Good on ya for entering your first crit. It's gonna be fast, probably faster than you realize but you've gotta start paying dues somewhere. Here's a few thoughts:
- The first three to four laps will be ridiculously fast before things settle down. Many first time crit riders will get popped during those first few laps thinking there's no way they can hold that kind of pace. But the pace almost always slows down and gives folks a chance to recover before the final furious laps which are often as fast as the first few. IOW, be well warmed up and ready to go really hard at the start and just keep hanging on till the pace mellows if you can.
- Stay off your brakes as much as possible and use the entire road to corner so that you can carry as much speed through the corners. Many new crit riders are tentative in the corners or stay way too far to the inside and initiate their turns much too early which costs them speed, can force them to brake and forces them to jump too hard exiting each turn to regain speed. Start wide, dive a relatively straight line through the apex of the turn and fan out as wide as necessary depending on your speed. It takes practice and confidence some of which you can develop before race day in an empty parking lot but there's nothing like the actual race to show you how it's done.
- Don't submarine other riders by taking what looks like an easy line up the inside gutter and squeezing through the inside when others are taking fast outside lines through the turns. Sometimes there's room for many safe fast lines and that's fine, but a lot of struggling newer crit riders try to squeeze through inside holes and end up cutting off the riders taking the clean predictable lines. For a given speed, the earlier or tighter you enter a corner the later and wider you'll be forced to exit. If you scream up the inside gutter and dive into the inside of the corner in front of the riders taking the normal line you'll likely be forced to cut them off and if they're going faster you could end up on the bottom of a pile of very angry racers.
- Downshift before corners where the pack slows down for any reason. This could be due to headwinds or slight rises on the exit of the turns or just on laps when things slow down and no one drives the pace. If the pack bunches up in the corners you want to be in an easier gear than normal so you don't have to jump up and mash a huge gear out of the turn. Lot's of riders simply pound one gear for the entire race and make things much harder than necessary. You've got all those gears accessible from your drops with a flick of a finger, use them.
- Ride your drops as much as possible, at least when you're going fast or chasing to close gaps. Many riders do all their training up top on their brake hoods and forget all about their drops on race day. But a lot of what you're fighting is the wind so make it easier on yourself by staying low unless things slow down a lot and the pace is very comfortable. If you aren't comfortable riding for half an hour in the drops then make any necessary adjustments as it doesn't do much good to have a dropped bar road bike if you can't stay down there.
- Close gaps immediately and don't let holes open up between you and riders you're following. A short gap becomes a big gap really fast and the next thing you know you're all alone pushing into the wind while others are following wheels and doing much less work.
- Give yourself some margin when following wheels. Stay close, but not so close you run into other's wheels, try to avoid overlap with wheels in front of you so that other riders don't take you down with a sideways move and ride a few inches off to one side or the other of the wheel you're following to buy yourself some reaction time in case someone swerves or brakes unexpectedly.
- If your racing is anything like here, some of those master 45+ riders will be fast, really, really fast and very experienced so don't be surprised if that race is a lot faster but ultimately safer than the Cat 4/5 race.
- In terms of clipping in quickly, hopefully you can get into your road pedals pretty fast without looking down but if you can't you should do a few pedal strokes to get up to speed and then try to clip in rather than panic and try to get in while nearly at a standstill off the line. That used to be common practice back in the toe clip and strap days and sometimes we'd ride an entire lap with one foot on the back of the pedal scraping the cage on the pavement before we coasted at speed and flipped the pedal over. It shouldn't be that dramatic with good clipless pedals, but if you don't get in immediately you should sit down, just push on the pedals whether you're in or not until you get some speed and then clip in so you don't lose too much ground at the start.
Good luck, keep the rubber side down...
-Dave
Argos said:
I've got my first race this weekend. It is a criterium 30min plus two .9 mile laps. I had the option to enter cat 4/5 or masters over 45. It was only $5 extra so I entered both. I figured the more experience the better. I am thinking that may be a mistake. Any suggestions?
The over 45 is first and has only about 10 racers, one of which I noticed was also entered in cat 1/2. The second race for me would be about 90 minutes later, the cat 4/5 which has about 25 racers entered. Any help is appreciated.
Also any quick clip in tips for the start?
