After many years and maybe a hundred thousand miles of cycling and taking parts in dozens or hundreds of events involving cycling from triathlons to TTs to duathlons to sportives, I finally got round to doing my first crit-style race the other week. Have to say it was a lot of fun and if you enjoy your cycling and are looking to mix it up you should really give it a go.
10 laps of a 5.2km course. Some bends which you would take at full speed if riding solo but which got a bit tricky in a pack, but nothing too technical. I managed to position myself quite well at the start and avoided an early crash, then concentrated on surviving and staying with the lead pack if at all possible. There were about 50 in the pack I was in, and another 100 or so that got dropped into several following packs. It was much harder than I was expecting just to hang in! Average speed overall was 27mph which doesn't sound too intimidating given a flat course and how much of a draft there was, but I'd completely underestimated all the power surges resulting from that many riders going round even fairly innocuous corners. I spent very little time on the front (I don't feel guilty, I was there for the experience and at least did a couple of short pulls) but there were very few points where I could relax and get my breath back, there was nearly always something going on whether it was responding to an attack, jostling for position coming into a turn, or accelerating to get back on coming out of the turn.
My only disappointment was at the end. There was a longish straight followed by a 90 degree bend and then maybe 150 yards into the finish. Consistently through laps 2-8 there were a bunch of 3 guys in matching jerseys who attacked on this straight and tried to hit the front going into that bend, so I figured they were practising for the final lap and made a note to try and get on their train when they did. Sure enough, lap 10 and off they went, and I managed to jump on the back, a few others clearly had the same idea and one guy got in position between me and the group of 3. Not a problem, I figured we'd all get round that final bend somewhere near the front and then I'd see if I had anything left in the tank (I wasn't under any illusions of being a serious contender in a sprint finish in my first event!). Except about 100 yards from that last bend, the guy whose wheel I'm on decides to first sit up and then have a drink! Left me nowhere to go, so I rounded the bend mid-pack somewhere and finished about 30th. The guys I was trying to follow got a 2nd and a 5th from our pack (later discovered that a small group of 10 had got away on the first lap and maintained a 30 second lead) so I guess I can console myself with the thought that I had the right plan but just failed to execute it. Spoke to the guy who'd sat up afterwards, I wasn't aggressive (I was delighted to just finish in one piece in the lead pack, and he didn't alter his line, hit his brakes or even stop pedalling, he just eased up) just joked that it was a funny place to suddenly decide you needed a drink. He shrugged and said he had nothing left for the sprint so decided to soft pedal home and stay out of any trouble. Still seems odd having done the hard work for 99% of the distance and got yourself in a good move, but there you go.
Guess the lesson is to try and find some team-mates next time for a more reliable wheel. Also taught me a fair bit about riding in a pack, I've done plenty of fast pace lines in training rides before so I was pretty confident and my own riding didn't cause any issues, the lesson was more about how to position myself to not be endangered by other riders as there were quite a few bad ones (luckily most of these dropped away by the end, I guess most people that train hard enough to stay in the lead pack acquire some decent pack skills along the way). And gave me much more appreciation for how the pros ride and the importance of having team-mates around to protect you.
10 laps of a 5.2km course. Some bends which you would take at full speed if riding solo but which got a bit tricky in a pack, but nothing too technical. I managed to position myself quite well at the start and avoided an early crash, then concentrated on surviving and staying with the lead pack if at all possible. There were about 50 in the pack I was in, and another 100 or so that got dropped into several following packs. It was much harder than I was expecting just to hang in! Average speed overall was 27mph which doesn't sound too intimidating given a flat course and how much of a draft there was, but I'd completely underestimated all the power surges resulting from that many riders going round even fairly innocuous corners. I spent very little time on the front (I don't feel guilty, I was there for the experience and at least did a couple of short pulls) but there were very few points where I could relax and get my breath back, there was nearly always something going on whether it was responding to an attack, jostling for position coming into a turn, or accelerating to get back on coming out of the turn.
My only disappointment was at the end. There was a longish straight followed by a 90 degree bend and then maybe 150 yards into the finish. Consistently through laps 2-8 there were a bunch of 3 guys in matching jerseys who attacked on this straight and tried to hit the front going into that bend, so I figured they were practising for the final lap and made a note to try and get on their train when they did. Sure enough, lap 10 and off they went, and I managed to jump on the back, a few others clearly had the same idea and one guy got in position between me and the group of 3. Not a problem, I figured we'd all get round that final bend somewhere near the front and then I'd see if I had anything left in the tank (I wasn't under any illusions of being a serious contender in a sprint finish in my first event!). Except about 100 yards from that last bend, the guy whose wheel I'm on decides to first sit up and then have a drink! Left me nowhere to go, so I rounded the bend mid-pack somewhere and finished about 30th. The guys I was trying to follow got a 2nd and a 5th from our pack (later discovered that a small group of 10 had got away on the first lap and maintained a 30 second lead) so I guess I can console myself with the thought that I had the right plan but just failed to execute it. Spoke to the guy who'd sat up afterwards, I wasn't aggressive (I was delighted to just finish in one piece in the lead pack, and he didn't alter his line, hit his brakes or even stop pedalling, he just eased up) just joked that it was a funny place to suddenly decide you needed a drink. He shrugged and said he had nothing left for the sprint so decided to soft pedal home and stay out of any trouble. Still seems odd having done the hard work for 99% of the distance and got yourself in a good move, but there you go.
Guess the lesson is to try and find some team-mates next time for a more reliable wheel. Also taught me a fair bit about riding in a pack, I've done plenty of fast pace lines in training rides before so I was pretty confident and my own riding didn't cause any issues, the lesson was more about how to position myself to not be endangered by other riders as there were quite a few bad ones (luckily most of these dropped away by the end, I guess most people that train hard enough to stay in the lead pack acquire some decent pack skills along the way). And gave me much more appreciation for how the pros ride and the importance of having team-mates around to protect you.