Just started doing bike races, so I’m Cat-5 and slow. I have a good sense of how frequently someone can do a running race, and how frequently one can do a tri, but what about crits or road bike races? The local race calendar shows a lot of weekends with both Saturday and Sunday races. Does that mean it’s common for people to race both days? How much time does it take to recover from one race, and does that amount of time depend on the suckiness or awesomeness of the rider?
Discuss.
Amount of recovery time depends on how fit you are and how hard you raced. If you are very fit you can recover faster, yet no matter how fit you are a crit can really tear up your legs if you are racing it aggressively, jumping in breaks, sprinting for primes, trying to win, etc.
If you are focused on Tri you probably don’t want to do crits very often, as they are short (45 min to an hour) and very, very fast. They emphacize top-end speed (sprinting), cornering ability (and sprinting out of corners!), and anaerobic fitness. Frankly even as a bike racer whose strength is crits I don’t want to do too many crits as I lose what little climbing ability I have if I race too many for too long a period.
Bike races do them frequently, more than once a week during the summer. They help bring your speed around but they are also pretty intense if you are riding hard. They are good too because they teach you to go around a corner fast. many triathletes corner like scardy cats.
Crits are fun and exciting. Hitting corners at top speed and sprinting out of them. Like the thread above they do focus on intense efforts and are short. Your heartbeat will be up there in a crit and there is little time to rest.
Recovery depends on the athlete, unfortunately I’m a bit older and I good recovery for a weekend of races is usually two days.
I’m doing my first ‘double’ crit this weekend as a cat 5 rider @ the Philly 2 day cycling classic. I’ll let you know if my legs self-destruct on sunday…
The nice thing about bike races is that you can typically register that morning (up to 15 minutes before send-off) for the race. You can do the road race on Saturday and decide Sunday morning whether you want to do the crit. Like the other posters have mentioned, crits are a lot faster and will require you to work harder than your average road race. But then you have an entire week to recover before the next race. They’re not anything like tri racing, but they are helpful for learning corner and handling skills.
I’m not sure where the OP is from, but if it’s New England, don’t count on being able to sign up for a race 15 minutes before send off. Many of the races in New England sell out days or even weeks beforehand. Weekly training races are usually open right up until the start.
The nice thing about bike races is that you can typically register that morning (up to 15 minutes before send-off) for the race.
This is part of the problem that road racing has locally in our area. Road race RD’s often have no idea how many people are going to show up for the race. They don’t know if they need parking and porta-potties for 100 or 500 people and they have no idea of what their race budget will be until registration closes on the morning of the race. Roadies have been doing this for years - deciding literally at the last minute if they will be doing a race, and it’s one of the reasons that it’s held development of the sport back.
Contrast that with triathlon where the RD often knows months in advance how many people he will have and what his budget is.
Contrast that with triathlon where the RD often knows months in advance how many people he will have and what his budget is.
And tri RD’s still manage to put only 2 porta-potties for 500 people located 1/2 mile from transition.
More often than not, bike racers will race on both Saturday and Sunday. It is also becoming more common for riders to double up at criteriums by racing in an age group and a category group.
On a few occasions I’ve done four races in a weekend. Road race on Saturday and three crits on Sunday (45+, 35+ and pro/1/2). It’s a great way to get in quality miles. You can either beat yourself up in the earlier races and mostly sit in for the pro/1/2 race, or you can do the opposite and save it up for the pro/1/2 race.
I’ve also done two 40km TT’s on the same day with about an hour in between on a number of occasions. Yeah, the second one hurt, but if you’re fit you can recover quickly and still go pretty damn fast on the second one. In general the second 40km was about 2 min. slower than the first.
Bike racing is all about recovery. The more you race, the better you recover from efforts.
BTW, before the Lemond/Armstrong era most pro bike racers raced 100-140 days per year.
Just started doing bike races, so I’m Cat-5 and slow. I have a good sense of how frequently someone can do a running race, and how frequently one can do a tri, but what about crits or road bike races? The local race calendar shows a lot of weekends with both Saturday and Sunday races. Does that mean it’s common for people to race both days? How much time does it take to recover from one race, and does that amount of time depend on the suckiness or awesomeness of the rider?
Discuss.
Hell…I’ve done up to 3 crits in a single DAY 
Ended up being ~100K total around a 1K loop…
The thing is about bike racing vs. running races is that you don’t get “pounded” as much. Recovery is typically much faster. That’s partly why pro cyclists can do 3 week stage races with their energy output each day being ~equivalent to running a marathon.
i had 5 in 5 days last week. 45 min CAT4/5 on a 1.2km loop. Rode 20 miles to the site, raced, rode 20 miles home afterwards, for a total of 60 mi/day.
The first 3 races went pretty well (24.5-25 MPH, 350W NP average), race 4 was super fast (26 mph @ 368W NP), and 5 I was dead and just hung in a break of 6 (24 mph @ 280W NP). I spent a lot of time pulling in the first 4 races, and only a couple laps in the 5th. I feel I recovered prety well all week and was ready to jump/bridge as needed, but never had too much for the final sprint (Max around 900W @ 32 mph). As in anything, recovery depends on your fitness, and how quickly you can replenish your creatine-phosphate stores. Keep in mind if you’re in the race, and not just off the outside doing a training ride to get your 10 starts for upgrade, you’ll be anaerobic for a good chunk of the time. I was running around 90-91% max HR average for the entire 45 min, with jumps up to 95%.
The thing is about bike racing vs. running races is that you don’t get “pounded” as much.
Unless some guy falls in front of you…
I’m not sure where the OP is from, but if it’s New England, don’t count on being able to sign up for a race 15 minutes before send off. Many of the races in New England sell out days or even weeks beforehand. Weekly training races are usually open right up until the start.
Same in NorCal. Some races and certain Cats sell out within hours of opening up online. Even some of the races for Women 4s are starting to sell out.
clm
buy some compression shorts and you will be fine
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The thing is about bike racing vs. running races is that you don't get "pounded" as much.
Unless some guy falls in front of you…
True dat!
The thing is about bike racing vs. running races is that you don't get "pounded" as much.
Unless some guy falls in front of you…
True dat!
Or some gal loses control, slams into you, you save it but she ping pongs back and forth and loses her front wheel which takes out your front wheel and you slam to the ground at 25 mph. That’s fun.
clm
…The first 3 races went pretty well (24.5-25 MPH, 350W NP average), race 4 was super fast (26 mph @ 368W NP), and 5 I was dead and just hung in a break of 6 (24 mph @ 280W NP). I spent a lot of time pulling in the first 4 races, and only a couple laps in the 5th. I feel I recovered prety well all week and was ready to jump/bridge as needed, but never had too much for the final sprint (Max around 900W @ 32 mph). As in anything, recovery depends on your fitness, and how quickly you can replenish your creatine-phosphate stores. Keep in mind if you’re in the race, and not just off the outside doing a training ride to get your 10 starts for upgrade, you’ll be anaerobic for a good chunk of the time. I was running around 90-91% max HR average for the entire 45 min, with jumps up to 95%.
Hmmm…were those races fairly hilly? Those seem to be fairly slow average speeds for the NP you’re reporting…oh yeah, what PM are you running?
that 100k is a single P12 CRIT at Stupidweak
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just a guess: not a smooth crit rider, 6-corner course, lots of big accelerations off each turn…