First Crit

[jamie789]

I did my first 2 crits a little while ago. Went pretty well I guess, I didn't crash, and I learned a lot.

First one was cat 5 I basically finished with the pack around 20th I think, approx 12 seconds behind the winner. I could have gone much harder at times but didn't want to end up doing anything stupid.

Second race was an hour later, cat 4/5. That was hard and much faster. I started at the back and probably should have put in a big effort at the beginning to try to stick with the pack. I ended up by myself for most of the time, I was maintaining 24/25 mph until I got pulled about 3/4 through the race. Leaders were about 27/28 mph I think.

Corners and hills seem to be where I lost the least ground and sometimes passed people. I've had similar experiences with cx. Need to work on pedaling through corners, moving up through a pack and staying on a fast wheel.

I'll definitely be back for more. My friend says I'm built for climbs and long road races but crits seem more appealing to me. Any advice is welcome. At this point I think I just need more experience.

[Louis]

Congratulations. :)

I know next to nothing about racing, but sometimes see guys that I assume are on the same team training around here. Perhaps joining a team would be a good way to get smarter and stronger.

Good Luck

[shovelhd]

http://sprinterdellacasa.blogspot.com/

He participates here. He has a wealth of information for new racers on his site, including annotated videos, blog posts about the basics, and if you click through to the Bethel Spring Series site, you will find the clinic notes for the clinics we run in the spring. Lots of good beginner stuff in there.

Pedaling through corners can help or hinder. It depends on the course and what you are doing. Sometimes it's faster to late apex and coast through. Sometimes it's faster to pedal through. But these are details you probably don't need to work on right now. I bet the reason you got dropped was either a lack of speed work, too big a sphere, or both. Basics first.

[cdn_bacon]

Keep us posted on future races and welcome!

[ariw]

Congrats on finishing without a crash, that is a good start. Proper positioning within the pack is probably the single most important factor in crit racing. You have to be as near to the front as possible, without actually being on the front, and it takes a lot of effort to do that. The farther back you are, the easier it is to get caught up in a crash, and it takes more energy to get around slower riders in corners and on hills, leaving you empty for the sprint (almost inevitable in 4/5 races.)

-Ari

[carpediemracing]

http://sprinterdellacasa.blogspot.com/

He participates here.

^ that's me. For various reasons my blog name and my regular screen name are different.

The most important thing to do is to learn to draft more effectively. I've been riding long enough that I learned a lot about what new racers don't know when I started up with the clinics at the Bethel Spring Series (http://bethelspringseries.com). For drafting the biggest thing is to learn to be easy on the brakes, to be super attentive in terms of not leaving a gap, and to work hard to keep a gap closed rather than "saving some energy for later". There is no later once you're dropped.

To wit - I may use 100-150w sitting in at 25 mph. In a strung out line I might be at 300w to hang on at 30 mph. Since that's way over my 220w sustainable effort I might be tempted to "ease up" and save some juice. Problem is that to close a gap at 30 mph means going 32-33 mph, and that might take 500w. Suddenly it makes a lot of sense to do the 300w effort to hang in. (I made up the numbers but they're very roughly accurate).

The next most important thing to do is to reduce your sphere. It's a term I came up with to define the area around your front wheel and your bars. It includes your hands, arms, shoulders. A new rider's sphere might extend 5-8 feet in front of the front wheel, maybe 3 feet to the sides of the front wheel, and maybe 1-2 feet to the sides of the shoulders/arms/hands.

On the other hand a fluent pack rider (not necessarily just a fluent rider - this specifically applies to riders that know how to ride in a group) might have a zero inch sphere off their shoulders and arms, maybe 2-4 inches off their hands, and maybe 1-3" off their front wheel and bars.

Now, this doesn't mean that a skilled group rider is always about an inch off the wheel. There are many, many shots of me sitting 4-5 feet off a wheel. However, when I'm struggling in a race, I'm usually much closer, and in a tight last lap I'm usually more comfortable that those around me.

To work on your sphere you need to do two things. One is to try and do drills. Bumping drills are usually safe enough that you can do it on pavement at slow speeds without too much risk. This involves leaning against a rider to the side.

Over the weekend I had two riders from the Cat 5 clinic come up to me and tell me that the bumping drills (and my recommendation that any time something might happen you should be in the drops) saved them a lot of skin. In one instance a guy lost control and his pedal ended up in a clinic graduate's front wheel. The lost-control-guy was falling over and shoved the clinic graduate into the rider to the other side. The clinic graduate had a pedal banging spokes in his front wheel, someone falling into him from the left, and was leaning hard on the guy to the right.

The clinic graduate, who did nothing more than some bump drills and who had his hands well on the drops, stayed upright. His front wheel was trashed by the pedal. Nothing else happened.

That description is so vivid I forget what the other guy said about the clinic's bumping drills but it saved him too :)

There are drills to work on touching your front wheel to the rear of a rider in front of you. This is virtually guaranteed to drop you to the ground, hence the usefulness of doing drills to avoid it. Unfortunately the drills will drop you to the ground too, so it's best to do them at extremely slow speed (virtually walking pace) on grass or some soft surface.

The second thing to do is to work on drafting closer while on your bike. Find a very stable rider. Usually they're much taller/bigger than others - in general those riders don't have the snappiness of a super lightweight rider. Get on their wheel. If it's a training ride let them know you're following closely. I'll just call out that "I'm really close to your wheel so let me know if you need to do anything" or something like that. If it's a race just sit on their wheel. Draft. Stay in shelter. Save energy.

There's tons more but from what I've found the following hold true:
1. You don't need to go near the front. Only 10 riders can be in the top 10 of a race so unless you're supremely fit you're going to kill yourself to get up and stay in the top 10. This is true only if historically the field disintegrates due to course features (steep hill, 180 degree turn, super hard wind, etc).
2. Do everything you can to stay in the group. It's better to be in the group for 2 laps and then get shelled and having to stop versus getting shelled after 1 lap and then time trialing behind the group for the other 15 laps. If you can time trial for even a lap then you spent way too little energy trying to draft in the field.
3. Most riders find that moving to one side or another will help get closer to the rider in front. I do this all the time, partially because the wind is almost always coming at an angle but it also gives me room to see and pass. If it's single file due to pace (i.e. super fast) then sitting to the side usually isn't as good.
4. I'm sure you realized this but the peak speeds, the surges, are more important than average speed. Work on your surges. I'm sure you're fit enough to last a race - most Cat 5s in the clinic were stronger than me - but the surges will shell the unsuspecting.

Look through the clinic notes on the Bethel site. They're super abbreviated because I required everyone to read them, plus we only had about 35 minutes for the clinic each week. The blog has more info but is harder to search. I'd key in on cornering, sphere, MOSS (Maximum Optimal Spring Speed), and some of the race reports that have stills from the helmet cam. Finally you can go to YouTube (sprinterdellacasa) and watch some of the clips. I started using the ContourHD after Feb 2010 so any clip after that is good. Before that I used a regular camcorder with an external cam, hard-to-use editing software (Windows Movie Maker), and so I put very few comments in the clips. The ContourHD stuff is much better, edited in iMovie, and iMovie allows me to insert and delete stuff while keeping the rest of everything aligned (text/video/music).

Hope this helps

cdr

[Dude]

Great post! I used to race a lot more but now I just do all the training crits I can. All of those points are accurate and invaluable.

[avalonracing]

Nice post CDR! You saved me a lot of writing. :rolleyes:

Another thing that I would mention to the original post(er). You mentioned that you came in with the field in about 20th position in one of your crits.
PLEASE do not even pay attention to something like that. If you aren't in contention just worry about getting across the line safely. Sure, it is good to work on experience and explosive power in a field sprint, but believe it or not, that is not the place to do it.

I have so so may crashes at the finish of a Cat 4/5 races as guys, who are fatigued and weary, are racing for 17th place. Some are surging from behind with their head down, others are giving up and letting off of the juice before the line and others just can't keep a clean line. It is a mess.

Work on your sprints and your snaps with friends, alone or from the tip of the field when you are lucky/fast/smart enough to be there.

Also, don't listen to your friend who says that you have a climbers or long RRers build (and therefore aren't suited for crits). So, if you are lean, great, take advantage of it on the climbs and the road races but there are a lot of very fast, thin guys in crits... And it pisses off the guys with the huge quads who can out-sprint anyone that those thin guys win those crits on breakaways.

[T.J.]

Nice post CDR! You saved me a lot of writing. :rolleyes:

Another thing that I would mention to the original post(er). You mentioned that you came in with the field in about 20th position in one of your crits.
PLEASE do not even pay attention to something like that. If you aren't in contention just worry about getting across the line safely. Sure, it is good to work on experience and explosive power in a field sprint, but believe it or not, that is not the place to do it.

I have so so may crashes at the finish of a Cat 4/5 races as guys, who are fatigued and weary, are racing for 17th place. Some are surging from behind with their head down, others are giving up and letting off of the juice before the line and others just can't keep a clean line. It is a mess.

Work on your sprints and your snaps with friends, alone or from the tip of the field when you are lucky/fast/smart enough to be there.

Also, don't listen to your friend who says that you have a climbers or long RRers build (and therefore aren't suited for crits). So, if you are lean, great, take advantage of it on the climbs and the road races but there are a lot of very fast, thin guys in crits... And it pisses off the guys with the huge quads who can out-sprint anyone that those thin guys win those crits on breakaways.

+1 on the sprinting for 20th spot. If I know I'm not gonna be in the money I sit up for the sprint. I don't care if I finish 20th or 50th at that point. This is even more important in the lower cats do to crashing. Saw a crit last year where a cat5 obviously othe rivet sprinted for a mid pack finish and he sprinted from the hoods, lost control and wiped out about 5 guys. Ugly! Like avalonracing says, practice your sprint while training.

[redir]

Get to the start line early and in good position and give everything you have till things settle in. The first 3-5 laps are usually the hardest as people try to send teammates up the road or basically just try to shell any competition off the back. If you are strong enough to endure that then just sit in somewhere safe unless you have plans to attack or work with teammates. Even when things settle there are usually no easy spots like there is in road racing. Unless you have a teammate in a brake then you are typically balls to the wall the whole time.

Depending on what kind of rider you are you have to play the game just right to win. I can't sprint so I don't even contest the end of a crit. I've won a few crits as a cat 4 and as a cat 3 by either soloing off the front or getting into a brake. So basically for me the start of a crit is where I try and figure out who wants to get away and try to get away with them. If that doesn't work then I will rest after the initial surge and maybe attack after a prime when all the sprinters are shot and they let you go away solo. It's not easy to stay away from a crit field but it's also not easy to jockey for position with a bunch of juiced up sprinters and win a sprint either.

[avalonracing]

It's not easy to stay away from a crit field but it's also not easy to jockey for position with a bunch of juiced up sprinters and win a sprint either.

Although if you can get a solo break with enough of a gap late race, many 4/5 fields will be afraid to chase you down because they are all racing for second place. No one wants to blow their chances for that esteemed second by chasing down the leader. Of course if there are organized teams it won't work that well because team will work together to run it down but most teams at that level still don't "get it".*

*of course a team with a decent coach and/or mentor will and then all bets are off

[donevwil]

My friend says I'm built for climbs and long road races but crits seem more appealing to me.

I'm jealous, I'm built for crits, but prefer climbs and long road races. Try going for primes. The only crit I won was after getting a huge lead going for a prime 1/4 of the way through and holding it to the end. That hurt.

[shovelhd]

Although if you can get a solo break with enough of a gap late race, many 4/5 fields will be afraid to chase you down because they are all racing for second place.

This happens in the Masters and elite fields sometimes, too. Reading the race is a skill that can only be developed with experience.

[InspectorGadget]

Other than the odd triathlon, I don't race anymore. But I still enjoyed reading carpediemracing's post.

[soulspinner]

This is a good thread. Thanks Carpediem.:hello:

[jamie789]

Thanks everyone.

http://sprinterdellacasa.blogspot.com/

He participates here. He has a wealth of information for new racers on his site, including annotated videos, blog posts about the basics, and if you click through to the Bethel Spring Series site, you will find the clinic notes for the clinics we run in the spring. Lots of good beginner stuff in there.

Pedaling through corners can help or hinder. It depends on the course and what you are doing. Sometimes it's faster to late apex and coast through. Sometimes it's faster to pedal through. But these are details you probably don't need to work on right now. I bet the reason you got dropped was either a lack of speed work, too big a sphere, or both. Basics first.

I have seen some of sprinterdellacasa's videos. Good stuff. I hope to make the Bethel Springs series next spring as I will be in New England.

When I got dropped I feel like I was in with a whole pack of people that got dropped. Start positions were assigned, I was in the last row. I didn't really feel comfortable trying to move up through a pack of new, unpredictable riders, being new myself, and trying to catch up.


carpediemracing, Thank you! tons of stuff to work on. I find my sphere much larger on road bikes than on track bikes, maybe it's the brakes. I'm pretty comfortable staying less than a wheel length behind someone and almost bumping shoulders when I'm on the velodrome.

When I was little I used to touch my front wheel to my brother's rear wheel to freak him out, never fell, guess I was lucky.

Nice post CDR! You saved me a lot of writing. :rolleyes:

Another thing that I would mention to the original post(er). You mentioned that you came in with the field in about 20th position in one of your crits.
PLEASE do not even pay attention to something like that. If you aren't in contention just worry about getting across the line safely. Sure, it is good to work on experience and explosive power in a field sprint, but believe it or not, that is not the place to do it.

I have so so may crashes at the finish of a Cat 4/5 races as guys, who are fatigued and weary, are racing for 17th place. Some are surging from behind with their head down, others are giving up and letting off of the juice before the line and others just can't keep a clean line. It is a mess.

Work on your sprints and your snaps with friends, alone or from the tip of the field when you are lucky/fast/smart enough to be there.

Also, don't listen to your friend who says that you have a climbers or long RRers build (and therefore aren't suited for crits). So, if you are lean, great, take advantage of it on the climbs and the road races but there are a lot of very fast, thin guys in crits... And it pisses off the guys with the huge quads who can out-sprint anyone that those thin guys win those crits on breakaways.

Avalonracing, I didn't go all out at the end (or at any other point in the race) by any means for that exact reason. I looked at the results afterward to see how I placed.

I think my friend might just be saying that I'm suited for climbing and long rr's because that's what he likes and he's bigger than me. I generally do ok with sprints, I can usually hold my own on the track as long as there are no cat 2's. I still need to get used to using my gears though.

Can't wait to get to the next race!
You guys are great!