your qualification round, so at least people are trying a bit.
  
• The scheduling. Way behind - fair enough, I understand that things are not easy to organise at the exact second, but no public announcements right until the last second that the actual first race of the day (last chance race) was cancelled was poor.
  
• The location. I thought it was fine, but there were a lot of really pissed off people being held back at the track crossing heading to the cable car. If you are not interested in bike racing, you have reason to be irritated. Next year it might be better not to have a public transport point in the centre of the course.
  
• The prices of some of the vendors. Putting the Mean into MeanTime with a fiver a pint. And the brewery is just up the road! FFS.
  
  

Feel free to disagree...

I'm surprised about the cable car foot traffic. Perhaps they could build a walkway over next year?

Qualifying was exactly as it said on the tin. It was all about the racing, understand with a 2 year old you can't stay that late but not sure what can be done to the format.

As for the vendor prices, I was actually impressed to have a choice. At most festivals it's "buy our food and beer or fudge off". So free entry, BYOB + Tesco was excellent.

Overall it was the best cycling event I've spectated and I'm sure it'll get even better with feedback for next year.

p.s. I think you asked me about scheduling at the start/finish line; was in a red jersey with 2 other guys, said person mentioned getting back to their 2 year old!