I am thinking of entering a road race (80K) any tips? I do weekly training crits but haven’t done much group riding on the open road.
Just try to stay in the front third of the group for the first 60k. Try to see who is strong and where a selection would be made.
Protect yourself, stay out of the wind. No pulls.
Relax, you may get bumped a bit, its part of racing. Dont cut anyone off in corners or you may get bumped more.
If you can follow a move in the last 20k, give it a try. You may find that you blow up fast, but its all experience.
have fun.
They will probably go like a bat out of hell for the first 5 min. don’t get dropped, things will slow down eventually. Moral of the story, don’t start in the back.
Wow! Where to begin…if you are a Cat. 5 newbie don’t get crashed and don’t crash anybody (not that you can control all eventualities).
Here’re some that helped me for years. If you’re working for somebody else, make sure you do. If not, don’t cover every break, especially in the first half of the race. Suck wheel like crazy, stay in the top 20, watch out for squirrelly riders that look like they might be on crank.
OK…I’ll let others who are still road racing chime in here.
If you can hang in the crits, the road race will be a piece of cake.
I second that - crits are hard - from a bike handling and fitness point of view. The road race should go just fine.
At my first road race (6 laps of a 5 mile course), I wasn’t ready for the opening jump and lost contact with the main group. All by myself, I held a 5 minute gap for the next 5 laps (according to my wife’s timing) - if I wouldv’e been ready to go fast right away, I would have been fine. If the race director says there’s a non-competitive rolling start until some official race starting line a few miles away, don’t believe it.
Defend your position at the front.
Watch out for the intersections, they are usually full of loose gravel. Not sure if this is applicable, but it is something a guy said to me just before my first tri last year. Good luck!
I hope so! - just hope I don’t blow after an hour.
Some sound sounding advice so far - thanks everyone.
From the crit I deffinatly need to work at being more comftable in the middle of the pack.
boing, here’s my $0.02.
- warm up thoroughly. then warm up some more.
- stay in the top third as much as you can. this means that you’ll eventually have to do some pulls – try to get in some good ones in the first half of the race. that way, you can set the initial tempo to your needs. Fall back a bit later on, but don’t get caught in the back during a break. Please don’t be the one who never, ever pulls. Be a good sportsman. It’s fun, after all.
- If you have the legs: The best time to attack is when your group has just reeled in another attack, and you didn’t have to do a pull in it.
- Make absolutely sure your bottles fit your bottlecages well, and won’t rattle out. this is very important.
- if you’re bringing spare wheels for the wheel car, mark them brightly.
- you know how to suck a wheel? Good. No? Oops.
- at least short sleeves are mandatory (as they are in crits)
- A cat 5 race is almost always a race of attrition: People just get ridden off the back. Just hang on, hang on, hang on.
- having said that: if you find yourself in a breakaway, you will NOT succeed unless you talk to the other guys about doing 15-sec pulls, moving over to the left, and having the next guy take over. don’t be shy about this.
- In a breakaway, watch teammates trying to screw you. E.g., imagine you’re doing a pull and two guys from the same team are right behind you. as you come out of your pull and move back the left, the third guy will attack on the right, and be shielded by guy #2. And so on. Road racing is a very mental sport, and once i figured that out, I did much better!
- very important: you have 79k to figure out who the guy is who’s strong enough to hang around until the end, but is going to jump for the sprint early. You want to be on his wheel. Have him pull you, then drop him like a hot potato with 10 yards to go.
- 2-word sprint advice: Be Patient. Once, I sprinted so early, I actually got a second wind!
- preview the finish before the race if you can. practice hammering the last 3 - 5 km, then sprint to the finish. You may be surprised at how little distance you can cover at the end of such an effort.
- almost all cat 5 finishes are on an uphill (lower speed). practice sprinting up a hill.
- more sprinting advice: although most road racing is restricted to the right side of the road, some races actually open the finish for both lanes. Most people forget about this, so if you want to make sure nobody latches on to you, swing all the way over to the left, and then put the hammer down…
- show up with unshaved legs, muddy mt bike shoes, and a helmet with a visor, then win the race.
Have fun, good luck! Be sure to let us know how it went!
Josef
If you can hang in the crits, the road race will be a piece of cake.
Wow, I would say exactly the opposite. Hanging in crits is just a matter of having enough cojones/savvy to hold position. You don’t even have to work that hard if you don’t want to; just stay in the top 15. By contrast, moving around in road race is relatively easy, there is usually room to move up and drop back as needed. However, at some point there will be a selection (something that usually does not happen in a crit), usually one of three things: (1) most often, there is a climb that is steep enough and long enough to put people in difficulty; (2) also, the riders could form the selection with their attacks, and if the right group gets up the road, they won’t come back; or (3) least likely is that there is some non-climbing feature of the course that could split the group (i.e., a stretch of really bad road, or a strong, prolonged cross-wind). In any case, being at the front is the universal first-step in making the selection. After that, it is up to your fitness.
Alternatively, you can try to make the selection yourself by attacking. If you are a triathlete, you will almost certainly not get top ten in a road race if you simply sit-in the whole day given that you probably cannot sprint as well as the sprinters or climb as well as the climbers. The one thing you can do is ride hard by yourself for a long time.
So, I say go off the front at some point. If you do it early enough in a race with a big climb, the group might assume that they will reel you in on the climb and let you go. In fact, if you are not a particularly sprightly climber, all the more reason to get up the road early so you can climb at your own pace for as long as possible. If you do go off the front, don’t do the typical triathlete move of launching a viscious 27 mph “attack” (heavy sarcasm) from the front when the peleton is already going 24 mph for 500m and then settling into your 25 mph TT. If you do that you simply be towing the peleton at 25 mph. Instead, when the group slows down, attack from somewhere in the top 10-20 guys and pin it so that you hit the front at 30+ and are still accelerating (a good attack is one that takes advanatge a big speed disparity between the group and the attacking rider). Hold your top speed for about a minute and then settle into a 28-30 mph TT. Then, look back. If the whole group is there, sit-up; if you are solo, push on; if you have a a few guys with you immediately move over and get them to pull through (you should be at or slightly above threshold, so don’t pull solong that you blow-up and drop yourself). Once your break has a comfortable margin, settle into a sustainable pace (hard enought to stay away, not so hard you blow).
Finally, whenever you are at the fron, ask yurself why. Good answers are “I am attacking” or “I am in a break doing my aprt to stay away” or “I am a tempo climber so I need to stay at my pace adn not have to accelerate with attacks.” The bad/triathlete answer is “I need to get a good workout.”
This is a Cat 5 road race – no one is going to “let any one go.” And the hills just provide an avenue to, as some one else stated in this thread, make the attrition rate higher.
This is a Cat 5 road race – no one is going to “let any one go.” And the hills just provide an avenue to, as some one else stated in this thread, make the attrition rate higher.
Oh yee of little faith! Plus, it is more fun to be active in the race, rather than just sit in.
Don’t get me wrong, when I was a cat 4 (before there was a cat 5), I could get a breakaway going pretty easily, and I was on one of the only teams that could execute team tactics. It served us very well. But it took some coordinated effort.
Don’t get me wrong, when I was a cat 4 (before there was a cat 5), I could get a breakaway going pretty easily, and I was on one of the only teams that could execute team tactics. It served us very well. But it took some coordinated effort.
Remember this guy doesnt have a team to ride with to soften the field up with continuous attacks before he makes his own.
Most Cat 4 and 5 races tend to be pretty negative, they will jump all over any attack before it gets more than 50 feet up the road and then just sit on and slow down. Mens Cat 5 does tend to be selective due to the wide variance in talent between the riders. Riders get blown off the back during surges, until a core of the best riders are left. A lot will depend on the course, if it is hilly it tends to blow apart more than a flat course.
If you can do training crits you should be fine with your group riding skills, just remember to eat and drink enough for the time you are spending on the bike. You can try attacking a few times, especially if you arent a strong sprinter. Make sure you leave enough gas to stay with the group after you get caught.
Thanks - I am probably going to be riding with a mate from the tri club who races elite, so has done a fair number of drafting races on different roads. Although like me he has not done any RR other than the training crits he is usually one of the strongest 4 or 5 riders at the crits. I think he is quite keen for us to try and get into a break - whether I will have the legs to do this is another matter! Hopefully I can stick to his wheel and then maybe at least help him out of a while.
Given that my best 10m TT time this year is in the 23’s I don’t think I will manage to go very far at 27-28mph on my own!
Should I use my race wheels = 404’s, or would it be safer using my normal Mavic clinchers?