Was just about to post this. Cat 5 is supposed to be for beginners, but that doesn't mean beginner riders, that means beginner racers. There can/will be some guys with insane power that have just never raced, they also may not know what the heck they are doing but they will put the hurt on the less fit riders. Other issue is Cat 5 races tend to be short, 20-30 minutes rather than 45-60 minutes. If the race is only 20 minutes, everyone will want to test their mettle and will go much harder knowing they only have to do it for 20 minutes.

We have weekly crits in the summer. The 4/5 race is often harder than the 3/4 race due to less people to do the work for you and higher tempo due to the short time.

FTP is fine and dandy, but tactics is what will keep you from getting dropped. There are guys I can drop like a bad habit in a one on one road throw down, but they hang just fine and even do better in crits due to experience, I am getting better, but at first I got dropped all the time due to poor tactics. My last stage race the guy who got 3rd in the crit, got dropped by me/everyone else like a bad habit in the road race. He could take a corner in the pouring rain like a madman but couldn't hang in a dry road race. That pouring rain crit was what looks on the map like a figure 8 course. There were tons of corners and tons of crashes due to the wet road. My power profile was a saw blade of 0 to 800 watt efforts. Hard on the brakes to make it through the corner alive, then jump back on big time to stay in the group before the next corner.

It's all part of the fun. Best thing is to show up ready to learn and have some fun, we aren't getting paid to do this...

FTP is pretty much irrelevant. Your ability to go HARD for 20-30 seconds, recover and do it again (and again, and again) is more important. Also, your skills in being able to ride in the pack without wasting energy is probably what will give you and most other new bike racers the most trouble.


THIS

It's not that power out put is NOT important, it is, but ounce you get in the race and see how it unfolds you'll realize that there are a a few other things of greater importance - the repetition, positioning, tactics recovery, ability to ride in close quarters, bike handling etc . .

Power is important, but it's more about the range of power you can work through and how quickly you can get to your really high power numbers and how long you can hold it there??

For the OP, your main goal if this is your first crit or bike road race of any kind - finish with the group. That may sound easy, because, people go on and on here on those anti-tri-drafting threads, and make out that sitting at the back of a pack on a bike is a big laugher. They have no idea what they are talking about. It's WAY harder than it looks. As others have said Cat-5 is hard to predict and the races often have little ebb and flow - lots' of guys trying to be heros off the front!

There will be times, when you will be going harder/faster, than you have ever gone on a bike, and there will be other times, that you will be going at what seems to be a ridiculously easy pace - but IT WILL get hard/fast again soon - so enjoy and take FULL advantage of the easy time.

---

---

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was to move up the outside as much as possible when everyone else takes a breather. Don't sit back and enjoy anything, press forward until you're exactly where you need to be because then you'll be able to relax a lot more for a lot longer.

What you'll find is that in bigger and faster races, there will be a "bubble" where right around 10-20th place (give or take a few) and those guys will be coasting way more than the people behind them who will be strung out to kingdom come. The easiest way to make a hard race easier is to get into that bubble, and the easiest way to do that is during the lulls, even if the lull is only for a few seconds. Bonus points if you can move up behind another rider moving up in the lull.

It might be an old thread, but in case anyone comes here again, I'd like to add form experience, that a person who can do 250W may or may not be able to race a crit.

While it never happens, just for the sake of argument, imagine a person that has a max of 250W, and yet can do the 250W for an hour.

The reason they cannot race a crit, is they will be dropped on the first corner of the first lap - as the peleton surges out of the first corner with a 5 to 10 second burst at 1000W.

And I know, some of you may question my numbers as being high, but they aren't. I always question other people's numbers as being low - I guess it is where you live.

But, I can put out the same average FTP as the Cat 4/5 racers - I can do 266W for an hour. But my short term power out of the corners is about 600 to 700W, so I get dropped.

Such advice, as ride smart, stay on the wheel, draft smart - it's all great for someone that is riding with the peleton. When you get dropped on the first corner you are only riding solo - there is no strategy the race has been lost.

If you cannot burst at 1000W...at least in my local are, there is no point in going to the race, there is no strategy to implement, because you will be riding solo in the wind, from the get go.

I cannot imagine anyone rejecting the advice to train 5s, 15s, 30s power to race crits.....anyway I guess the only thing that can be said, is just go, because it's apparently different for each individual, and for each epoch you race in, and for each individual city....advice just doesn't match up.

I mean no disrespect, but all Cat 5/first race questions like this should be answered "Just sign up for the race" where 'race' can mean anything from the next Cat 5 race on your local calendar, to "early bird" or "training crit" to beginner race program - whatever your location offers.

There is an inordinate amount of overthinking that often goes into this - just sign up and race, finish, and mark down one of the 10 Cat 5 races you need to complete in order to upgrade to Cat 4.

---

Amateur recreational hobbyist cyclist
https://www.strava.com/athletes/337152
https://vimeo.com/user11846099

Sounds like you need to work on your cornering and positioning. I do pro/1 races where I'm not sprinting at 1000+ watts out of corners.

If you continually find you have to, then really work on when you're braking and how you're setting up to take corners. If you're rolling up on someone right as you start to turn and have to scrub a lot of speed at that instant, you're likely going to get gapped off and then have to sprint. Try letting a little gap go before the turn so that you can then take the turn without braking and close the gap right as you exit, enabling you to flow right into someone's slip stream as you exit.

For what it's worth, when I finally figured that out, I stopped even having to stand up out of corners. I can ride entire crits with 180 degree turns and everything sitting down the entire time, only standing to attack or cover an attack or sprint for a prime or something.

I'm in Cat 3 this year (and last year for that matter). My last race I averaged 202 watts, peak was 690 watts, and NP was 220 watts. I was 3rd.

It has little to do with anything below your shoulders. It comes down to your brains and bike handling skills. Brut power will not get you there. A big set of balls helps too.

---

"...the street finds its own uses for things"

I hated cat 3's, the 1/2's are so much more enjoyable. Cat 3's tend to just sit around and watch each other. I remember a road race where my AP was 129 and my NP was 189. If its a big pack like in Tulsa Tough, you can sit in on 200 AP/240-250NP..... if you are smart. Now throw a big hill in there and its a different story.

The irony is racing 1/2 is often easier as everybody knows how to corner and it is generally a smoother race. The accelerations are constant and insane at times but not the cat 5 crit jump out of every corner.