Some basic tips towards your first crit:
- Try to ride more than 3 days per week, yes to some extent the swimming is cross training for basic fitness but in and of itself it won't prepare you for the speeds and bike specific fitness needed in a Cat 4/5 crit.
- When you ride mix it up, but do some steady moderate to high intensity riding as in 15 to 20 minute stretches that are steady hard, require focus, get you breathing deeply and steadily but aren't all out gut busting efforts as well as some shorter quick efforts of a few minutes each to get used to higher speeds. Experiment with gearing and figure out how to get the bike moving fast (hint it's typically not the biggest gears that allow you to accelerate and ride fastest unless you happen to be going downhill perhaps with a big tailwind, get used to winding out easier gears in your training). Some days just get out and cover some distance to see how far you can go on your bike but try to ride 4 or 5 days per week on a regular basis and ideally for an hour or more per ride.
- Practice fast cornering using the whole road. If you don't have safe backroads that make this possible then find a big empty parking lot with no cars and practice fast cornering where you ride up to the corner on a wide and straight line, dive through the apex of the turn by leaning the bike over and sweep wide on the exit of the turn. That's how you'll need to corner in a fast crit, you won't ride like we typically do on urban training rides by hugging the bike lane near the curb and slowing down to make the corner, you'll blast up to the corner and use the whole road to dive through fast maintaining speed and that takes practice.
- Ideally find a group ride that you can join between now and the race to get used to riding close to others and drafting safely off their wheels. You won't stand a chance in your first crit if you can't draft in close quarters and ride in the group. The race is a tough place to try to learn those skills so ask around at the local bike shops for group rides that are open to new riders that you can join to learn these things. This will also teach you how fast experienced riders actually ride which can be an eye opener if you've done most of your riding alone. Don't be discouraged if folks seem really fast, that comes with time training and experience and everyone starts somewhere.
- Once in the race understand that the first few laps will feel impossibly fast. It's always that way in a competitive crit. You need to get started quickly and get into your pedals as quickly as you can so that you can stay with the group or your race will be over before it starts. The good news is that things settle in after the first few laps so if you can survive that far you'll have a chance to go the distance. The last few laps will again be ridiculously fast as folks start setting up for the sprint, expect it.
- Many if not most riders struggle in their first few crits, it's just a very fast, very technical form of road racing that demands certain kinds of fitness and certain kinds of skills. But we all started at some point and all rode our first few crits before figuring out the game and getting better results. So don't get discouraged if things don't go as well as you'd hoped in your first race.
- Other important tips, pay attention to where you are relative to others and protect your front wheel. That means not riding closely overlapped next to another rider's rear wheel where you'll be the one to crash if they swerve a bit. Give yourself some room to one side or the other and ideally don't overlap wheels or if you must overlap another rider try to get far enough forward that your handlebars are even with the other rider's hips so that you can fend them off if they swerve over into you.
- Don't over react to small movements of other riders. A lot of beginner racer crashes happen when someone over reacts, swerves hard for a minor event and causes a crash so protect the space around your front wheel but don't twitch or slam your brakes for every movement of other riders. The group riding practice will help tons here.
- Try really hard to stay off your brakes at all times. If the group slows dramatically or you're rapidly running up on other riders you'll have to at least feather your brakes of course but otherwise don't touch them. Many beginning crit riders work much harder than they have to because they're nervous and brake for every turn then have to sprint hard to stay with the group when they could have just coasted through the turns at speed and saved a ton of effort.
- Ride a straight and predictable line at all times. You move around in groups by sliding along diagonals not jerking hard left or right when you see an opening.
- Use your gears wisely. If the group slows for corners or a headwind stretch or after a couple of fast laps then downshift to easier gears or you'll be stuck having to jump up out of the saddle and pound your overly large gears back up to speed when the group accelerates. You've got a bunch of gears on your bike so use them and downshift for any slowing, use leg speed to accelerate back up to speed when the group surges or when coming out of corners then shift back up into your bigger gears once up to speed and rolling with the group.
Mostly get out and find some other folks to ride with as soon as you can and learn how to ride in a group.
Good luck,
-Dave
