Tomorrow I am going to walk into a bookies and try and place £5 on team Smile and £5 on team Goonies.
You think they’ll know what I’m talking about?
I’m not sure, but if they do… can you put a fiver on Team Smile for me too 
STM
Argh, I forgot about you. Yes, I think I’d rate you guys in the top 10 definitely. I knew I’d heard of Dave White before, now I remember he won the 10km race beating lot’s of fast riders. And David I know has posted some very fast cruising speeds before on his Schlumpf.
Personal Rollercoaster might be interesting to watch too…I only know of Steve through his hillclimbing feats. Hopefully there’ll be a few big ones for you!
As for Team NZUNI…we are aiming for a 25km/hr avg speed, which is I think what the top teams will be aiming for. So yes, we’re aiming to be somewhere up there 
We have Tony Melton (#5 at Unicon 13 Marathon, and veteran of many Unitours and bike races), and Will Sklenars. Will is a much stronger rider then me, and probably faster too. He’ll be one to hang on to (if you can) on the climbs.
Nuff said.
Well, at last we get mentioned in this thread! 
Roland (who I taught to ride) pushed me to faster times last year on Whiteface Mtn and Mt. Equinox, where we beat about a third of the bicyclists. With the competition from him, I crushed both my old records, but he beat me (barely) in both. I’m just glad to have him on my team at RTL.
Yeah - the bookies are laying you in at 1:3 odds to win the whole enchilada, and only paying out 3:5 for a top three finish.
Remember to rank your teams 1, 2 and 3.
I’ll do a tally at the end and we’ll work out the odds.
So far Team Smile seems to be the odds-on favourite
I’m thinking of putting in a bet for the team that buys me the best and tastiest beer… or the best wine.
*
Connie
RTL Race Referee
*Just in case it wasn’t clear, I WAS JOKING!!!
I really have no idea who will win and due to my position with RTL, I will not make any guesses.
Now that’s my kind of race:)
The elevation profile I’ve seen doesn’t look very hilly to me. The high point is just 250 meters, and it looks like most of the hills top out at not much over 100 meters. That’s really pretty flat for 800km. It’s possible that some of those small hills are steep enough to make a difference, but it looks to me like the course isn’t nearly hilly enough to be advantageous for me. I don’t expect to shift often or at all on my 29er.
After some testing, here’s my take on the geared 29er vs. an ungeared 36er.
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On hills too steep to turn over the big gear (above about 5% grade), the ungeared 36er is marginally faster.
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On certain hills of a higher grade, the 29er in 1:1 mode is marginally faster than the 36er.
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On hills just under the steepness threshold for gearing (3-5% grade), the 29er is marginally faster than the 36er, but requires significant additional energy expenditure to keep your speed up.
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On flats, the 29er is marginally faster than the 36er and takes less energy to ride.
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On downhills, the 29er is significantly faster than the 36er and takes less energy to ride.
Ooops…edit: I thought Tom was comparing the geared 36’er to the geared 29’er.
IMHO, the geared 36’er is faster on flats, and downhills. On some uphills, the geared 29’er in 1-1 is definitely better than the geared 36’er in 1-1 (ie: Mt diablo, I’m thinking of you!)
corbin
Wow, very interesting thread as I forgot all the good teams/riders that have entered the race. I think I agree with a lot of stuff GizmoDuck said…very informative post. My team, west coast cokers, is aiming for the top 10 but I’m sure most teams are?! But then again I just sprained my ankle a few days ago so there goes lots of training rides but hopefully it’ll heal by then so I can still compete!
Here’s my bet (notice how the top teams have at least one geared uni! 
Actually out of the top 8 I have listed, does any of the teams not have a guni?):
- NZUNI
- Team Smile
- TexiCali
- Yellow Line Fever
- Totally Doable
- Lost Wheelers
- Korean Dream Team
- Hans Islanders
The last 4 teams I really don’t know about them as I don’t know the riders but I’m guessing they’ll be fast and they might be in the top 4 but as I don’t know them I’m putting them towards the bottom. Of course this is what I predict if there was perfect weather, no brake downs, no injuries and everything went as planned.
I hope that their are no injuries but I would place another bet that one of these teams will have a major injury so at least one of the team members can’t complete the race although it doesn’t mean they are out of the race by any means. It’s just that all these teams are going to be pushing themselves so much that I think it’s bound to happen that someone will take a UPD and get hurt (let’s hope I’m wrong!) Especially if everyone is riding close together (like the criterium).
This is going to be fun!! Not only to watch and see what happens but to also experience this first of its kind event! 37 more days…till we find out the results!!
Connie-What kind of beer do you want?! And isn’t Roger riding in this?! If not, why?
Our team, the ‘Lost Wheelers’ are all on fixed 36ers and we’re hoping to give the geared unis a run for their money. Overall I still think the geared unis will have the edge though. 
I’d love to know how many teams are riding pure 36ers, how many are all GUnis (29" or 36") and how many will be riding both?
Team NZUNI & Smile get my vote also.
Steve
- Korean Dream Team
- NZ Uni
- German Speeders
But its just a guess because old races doesnt count a lot, it all depents how much the teams practice before the race.
The criterium is gonna be mentalist - we’ve had 10-20 rider races at Warwick, and even there it was sometimes hard to overtake. Warwick is an 800m course, with 7 corners, whereas the RTL criterium is a 700m course with 4 corners - meaning the RTL one will be way more crowded with 5x the riders and probably a little bit faster riding too. Even if people spread right out it’ll be one rider every 7 metres - I hope those roads are wide! It’ll be mad if the fast riders start lapping the slower ones too.
I wonder if they’ll be doing intermediate challenges in the criterium too, like fastest laps and sprints to the line every 5 laps, like they do in bike ones.
Joe
As Tholub mentioned, I’ll probably be wearing full muni armor for that race.
We will have a geared 36er, a geared 29er, and a pure 36er in our stable, but I’m expecting we will try to be on one of the geared unis nearly the entire race.
I want team Atlas or team tricycle to win, both team on know the some of the riders, so it would be cool if one of them won.
Where’s “West coast cokers” in your lineup? I’m expecting you guys to place right up there-especially with you and John being such strong riders!
He doesn’t get much air-time on here, but I’d make the same comment on Tue Johansen (Lost Wheelers)… scarily strong and knows how to spin too. We had a good hilly ride last weekend and he could usually out-climb me on his 102 vs my 110s. Animal, machine, whatever - he doesn’t hang around. And the other Lost Wheelers Steve and Paul have been getting tons of training in and it shows - I was having real trouble chasing them down when I remounted last after a stop a few times.
I’m just looking forward to seeing how many dark horses appear - with so many riders there will be surprises.
Sam
A couple things to add to this:
The geared uni is more impacted by headwinds than the ungeared. I think this is a combination of the gear being too high for a headwind, and the slop in the drive train making adjustments to wind more expensive.
The geared uni does get more benefit from tailwinds; I had a great run in the Presidio this weekend on a straight stretch with a steady 30mph+ wind. I didn’t have a way to measure speed but I’m sure I broke 20mph.
Interruptions (traffic, stop lights, etc.) are more expensive on the geared uni; I’m getting better at shifting, but it still costs speed to shift in both directions, and takes longer to get up to cruising speed than it does on the ungeared. I’m working on upshifting at higher speed and getting to cruising speed faster after a shift, but it’s not solid and it increases the chance of a dismount (which is also expensive).
Yeah, Tue is very fast. I’m not sure if he’s the fastest rider I’ve ever ridden with, him and Sam and Ken are all much of a silly fast muchness.
Joe