Lee Valley Circuit...Has opened!!

TakeTurns

Good news for all those who were waiting to hear about it from months ago.

Kicks off on the 9th of July.

A very late in the evening crit, so no excuses 7:45pm start unless you're under 16.

https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/event ... -League-#1

Been on the organiser's website and it says the 3/4 race will be ran separately to the e/1/2.
http://www.h-p-cc.info/

Good to see support for women's racing.

damocles10

Good news...I don't race anymore, but, as it's only 5 minutes from my studio I might pop over and watch.

gattocattivo

Did anyone go to the first night on Wed? I heard there were crashes?

okgo

I did.

Loads of riders there, when the org shouted for the e12 to line up it was quite amusing, of the 100 men, around 14 of us did the e12 race.

We were told to keep it neutral for a lap, which we did, all of a sudden these two from the 3/4 race came flying past us (they were also told to be neutral!) with that, we started racing and quickly overtook them again. Anyway I am told it was one of these that later crashed.

Circuit is pretty safe, there is a rut on the fast section which isn't ideal, but otherwise I struggle to work out how they crashed where they did.

Tom Dean

It probably seems safer in a group of 14 than 80+, some of whom needed a few laps to get used to the bends!.. I got taken out on the bottom hairpin after about 10 minutes, apparently someone had already been taken away in an ambulance by then.

anonymousblackfg

I was behind both crashes pretty much on the same lap.

First - hairpin entry someone just didn't hold their line, somone later shouted out who they thought the culprit was to me but am not sure if it was or not

Second - bunching into the wind as you come up to the right by the Velodrome/finish hut, this was happening towards the final laps as well. I think there it was just somone bumping wheels, no need for it to bunch just people being lazy and not pedalling through the little climb so not realising what it was causing behind them.

jzed

I was in the second one I think. The 3/4 was trying to pass the women's race up the second incline. It must have bunched up and the two riders in front of me went down and I couldn't avoid it. Unfortunately broke a spoke so couldn't continue.

TakeTurns

It was absolute carnage. From what I saw there were 4 crashes in the 3/4.

Our race was supposed to be neutralised too for the first lap, however two Vicious Velo guys went against instructions and attacked. Along with that came panic and confusion. Inevitably thats when the wobbly riding and crashes began. Then coming up to the final bend of the final lap, the women's race was in the way of the sprint which just made it even more frustrating. For me particularly because I was on the inside and had to brake and restart my sprint. Even so, I finished 7th (I have a strong sprint).

But then we were told there were 6 up the road. Which in fact, were riders who attacked on the neutralised lap or jumped into the e12 race. So from my point of view, the organisers were quite happy to let the 'cheaters' win.

okgo

We did tell any guys who tried to latch on to us that were from your race to drop off, but even so that is poor.

anonymousblackfg

The two races only properly split at the second crash but I don't think the 3/4's knew who was where. There were definately some 3/4 up the road after that crash, I was between the two groups with a load of others including Luke, most eventually merged back in the with 3/4 bunch as did I. What was most worrying was that so few seemed capable of through and off or paceline riding, half my energy was being expended on trying to get people organised.

Though two did attack on the neutralised lap, the confusion brought all the 3/4 with them.

Grumpyolgit

Concurrent races on short closed roads circuits simply don't work. How BC's insurer's feel about RA's and events that allow this I do not know, they probably are not aware of this practice. It is also unfair to riders in races that last less than an hour typically that a large portion of the time is effectively spent riding neutralised as a faster group goes past, often only to slow up ahead.

The old Thursday league at Eastway somehow managed to run two evening races consecutively, why can this not be done on the London Circuits now?

damocles10

Grumpyolgit wrote:

Concurrent races on short closed roads circuits simply don't work. How BC's insurer's feel about RA's and events that allow this I do not know, they probably are not aware of this practice. It is also unfair to riders in races that last less than an hour typically that a large portion of the time is effectively spent riding neutralised as a faster group goes past, often only to slow up ahead.

The old Thursday league at Eastway somehow managed to run two evening races consecutively, why can this not be done on the London Circuits now?

I agree, I guess the circuit is new to riders so crashes will happen....I personally wouldn't like to race if I was E/1/2 mixed up 3/4 especially if instructions are not adhered to and some are not experienced. At Eastway they ran the races at different times, but, that was during the day and not under a tight time frame ( Hire cost? )

Tom Dean

Some nice pictures from last week: http://buildriderinse.com/velopark-road-race-july-16th-2014/

anonymousblackfg

You have to love the amateur race beard scene...

okgo

It is East London afterall.

Not going to make it down there tonight, got home at 11pm last week, still not sure why its a 7,45 start.

anonymousblackfg

You didn't miss much, a bigger bunch in the E/1/2, the 3/4's crashed again on the hairpin at about 30 minutes in. A fair few like me did a bit of cross country to get around it but then I get a fair few who were split hung back to rejoined on being lapped. Me and a guy from Islington went balls out to rejoin but then realised we caught the womens group ahead having emtied the tank.

I ended up spending the next 30 minutes teaching 7 other guys how to group ride and paceline, if you come racing, even at 4th cat you'd hope you'd have some understanding of it... evidently I failed as we got caucht 300 meters from the finish line.

EDIT: A nice short write up on the Islington CC forum, though my words to Jamie were, 'last one over the line is a sex offender' and the fact his front wheel was behind mine as we crossed the finish line was the reason I said 'well done rolf' to him. A little creative writing happening over there I think.

hatone

I'm thinking of doing this Wed's crit. Slightly nervous about reports of crashes happening, especially in 3/4 group.

Do E/1/2 groups have a handicap before the 3/4s start? Sounds like starting them altogether is a recipe for .....

What's the organisation like and is it possible to sign up on the day?

olake92

The E12s set off just before the 34s. However, the catch doesn't cause crashes, they usually happen separately in normal racing situations.

maryka

How is it that at least 2 other circuits (or 3, I think Eelmore does it this year?) can hold 3 concurrent races at a weeknight crit without the races coming together or massive crashes occurring, yet the Velo Park organisers can't do it?

Genuine question, as I'm genuinely confused as to how this is difficult to do. It's hardly inventing the wheel here.

okgo

Part of the issue seems to be that there is nobody marshalling or making use of the shortcut which could help things. And that the 3/4 race is pretty big I guess.

hatone

Sounds like the organisation has some way to go to iron out the issues mentioned here.

Think I might give it a miss...

DavidJB

For some reason after reading this thread I'm just imagining watching the 3/4 race to Benny Hill music.

olake92

maryka wrote:

How is it that at least 2 other circuits (or 3, I think Eelmore does it this year?) can hold 3 concurrent races at a weeknight crit without the races coming together or massive crashes occurring, yet the Velo Park organisers can't do it?

I can't understand this either. My suspicion (and I'm accepting that people won't like it) is that these are excuses to detract from the real problem; crashes happen and that's life. The frequency is down to riding standards, regardless of category. People don't often like to accept, or simply don't know, that they caused a crash.

The E12s last week (certainly us leaders) caught the 34s and the women multiple times but no one crashed while we did it. The only crash I saw was on the hairpin bend in the 34 race and we only went through the aftermath.

As for the course, it's really nice! It has a great surface except for one bump as you head over the bridge a few hundred metres from the hairpin, which doesn't actually cause any problems. It's technical and not as wide as some other circuits, however this isn't a real problem. For example, I don't think there weren't any crashes on the Circuit of the Fens rough sections yesterday in the prem.

Organisation - they can't see the whole circuit but did tell hangers on to get off our wheels. When the coms couldn't see, we told them to get off instead.

I see a lot of similarities between this Velopark debate and the 'why do so many 4th cat crashes at Hillingdon?' debate.

Pross

olake92 wrote:

I see a lot of similarities between this Velopark debate and the 'why do so many 4th cat crashes at Hillingdon?' debate.

Yep, Londoners are crap bike handlers

maryka

I'm going to venture a guess that the people racing at Velo Park thus far aren't the usual Crystal Palace and Hog Hill regulars, and if the comm's briefing isn't clear that the races aren't to come together then I suppose people (read: the 3/4s) could see it as a free-for-all. Do they have different coloured numbers for the different races at least?

Running into the back of one of the other races during the final sprint is pretty poor though, and good organising/commissairing generally prevents that (by anticipating where the races will overtake and using a cut-through or shortening/lengthening the races accordingly to keep them apart).

Anyway having not been there myself I can't say, but I hope to get over there for a go in August. Sounds like a nice circuit.

Scoob84

Unfortunately I was just behind the two that caused the crash and with no room to stop, went over the bars. I've only raced at crystal palace, but this felt a lot more dangerous. Crystal palace with its blind corners and fast accents tends to string out the bunch quite quickly and its follow the wheel in front or get dropped. This course on the other hand is so easy in comparison that the bunch holds together and takes up the whole road. People then squeeze through gaps that just aren't there to try and move up.

Here's a video of last Wednesday's 3/4's and the camera guy (not me) nearly gets taken out at 8mins 50.

bigmat

Last week's race was a bit of a mess. Missed the break in the E12s and then there were maybe 15 of us in the main bunch after a few got spat out the back. Problem was we ended up getting caught by the 34s (oh the shame!) primarily because once we realised the front 6 weren't going to be caught, our race became quite tactical with slow fast periods, attacks etc. The 34s just cruise round in a bunch of about 100 it seemed. We ended up at the back of the 34 bunch for a couple of laps, basically just soft pedalling, discussing our weekend plans and wondering when the comms were going to do something to separate the races. We did try to overtake them again at one point but it was just too congested. Eventually we were told to sit up for a lap, which turned out well for my clubmate who had pinged off the front just before this all happened. Hopefully in future they'll use the cut throughs to prevent that sort of thing happening as we almost got caught up with the 34s sprint finish which is not somewhere I want to be!

DavidJB

Pross wrote:

olake92 wrote:

I see a lot of similarities between this Velopark debate and the 'why do so many 4th cat crashes at Hillingdon?' debate.

Yep, Londoners are crap bike handlers

I actually do think the aggressive attitude of the city leaks through in to the races.

Tom Dean

I'm not sure the short cut cuts out enough of the circuit to get past a group of 60 odd.

anonymousblackfg

So much of the issues with the 3/4 is numbers, I can well understand the comments of matt, the number last week meant it was sheer luck or stupidity if you could ever move up to even try anything...

My view is that the Olympic park and hillingdon are easy to get to for the city working SW living cyclists and having reputations as not being as challenging as hog hill or palace means your far more likely to get more less experienced riders/riders.

There is easily enough demand to run multiple evenings or racing up at the Olympic park, that would certainly help thin things out.

Maglia

It's always interesting to see the reasoning behind crashes which, lets face it, are part of racing at all levels.

The very nature of racing is that it forces you to dig really deep and it takes a lot of experience to learn to make good decisions when you're breathing out of your backside. Communication (Letting people know you're moving up) getting used to the odd bump without veering across the whole circuit and learning how high your BB is are three key skills that you can only really learn by racing at a variety of circuits. The inboarding of newcomers to racing is an old debate that crops up with a regularity that suggests something should change but the problem of crashing is a universal one.

I raced at Eastway, have done a few of the Hog Hill summer series over the last couple of years and I'm up in York at weekends so have raced at the circuit there too. I've raced E/1/2 and 3/4s at all of those circuits apart from York and have seen crashes at both levels for a whole host of reasons. I raced 3/4 at the Lee Valley Circuit last week and it's obvious that the organisers should start the Youths earlier so they can run the two senior male races separately and put the women's race in with either the Elites or the 3/4s. The fact that everyone's numbers are the same colour is extraordinarily confusing if you're in a break trying to work out who's riding with you or where your bunch is.

I'll be back tonight, it's a great circuit in my opinion.