Originally Posted by
rbart4506
Ah...Did my first Tuesday night training crit, I needed that!
After this weekend's hell I was beginning to wonder why I even bothered. Last night reminded me why. It's fun to go fast with a great group of people in a safe and predictable environment. I worked on staying shelter in the pack and doing a couple attacks. Took my turns at the front and filtered back for recovery and then moved my way back up to the front. All the stuff I seem to have major issues doing during the weekend O-Cup races.
I'll be going back for sure!
I'm doing the early race right now, but hope that by mid-season I'll be able to at least hang on in the late race.
+ 10000, you're not the only one
Originally Posted by
waterrockets
Yeah, when you go past someone to take over, they are already going at their limit for the expected effort (likely above where they should be). Now they have to jump faster onto your wheel. Even if you come back to the same pace after that, you've wasted his acceleration energy and your acceleration energy. Much better to let him decelerate himself, recover a tiny bit, then smoothly accelerate onto your wheel.
On climbs, you should talk to each other. If it's really slow going, then there is not much draft benefit, and that needs to be accounted for, so take it a little easier -- the energy is not free.
On descents, focus on shorter and harder pulls. Let the speed come up, but don't sprint into it. I've experimented with passing the lead rider rather than him pulling off when we're over 30-35mph. It seems to work out, as the recovery is so strong and quick. It's pretty easy to gap a bike length, then ease into the slipstream and slingshot around. He'll have to jump a bit to get on, but then it's coasting for the 15-30 second pull, and seems to be worth it. Normally a paceline loses 1.5 meters of course progress when the lead rider pulls over and drops back. On a fast descent, if you can keep everyone healthy, this is a time that you can instead gain 1.5 meters for every pull -- and with more frequent pulls, you're looking at a gain of 6m every minute...
I should probably turn off my brain though.
@ Fatboy to, that does make sense, it just seemed like he was suffering and I seem to always pull ahead. There were some climbs we went over at 30km/h so drafting was part of some of them, true about the rest though. And on the descents I was maxing out cadence and had to rely on the most aero position I could get into (he was a faster descender and had extra gears) which was very tough because my lower back is terrible. It always gives out after an hour on the bike whether it a Sunday cruise, or Tuesday hammer fest.