So, I am doing my third ever cycling race on Sunday. It’s a 44-mile very hilly technical course. It suits my abilities (I’m a decent climber) but I’m afraid of mis-pacing and totally blowing up.
My first two bike race experiences are as follows:
-A 6 mile TT slightly uphill, showed up hyperventillatingly nervous and went balls to the wall for 14 minutes, wanted to vomit and pass out after.
-A 20 mile road race, went balls to the wall, totally max heart race/foaming at the mouth. Walked around for 40 minutes after pretty much dry heaving.
In a tri it’s easy to conserve on the bike, you have the incentive of saving it for the run. But in a straight up road race there’s no run to save yourself for, so my instinct is to go out totally hard. I’m pretty competenant on the bike and I feel competitive on the bike in a way that I don’t when doing a tri or running race (where I still compete but with a smile on my face - and have no problem pacing pretty well).
I want to stay with the front pack if it splits up, but I don’t want to stay there to the detriment of my physical well-being. The other two races were kind of scary how hard I went. I don’t want my brain to make my body do something it’s not capable of.
Let others set the pace and try to hang as long as possible - going hard won’t hurt you. Use the downhill to recover. It’s making the selection that counts and no one remembers (or cares) who was in the broom wagon.
Try to stay near or position near the front at the beginning of the climbs as that gives you a little leeway to fall back. Stay on the protected side of the wind if it’s a factor and don’t pull on the decents as it’s usually wasted energy.
I’m definitely going to try to tuck in with the group and hang for as long as possible and use as little energy as possible. No one likes a wheel sucker, but they usually win the race, right?
I kind of have a fear of the unknown since roadies are a whole other breed, especially girl ones. I only ever ride with guys who tell me I’d be “good” against women, but I have no idea what the competition will be like. Very scary.
To paraphase a line from the movie Patton “No dumb son of bitch ever won a bike race by making themselves vomit. You win by making the other dumb sons of bitches vomit.”
Just hang onto the lead group - do it all they way to the end if you can. Sprint with whatever you have left. 99% of doing well in cycling races is due to refusing to get popped from the lead group (and making sure you go with the right breaks). As you learn which riders to watch it becomes easier to determine which breaks are a threat and which aren’t. When in doubt, go but never work. If you get a good group and everyone’s committed to staying away (or you can convince them to do so), then start working along with everyone else.
You can’t be afraid of how hard you’ll ride if you ever want to do well. You will ride harder than you EVER thought you could. I’ve honestly been so trashed, but unwilling to give up, that I’ve thought while climbing out of the saddle I might fall of my bike trying to stick with a lead group over a climb. Seriously.
Don’t apply tri rules to road racing! If you are in the lead during the race most likely it is because the people behind you have decided to let you be there. (They are trying to make you vomit so they can win). There may be tactical reasons why you want to be in front at certain times (and you may be alone on a break too) but unless you have actually decided for a very specific reason to be riding in the wind and not in a draft, you are making a huge mistake.
Its not against the rules but NOT drafting in a road race when you can is about as stupid as drafting in a tri.
OK now get unscared and just have fun with it. It’s that extra bit of pain tolerance that will get you the high placings.
Like JH said - if you get in a break then work with em, however, don’t do more work than anyone else and remember the golden rule: NEVER EVER GET DROPPED FROM THE BREAK. Easier said than done of course.
Is this a woman’s only race? How many women will be in it? Do you know what level/category they are?
The women’s fields that I have seen at the local and club road race level are fairly small. That being said, the key thing is to get in the group and once the main front group forms, try and stay there as long as you can. Many local and club road races come down to a sprint finish. When just starting out a good goal to have is to see if you can finish with the main group and then contest the sprint, or see if you can make a jump that will stick with 2 - 3k to go.
Try not to ride right at the very back. The best place to be is in the first 1/3 of the group.
In tri, sure. It’s as elemental as breathing in road racing.
Yep, there is all sort of data now that shows the guys that win in Road races are the guys that do the lesat amount of work.
So drafting is your friend. It’s one thing if your in a break to be drafting the whole time, it’s another to be in the pack and drafting. You should try to draft as much and as often as you can in the pack. On thing to watch for is the pack blowing up. Women’t RRs tend to fall apart pretty easily, so watch for the pack spliting.
If you want to do well, there’s no such thing as pacing. If you try to “pace” it, a gap forms, and then you’re TTing to the finish, unheralded, an also ran. Road racing is all about changing pace frequently – the antithesis of tri riding.
If you have to kill yourself to close that gap and stay on the group, do it. You’ll recover in the draft.
The group will determine the pace, and if you feel it’s too pedestrian and get frisky, take a flyer. 99% effort to get away, then settle in and TT. You’ll have one of several results:
1 – some people go with you – congratulations, you have a legit break going. Organize a pace-line and motor. It just might stick. Don’t take pulls that are too long that you can’t get back in the line.
2 – you’re out there alone. You have two choices – (a) try to keep going as long as you can, knowing the pack will probably catch you, and maybe even do so RIGHT before the finish, or (b) give it up and drop back, trying again later and hope that others will go with you (a high likelyhood, since you’ve now announced that you’re WILLING to start a breakaway).
3 – you’ll look back at the whole pack strung out behind you. In that case, ease up, as you’re doing nothing more than jsut tiring yourself out.
It’s women 1/2/3/4 all lumped together. So far there are 20 registered, I’d expect about 40 to start.
I’m worried about what will happen on the hills since there are two steep ones about 5 miles in.
Do I bust my ass on the early hills to try to stay with the leaders? Certainly there won’t be much drafting advantage only going 12-14 mph uphill? I would expect the pack to split up pretty quickly into at least a few groups. Looking at the results from years past it doesn’t look like it ended up in a big sprint finish…
“Do I bust my ass on the early hills to try to stay with the leaders?”
Yes, as once you hit the top, the speed will increase immediately, and if you’re not there with them, you’re gapped and then back to TTing to the finish. You’re only saving grace would be if they ease up and the pack regroups.
If I’m unfamiliar with riders that I’m racing, I’ll usually let 1-2 guys go. If 3 or more go off the front, I stay with them no matter what the cost is (what jehendric said). If I DNF, so be it. But, I’ve yet to DNF in a road race…
You may very well be at the peak of not being able to pedal anothe stroke and then…WWAYLAAAA, everyone else is in the same boat and the pace slows down. It ALWAYS happens.
On a funny note, I’m a mentor to a buddy starting road racing and brought him on a brisk group ride. Near a slight rise, I said “Josh, your only goal for this ride is to not get dropped on this rise. Do whatever you need to do in order to be on my wheel at the top”. Of course…he got shot off the back. The next week, he was panting like a sick dog, but understoof the importance and held on. “I thought I was going to die” The week after, he learned his lesson and felt comfortable. Fast forward a few months and he’s now leading the charge…
try to figure out who the 1/2s are and if they go off up the road and you find yourself in serious deficit then fall back and race “against” the 3/4s. You can completely thrash yourself early when the group is mixed so make sure you know who you are really racing against and mark them. The wife lost a podium spot last year at a stage race because a couple of her main competitors got away with the 1s and the rest did not realise until it was too late. So same applies for you, if you can sneak away with the 1s, and even if you get dropped by them you might stay away from the 3/4s - out of sight out of mind.
You have to try and stay with the pack whether its up, down or flat. The attacks will almost always come on the hills, so try to get up ahead on the approach to the hill, climb hard (within reason) and hope that is enough to keep you in the pack on the descent. Likelyhood is unless you are super strong, the better climbers will come by you but that is ok, as long as when you crest you are still within the pack.
Its going to hurt, so there is no point worrying about it in advance, embrace the pain!
I agree with most iof what you have said, but this is a problem with women’s racing - the fields are small and they do often put all the women ( and all the categories) in one group to get a decent sized field so you have a HUGE range in talent and fitness. So killing yourself to stay with the leaders is fine, but what if you are a newbie and the leaders are the best senior 1/2 riders in your area. You might last a couple of K then be gone or you might be able to hang on.
It’s not any different than what Master’s racing used to be, before the A,B,C,D grading within the ages. We’d have Cat 1/2 masters tearing our legs off, but really, they were all the competition.