I’ve read the post recently about someones first crit so I’m aware of the tips and trick related to that. However, I’m doing my first road race in April and beginning my training preps now. Seeing as how we are experiencing sub-20 degree weather and no sign of outdoor rides in sight, any tips or advice for training indoors? What about when the weather breaks and I can hammer outside, anything to work on? I’ve heard the CAT5 race is more like a sandbagging CAT3 race so I shouldn’t expect to be a hero, but I do want to be competitive as possible.
A CatV race will be won slower than you could TT the course, but you can’t win it with TT fitness. Lots of short (1-5min.) intervals on the trainer. Get used to surge/recover/surge. The trainer is great for this, since it’s hard to put long hours on the trainer so intensity is the order of the day.
Don’t crash or cause others to crash.
Be safe, and know how to handle your bike.
Spirited group rides are ideal training…find them and do them.
A CatV race will be won slower than you could TT the course.
sometimes!
when the weather breaks ride with a group as much as you can.
take ointment and band-aids to the race.
crits can be a frickin’ trip.
Will probably find they hammer much harder up hills than you’re used to from TT riding. You’ll risk getting dropped if you are not ready for it.
So figure out how long the hills are, how steep they are and how long you need to be able to hammer at significantly over threshold.
Then do some trainer sessions to simulate it.
E.g. 3 x (10mins in climbing position at 120%FTP at cadence 50-70 or whatever cadence will be realisitic for your hills, 5m easy on hoods)
4x ( 2mins all out in climbing position, 10sec hard in the drops to simulate cresting hill and getting speed up, 1min easy low in in drops as though gliding down fast. ) This set simulates a rolling hill section. Good to mix up the cadences you aim for to simulate what you’ll ride at up certain hills. e.g. 2 mins at 50, 2mins at 60 etc. etc
I found these workouts very hard to start with but very useful on race day.
I find workouts like Nx (1min all out, 2min easy) are good for simulating surging on the flats again mixing up the cadences as you see fit.
E.g. 3 x (10mins in climbing position at 120%FTP at cadence 50-70 or whatever cadence will be realisitic for your hills, 5m easy on hoods)
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Is that an impossible workout or is it just me?
Work on your sprint. Over and over and over again. Sprint at the end of every hard workout. Sprint up hills, sprint downhills, sprint little ring, big ring; shift gears, don’t shift gears. Do it all.
Best chance of doing well in 5s and 4s is learning how to get to the sprint, how to sprint, and when to sprint.
Find a woman that teaches a really hard spin class & go everyday.
sit in the bunch, go as easy as you possibly can, let other people do the attacking and chasing, and just learn. if you get to the last 10% of the race and it’s still together, have a go, but realise that the race will have a decisive moment where the contenders will make a move, and if you can’t go with that move, your race is over. So don’t burn your matches early. Then again, strange things happen while racing (tt’ing off the front and being forgotten about and so on, so have a go you never know…)
Be safe, finish and learn.
Yeah I’m going out on a limb and saying that is unpossible. To the OP, I would make my goal to be to finish with the pack.
Good advice above re training. In the race, esp re the hills in the race, if you’re not a strong hill climber you will want to move to the front of the pack before a hill, with time to recover before it, so that on the hill you do no worse than slip to the back of the field and don’t drop off the back. If you drop off the back alone, your day is done.
Also, be well warmed up before the race, esp if there is a hill early on. Don’t expect the field to take it easy on the early climbs because there will be people looking to split the field straight away.
Check out the approach to the finish (last couple of miles) and if you are still in the front pack at that point, aim to move from about 20th position with 2 miles to go, to 10th with a mile to go and 5th with 0.25m to go. If you’re not moving up, you’ll be dropping back, and you also don’t want to be at the front too early. Be safe and relax, especially your upper body and don’t over-react to minor shoulder bumps.
sit in the bunch, go as easy as you possibly can, let other people do the attacking and chasing, and just learn. if you get to the last 10% of the race and it’s still together, have a go, but realise that the race will have a decisive moment where the contenders will make a move, and if you can’t go with that move, your race is over. So don’t burn your matches early. Then again, strange things happen while racing (tt’ing off the front and being forgotten about and so on, so have a go you never know…)
Be safe, finish and learn.
A good summation.