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Old 03-28-14, 06:03 AM
  #93  
needmoreair
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Originally Posted by echappist
Of course, the qualifier here is It all depends pn how much you race. You can get all your upgrade point in a span of ten or fewer races or cobble together the points by doing 30+ races per year

And how many lower cat races are really that hard at the end? I've done exactly one such race. Six corners, windy, and not a lot of straightaway to move up. You end up in the top ten from two laps out, you end up in the top ten at the finish. But this is rare. Much more often you have a clumped field in the final lap.


i don't consider myself exceptionally strong, but i've learned enough (much of it by reading thing from this place) to know when to attack and get a race winning break going. Barely at 4-4.2 w/kg when a third or more of the field (collegiate B) were probably comparable, but i learned all about attacking the cross wind, etc., that i recognize when to initiate/latch on while similar or stronger riders got caught out. That and doing specific workouts helped to give me an edge over others to whom i'd lose in a hill climb.
No, no qualifier. 10 races or 30, you still have to pull the results. If you have the upgrade points then there's that, but if you're spending entire seasons scrounging for every 6th place you can get, then that's an issue that speaks about your racing. And there are lots of racers doing that.

As most of us know, there's a difference between being strong enough to be in the pack at the end, and being strong enough to be at the front of the pack in a position to strike at the end. And that's precisely what I'm referring to. And that's hard. It doesn't matter if you're a 5 or a 1. And you can't say it isn't hard unless you have an uninterrupted string of top 5s from every race you've ever done. It's hard to put out the power to get into that position and maintain it. That takes fitness and that takes racing smart so you're not wasting that fitness.

I don't know about comparable at 4.2 w/kg. I raced elite crit nats at 4.4 one year. FTP doesn't mean jack when you know how to race and have race-specific power. FTP is great for time trials and very long hill climbs. Way more important things in crits and road races. Seriously.
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