Bumps, Blades, and Bowballs- Cambridge Boatie Chat

Chiron

I liked the practice of giving out pints of Ale to the winners. In particular, Sidney W2 won their category but none of them like ale. How fortunate that a few of the men's side of the club had gone along to watch the presentations!

My feeling of impending bumps doom has just increased...

lol, you'll have caius chasing you. caius don't DO bumping.

Reply 824

shunter7634

9

Mays are scarily close, especially as we're going to have subs in all over the place due to exams. But I suppose my exams are more important...
We're also a division higher than we were in Lents, surrounded by a lot of first boats. We've been putting in the hard work, but it seems as if it mightn't be enough.

And the novice boats on the river are really annoying when you're trying to do pieces. Really annoying.

Reply 825

OP

Apagg

To be fair to be me, I'd only had two hours sleep this morning.

I only had three :p:

Fair enough, though, you didn't look too bad :wink:

Certainly better than me!

shunter7634

And the novice boats on the river are really annoying when you're trying to do pieces. Really annoying.

Depends on how good your cox is. And how good the boat you're rowing is, too :wink:

One of the highlights of my coxing career was just pre-Town bumps, prior to the timed race (the equivalent of teh getting-on race, that everyone does anyway). We were doing a race-pace piece and were heading at rate 40 towards a boat that was spinning at the top of the reach, and a parked up boat. The spinning boat didn't do what I wanted to and carry on spinning; they just sat there like lemons. The gap was about 10 feet wide between tehir bow canvas and the blades of the parked boat. They started to shout "hold it up", I told my guys to carry on, and then one stroke before the gap easied. The boat glided through with the blades on both sides over the bow canvas and the parked boat blades, and then once through the gap it was "row on light from here, go" and off we went! :proud:

Reply 826

wazzup

soooo cant wait till bumps. i m in m1 and we are training like crazy dogs atm.lol.lent bumps was soo cool.almost got an overbump but failed to get blades. shunter are u in catz 2?if u r, you are very unlucky being chased by st edmunds whose crew has 4 blues and couple of lightweights.

Reply 827

groovy_moose

1

If i remember correctly Catz M2 weren't doing so great anyway (or at least they were't last year...

If anyone's really bored, and knows where to find these things out, could they tell me who Catz W2 are surrounded by and whether this is a good or a bad thing. I think we're currently somewhere near the bottom of the 3rd division, so it's not gonn a be great anyway...

Reply 828

visesh

This is how the bumps chart looked at the end of last year's Mays:

http://www.firstandthird.org/tables/results/show.phtml?view=rep&page=eventtype.1:eventid.590 (scroll allll the way down)

As for the rest.... :dontknow:

Reply 829

OP

visesh

This is how the bumps chart looked at the end of last year's Mays:

http://www.firstandthird.org/tables/results/show.phtml?view=rep&page=eventtype.1:eventid.590 (scroll allll the way down)

As for the rest.... :dontknow:

Reply 830

visesh

That might look impressive, but it hasn't been updated in years :wink:

And it's for men.

Reply 831

scarlet ibis

women are here: http://www.mcshane.org/bumps/images/mays_women.png

but yeah, tis oooold. :frown:

Reply 832

OP

Look at the blades (right hand side of the pic) and the grass :wink:

Reply 833

Chewwy

ahhh. so i'm in Caius M3. Caius M4 has had over 10 outings this term, going fine. M3.... have had 0. on the one hand this means that i get to do a decent amount of revision. on the other, it means i'll find myself on the first day of bumps in a boat full of ex-M1 people, doomed to crab and bring shame upon myself/the boat/the club.

Reply 834

OP

Chewwy

ahhh. so i'm in Caius M3. Caius M4 has had over 10 outings this term, going fine. M3.... have had 0. on the one hand this means that i get to do a decent amount of revision. on the other, it means i'll find myself on the first day of bumps in a boat full of ex-M1 people, doomed to crab and bring shame upon myself/the boat/the club.

Early squaring ;yes; :p:

Reply 835

Neo-Classicist

Hello

I'm considering doing a post-grad at Cambridge in a couple of years and would be interested in taking up a bit of rowing on the side, so I hope some of the current Cantabridgians might give me some advice.

I've just joined my university club after previously having gone alone- just on the erg in the gym and very briefly with a local club- and am therefore still learning the ropes as far as water technique goes. Nevertheless I think I've got strong times- well, enough to get me pencilled in for the uni first boat: I do a 2k
in 6:13 and a 5k in 16.40. I'm 86kg @ 6'2.

I realise I won't be the quickest guy in the university or indeed have the right genetic make-up as far as height is concerned, but I train hard and I know how to correctly feed my body. Anyway, that's too much rambling, what is the general standard of a college 1st boat/ university team boat?

I'm looking to finish my current peaking cycle and then put some lbs on over winter and increase strength and power. I will message my routine over to anyone that wants a look and would be appreciative of any critique.

Thanks

Reply 836

OP

Neo-Classicist

Hello

I'm considering doing a post-grad at Cambridge in a couple of years and would be interested in taking up a bit of rowing on the side, so I hope some of the current Cantabridgians might give me some advice.

I've just joined my university club after previously having gone alone- just on the erg in the gym and very briefly with a local club- and am therefore still learning the ropes as far as water technique goes. Nevertheless I think I've got strong times- well, enough to get me pencilled in for the uni first boat: I do a 2k
in 6:13 and a 5k in 16.40. I'm 86kg @ 6'2.

I realise I won't be the quickest guy in the university or indeed have the right genetic make-up as far as height is concerned, but I train hard and I know how to correctly feed my body. Anyway, that's too much rambling, what is the general standard of a college 1st boat/ university team boat?

I'm looking to finish my current peaking cycle and then put some lbs on over winter and increase strength and power. I will message my routine over to anyone that wants a look and would be appreciative of any critique.

Thanks

Hi,

The simple position is that with a 2k of 6:13, you'd get a seat in most college's first boats, if not all college's first boats, without too much hastle, based on just the erg time. CUBC, the university boat club, generally have people with sub-6:30 2ks trialling for them, and you're well within that so you could even trial straight away if you wanted, although you'd probably do better to get some training on your water technique first.

The erg is just one selection method for boats, though, and some colleges, for example Downing, have a very rigourous process with a matrix of seat racing to put the fastest crew together. Others look at technique as well as erg times, and some of the smaller colleges would probably put you straight into the first boat with that score.

It all depends on how big the college is and how good they are at rowing, really. Sidney, Corpus and the smaller colleges tend to have a reasonably small pool of talented rowers and so you'd end up in the first boat straight away, probably. Other colleges such as Trinity (First and Third boat club) and St. Johns (Lady Margaret Boat Club) have several top boats which are close in technique and speed and you'd probably end up in a lower boat initially before progressing up to a higher boat as your technique improved.

In short, small college = pretty much guarenteed first boat seat with that erg. Larger college = Faster, better boats with the probability of training in a lower boat ("Lower" not being derogatory- there's only a handful of seconds in speed between, say, FaT I and II!) before moving on up to a first eight.

The grad colleges like St. Edmunds are the slight exception to the rule; they have a LOT of triallists for CUBC, and people who come back to them after the Boat Race and so their May boat is generally scorchingly good- or not so much if there's less triallists.

You won't be the quickest guy in the university- BUT you'll be one of the quickest, straight away!

Reply 837

Chewwy

Neo-Classicist

a 5k in 16.40.

jesus. really?

to put this in context, this'd put you 11th (out of several thousand) in the concept2 online rankings for all of last year.

Reply 838

Neo-Classicist

Yes, really.

I appreciate the degree of my achievement but I should add that given the nature of my work- albeit part-time- and ECs, I've spent a disproportionate amount of my life in gyms and in a general milieu of fitness enthusiasts (nutcases). Have been erging seriously for the past 2-3 years and before that was competing in triathlons. I know the limits of my body and what I can do to push beyond them.

Anywho, should all go to plan, I will be at the BIRC, competing in either the BUSA Mens' HW open or just the open. I had intended to be there last year but tore my left quad 16 or so weeks out. It's been a very long road back.

How well are you rowing?

Reply 839

OP