Zedmor

Hi!

I am new in this game and really need productive feedback here.

I am constantly being dropped in crits and trying to find a reasons why other that I found.

Here's yesterday. It's quick will not take much of your time

SUFFERvision

can you just drop couple of lines of what I did wrong here? I mean I understand my positioning is bad and so but if you give me some feedback regarding of what should I did better I really appreciate that.

And if you in the mood of bashing me some more here's one from last week:

SUFFERvision (sorry for video quality)

make me suffer in this thread!

mattm

First of all you're doing one thing right: racing! So many people want to but are scared/never even try.

The main thing is that you're so far back from the wheels in front of you that you're in the wind too much, thus spending a lot of energy that you should be saving.

Try starting further up, so that you're not on the back to begin with. It's actually easier for people in the middle of the pack; harder for those dangling off the back and of course those directly on the front.

It can be hard to trust anyone (especially beginners) to get close to them, but it's the best way to save energy.

The other thing is don't just maintain the wheel in front of you, but move up occasionally. If you're moving up/staying in the middle of the pack, you won't get surprised when a gap opens in front of you, and it will be easier to close.

carpediemracing 

+1 on racing.

I see that you were basically on wheels, a bit far off, but still, in the range of other riders. However a gap opens up about 10 rider in front of you around 4 min in, and you make a huge effort to close it (450-550w pretty steadily). It shows that you saw and understood what had to be done, you committed to the effort. That's good.

So, a few things.

First, did you start in the big ring or the little ring? I heard a lot of shifting and can't tell if one was getting into the big ring. Typically you'll want to avoid shifting the front for most flatter crits, so start in the big ring and a bigger cog. Shifting into the big ring takes time, and, at this point, you don't want to spend a lot of time shifting. Don't backpedal at the start, a typical nervous tic for many riders, myself included. You'll derail the chain if you're in a 53x21 or whatever.

Next, you seem to be braking for turns even when other riders are not. I see riders coasting through a turn but increase the gap a lot, more than just coasting would allow. I'm guessing it may be a nervous tic as well. I know I used to do this, brake for no reason. For these situations, if you're not riding in groups regularly, try to stay inside (so say 1-2 feet to the right of the rider in a right turn), then try to get sort of close. Inside is key because if the rider falls or makes some error you'll be able to sharpen the turn a bit, based on the speeds I see here.

Another point. In the bridge attempt were you flat out or were you holding back? For me your numbers would have been a bit of holding back. A hard, "please don't let this be the end of my race" effort for me might be 800-1000w peak and sustained 600w for a bit, like 20 seconds or so. It's almost a max effort but not quite. It's just below because although I want to bridge as hard as possible I still want to be able to pedal when I get across. You can treat that a bridge to the back of the field as your last effort, because once you're off the back of the field your race is effectively over.

In your situation I'd keep going if you get dropped. Rail some corners, really hit them hard, go deep inside, make the turn hard, don't go all the way to the outside curb if you don't need to. In many of those turns you could probably stay to the right of the yellow line and still be going full speed (minus that left turn). Normally I'd tell riders to stop as soon as they get shelled because the effort when off the back is totally different from the effort in the field. Off the back you're steady, you're not drafting, so you're not really working on anything. In the field you're learning all the time, how to sit on a wheel, cornering in a group, optimizing your cornering, etc.

Also, on the point of being on the inside, it looks like everyone was going pretty wide in the turns at the back of the field. There didn't seem to be much urgency, even though there was (because gaps opening up). If others aren't using the inside line you should. Don't be afraid of getting involved. Sitting to the side is sort of like letting others do the race while you just watch. You can get in there, mix it up a bit.

I saw some riders swerving around manholes etc. Make note of who they are and get around them. Generally speaking you shouldn't swerve around road stuff. Exception is stuff like a crashed rider, boulder, brick, paper bag, etc. But for most stuff you can just run over it, and, at least in a crit, you should learn where everything is so you can adjust your line on the next lap.

I thought I saw some wobble when you stood up now and then. If it's not something you're used to you should practice it more in riding, like standing out of every turn or sharp curve. Your head should be pretty still, your bike will rock left right. I don't have a bike mounted cam so I may be misinterpreting the movement.

The biggest thing will be to get closer to others. That takes practice, unfortunately, and if you don't do group rides then you'll be at a big disadvantage. If you do group rides you should practice drafting as close as possible when it's quieter (i.e. not where there is a ton of traffic). I'm guessing you're in SoCal. I only know a few roads out there but if you were on the PCH in North County you wouldn't want to practice drafting while riding through the middle of Oceanside or Encinitas but you'd want to do it on the stretches where there are no cars next to the road and surf and coastal plants to the side.

If you can find a training buddy that would be ideal. Drafting just one rider, who knows you want to work on drafting, is much better than trying to draft random riders in a big group. Work on holding a steady pace/line so your buddy can practice drafting, then do the same. Signal objects by pointing. I prefer verbal, as non-racer as it seems, so I'll point and say "Grate!" or "Hole" or whatever.

When practicing drafting sit to one side, preferably the wind protected side. Poke your head up and rotate your head a bit until you feel the wind blowing into your ear. That's where the wind is coming from and that's where your buddy should be. If it's a massive side wind you'll end up sort of next to your buddy. Anyway, sit to one side and try to get as close as possible. You can overlap with your buddy (your front wheel is past the rear of his rear wheel) because your buddy will not be swerving. In real life you may not want to overlap. Whatever, all this stuff will help you get closer than, say, 10 feet to the next rider.

When you pull you should hold a steady line, use the white line as a reference, like 1 foot to the right or something. This way your buddy can focus on getting close without too much risk of a crash.

Ideally on slower/easy days you should work on bumping. Ride next to each other, practice some contact. You can lean into each other. A more experienced training partner would be good, or do it on soft stuff (grass or similar, at low speeds).

The ideal thing would be to practice touching your front wheel but that guarantees a crash and you absolutely need to plan such an exercise (grass, low speeds, like minded riders, expectation to topple over, long sleeve everything, acceptance of possible bike damage). I did this when I was semi-new to the scene and it helped immensely. We were all new to the experience but as I'd been racing the longest (6 years!) I led everything, even though I hadn't done many of the drills ever. Within an hour we were pretty good, and within a few weeks of a few hours a week we were all pretty proficient. Now I can run into something with my front wheel hard enough that I've lifted the rear wheel off the ground and I've stayed upright.

I have to go but I hope this helps. I only watched the first 5 min or so, stopped when you passed the last rider in the group that got gapped off the back. Looked like a huge gap to the field at that point. If you have info, feedback, thoughts, etc, post them and I'll try to give suggestions based on them.

Homebrew01

You lost about 20 spots in the first 5 seconds.
As said, learn to draft, closer, and not off to the side.

Then learn to recognize "good" wheels to draft vs not-so-good. If you're drafting off someone who's losing ground, don't waste time, move up to someone better. 4:00 to 4:10 you do that, and jump up to the next group. But that group is already dropped, so that was the time to do it again.

5:00 - 5:15 you let a big gap open, that you then have to close. Same at 6:10
When you were chasing at 8:00 - 10:00, was there someone with you that could have helped ?

Race 2.
Same slow start. The guys right in front of you vanish off into the distance. No reason for that. Practice a few starts by yourself on a quiet road.

echappist

it's also a bit hard to trust others when you are racing with 74 other racers as opposed to 49 other riders in a cat-5 field. Was there a recent change to the rules?

carpediemracing 

Few years ago Cat 5 field limit went up to 75, from 50. This was, I think, a response to the fact that a 4-5 race could be 75 riders. There was no breakdown to "50 Cat 5s and the rest Cat 4s" kind of thing for that 75 so they just made the field limit 75 for 5s. Also probably some promoters complained. I had to hold two Cat 5 races to accommodate about 75-80 riders. After the 75 rule I just held one and had very few racers unable to race.

Zedmor

wow guys all I can say wow. So much info to munch through. Thank you I will write detailed response later. No wonder that racing so hard, people just give out too much info ))

cmh

I won't repeat the advice of the others - they are spot on. Just know that these are standard beginner Cat 5 mistakes that most all of us made when we were learning. Keep at it and you will get better quickly.

carpediemracing 

I've had your first race up on a tab since you posted, and I've looked at it now and again.

Based on your riding the rest of the clip it seems that you're able to get closer to the riders, but you seem to sit to the left of them, instead of behind them. If you sat, say, a foot to the left, instead of 5 or 6 feet to the left, then you'd get some benefit from the draft.

You go wide in the turns, pretty consistently. I'm not sure if you're uncomfortable on the bike (maybe not enough weight forward? Are your bars high? Do you have a shorter stem? Are you on the hoods?) or you're not comfortable with cornering?

In at least one of the turns I see the bots dot thing, yellow reflector. Once you know where they are they might as well be as big as a car, you can always carve a line that goes right next to them. It's not necessary to go outside of it, you can go inside.

If your front wheel seems like it's chattering or not getting great traction over the bumps/seams in a turn, you can think about reducing pressure (if you have a lot of tire pressure) or you can think about putting more weight on the front wheel. I slide forward on the saddle, I hold the drops, and I have a lot of weight on the front wheel. Once that front wheel has some weight on it you can turn really hard. If you don't have enough weight on it then it's very hard to go fast in a turn.

For me the optimal stem is about 12 cm long for regular bars, 15 cm for compact bars. You want your hands to be somewhere near vertical from the front hub. If your hands are more like over the brake then you won't have much weight on the front end.

At 3:55 there's a guy on the inside that swerves out left before turning right. That's an extremely dangerous move. Don't do this yourself and stay away from that guy. If that was near me I'd say something to him, but in a 5 race it's hard to be "the expert" because everyone is learning.

The turn at about 3:20 seems to intimidate you. You back off, you aren't next to anyone, and everyone goes a bit faster. On that lap I'd have checked to the inside, made sure I was clear, then moved in to follow whoever was on the inside.

In general you can look down to check if you can move over a bit. Even if the riders aren't very close to each other in your area you should still be "on a wheel". Don't be 10 feet away from everyone else.



I like the above picture because it illustrates a few things. I'm the one in red/black EXPO kit. The guy in front of me is a multi-time Masters National Champ (crit, track), Pat. The guy in front of him is also a multi-time Masters National Champ (crit, track), James. James doesn't like sitting on wheels, and in fact he does some interesting things like he'll ride the whole race in a 53x11. He's super strong.

Pat, on the other hand, is an extremely shrewd racer. He'll do a few races a day (M45, M55, Cat 3) and try to do well in each. This means saving energy for each race to optimize his chances of doing well. Therefore he's sitting pretty close to James.

I'm weak so I have to sit in. I'm sitting on Pat's wheel.

Note how we're all staggered to the right? The wind is coming from the left, i.e. from where the camera is, and shelter is to the right.

Now look at the other riders in the picture. The rider in orange is in the wind. The rider obscured behind him is not. The rider in blue/white is in the wind. The rider behind that one is not. Even James, who doesn't like sitting super close to wheels, is to the right of the guy in orange and a bit to the right of the obscured rider, so he's getting some shelter.

So wind is key here.

I do trust Pat pretty well to hold a good line. I am comfortable being close to him. James, in this situation, is realistically a good wheel also, and Pat trusts him. I'm super sheltered, I'm sitting on a wheel, even though other riders around are not sheltering.

My point here is that even at the back of the field, when everyone is sort of fragmented (like at the beginning of your race) you should be ON a wheel. Don't be a fragment. Get on a wheel. Maybe ride a foot to one side, and peek up the road. Go from fragment to fragment, but always get back onto a wheel.

You make some big digs at 700-800w so you can make such efforts. You'll want to make them if you need to cross a 30 or 50 yard gap. Don't sit at 300 or 350w doing nothing. Sit at 200w doing nothing then make a 700w dig. Then when you're done with the dig immediately get on a wheel and go back to 200w (or less).

The corners. You need to work on your cornering. You can practice when you drive, when you push a shopping cart around, even with little toy cars at your desk (I used to keep a dozen Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars at my desk to "play cornering"). You'll want to practice cornering to the inside (maybe a foot inside?) at these reasonable (24-26 mph) speeds. At 30-35 mph it'll be tougher, but the basics are the same. Learn at lower speeds, apply at higher speeds.

Try not to brake. On the bike try to weight the front end. Do practice loops in a development, maybe near your house, maybe in a parking lot? Should be empty and ideally have a shallow hill with a corner/curve at the bottom. A shallow hill will let you get to 25 mph without having to work hard, and in fact you may have to brake to keep from going over 30. This is not a fitness workout, this is a technical one. If your heartrate doesn't go above 140 bpm that's fine, it's not necessary. You wan to focus on form, on a cornering line. Practice turning at 25 mph, getting close to the curb/inside, weighting the front end, less and finally no brakes. Practice both lefts and rights. Try sticking your knee out, try it without sticking your knee out. Inside pedal up. Then, on a flatter curve, pedal through the turn, at first in less sharp turns so you don't dig a pedal.

When stopped get off the bike, put the inside pedal down, and lean the bike over until the pedal hits (make sure pedal is right side up). This will give you an idea of lean angle before digging a pedal. Check contact point. If contact point is not metal then you can realistically dig a pedal pretty hard with no problem. If/when you're off the back of a race pedal through turns. If you dig a pedal no harm done, you rarely crash from it (just don't do anything, just keep riding the bike). It's good to know about how far over you need to be to dig a pedal. It also teaches you that you can pedal through many turns with no problems.

Pedaling through turns may not be "recommended" by some people, but for you it'll have a different effect. If you're pedaling you probably won't be braking, and that's what you want, to not brake automatically when you corner. It should improve your speed through the turn even if you're not pedaling hard. When off the back or off the front pedaling through a turn can be very helpful.

more random stuff:

At 13:00 or so you're doing great. You're on the wheel of the rider in front, and you're pretty steady. Then you swing out left and go to the front. Although they may not have been going fast enough you realistically don't want to just jump to the front.

You do a massive turn at the front until you catch the UC Irvine guy. Then you go wide in a turn (are you pulling off? if so wiggle your right elbow in that situation, let the riders by on the right). I definitely would have been cooked after that pull. Typically, in a group of 4 to say 8 riders, a 20 revolution pull is sufficient. Do 20 revs, wiggle the elbow that you want the riders to pass on, and move over gently the other way. In this case you pull, wiggle right elbow, move gently left.

Zedmor

Hello!


And thank you all for constructive output. Esp sprinterdellacasa! I mean man, you rocks. May be I could come to races around where you live and you could help me a little? I mean your knowldge is so deep. Big fan of your blog and watched most of videos.


Now to the business: this is my like "2nd" season, but last year it was mainly training crits and some races but I am going to do this more seriously this year.



Well I always start on 53 but you right, I started on 12 or smth like that so a lot of shifting in the beginning.


Another thing - I am kinda used to 1hr races and in 1hr group is going pretty slow in the beginning, there on other hand it looked like everybody bolted out with sprint-ish effort. So what my effort should be in the beginning?



Well I can do 600w for 20" but it should be a sprint more or less, I mean basically you saying that I shoulv'de shfted down and jumped somewhere?


Regarding position - I guess it's a big problem for me. I sit to the left to see what's going on because I dropped a lot by just sitting on somebody wheel and that guy being dropped and me with him with a lot of gas in the tank.


Cornering is a big problem for me - stem is short 80mm and this frame is too big for me but that's not main problem there.


Right now building better bike and will see how it will go. But pretty much yes, I am uncomfortable with cornering. Like understanding what my line would be on which speed is a biggest problem.


You are spot on the 3:20 turn - its same symptom. See I am going 27mph - not that fast but I do not understand like what my entering speed could be (shpould be) therefore I definately underpedal before entering.


Ok. So far I got this:


1) Staging - be in top 10% of field during staging
2) Drafting - figure out who's who during staging. Keep wheels do not look forward by riding to the left. Keep 10-15 inch distance and look for opportunities that fly by.
3) Cornering - practice on real crit speeds (25-30 mph)

anything else?

just may be two questions - when I have to close gap with 800w is it should be like a sprint or more like "power" effort? Bit confused there...

And general effort-wise - most of cat5 crits are like 30m short - how hard I should go there? Like really push in the beginning to stay in leading group I guess? I mean it's kinda counter-intuitive to start race with like 400-500w effort but looks like it has to be this way, right?

thank you so much you are the man!

cmh

My answers to your last couple of questions: Yes, absolutely push really hard in the beginning to stay in the leading group, and it is likely to be a bunch of 400-500W efforts. When you have to close a gap, it is more of a power effort than an all out sprint most of the time. But if you are in doubt of getting the gap closed, go with the all out sprint. You'd be surprised at how often you think you are spending your last effort to get back on the pack, to find the pace lull for just long enough for you to recover and stay in the race.

caloso

My only comment is that you seem to be coasting a fair bit. There were a couple of corners early on where you seemed to stop pedaling 50m from the corner. Staying on the gas for just a few more pedal strokes would have allowed you to close the gap pretty quickly. And as you come out of the corners you won't have to go so hard.

Also, are you in the drops? Lots of Cat 5 riders stay on the hoods and it takes practice to ride the whole race in the drops.

Zedmor

Agree to coasting. Reason - do not understand what speed I will have at the corner so it goes to same bucket as above - cornering.

drops - addressed that long time ago, I spend like 80% of my time on drops anyway, find it easier/more comfortable than hoods.

Homebrew01

Start position doesn't matter as much as how you start. Work on acceleration. Start in the big ring, and larger cog so you can get up to speed.

carpediemracing 

For beginning of race efforts, it's usually pretty hard if the race goes fast. Also, keep in mind that if you get dropped then basically your race is over so don't hold back; it's better to get shelled after totally exploding rather than finding yourself off the back and then having the strength to actually keep going. Therefore make whatever huge efforts necessary to stay in the race. If you made your 700w surges in the first few minutes you'd have been near the front of the field, not dangling off the back (in the better quality clip). One or two surges should be enough to get you into the heart of the draft at the beginning of the race.

Remember that sitting on wheels in the field is much, much, much easier than trying to chase them. Once you're off the back the normal right thing to do is to sit up. In your case I'd use the closed roads to work on cornering, but otherwise it's not really useful trying to chase. If you couldn't hang with the field at 25 mph, drafting, then there's no way you'll be able to time trial at the required 30 mph, no draft, to catch them.

Typically Cat 5 races start either slow or really, really fast. The former if everyone really is a 5. The latter if someone is mislabeled and got stuck in the 5s. For a few years around here pro mountain bikers showing up day-of-race would be forced into the Cat 5 race. They'd start super hard, shell virtually everyone. The 30 mph starts were brutal.

Even if a race starts fast it eases up as everyone gets tired or the break goes. In the P123 races I do it's the first 15 minutes where I'm absolutely on the limit. If I can make it past about 15 minutes I'm okay. In some races it's super fast all the time but it's actually not bad because I can sit in fine at 27 or 28 mph. The problem is when it's 35 mph or faster, single file, and the minimum power just to hold a wheel is about twice my FTP. In the 3s it's much easier, maybe a few minutes of intense riding, and it's usually a few laps into a crit, not from the gun.

The point is that if you look up and you see some big gaps, and it looks like you may get gapped off the back, you need to get across the gap immediately.

Sean Kelly, famous ex-pro, said once that it's easier to go fast across a gap than to go slow. For pros they're so strong, races are so long, they can afford to chase a bit more methodically, like the "rule of thumb" on flat courses where a chasing field can close 1 minute every 10 km of chasing. So if the break has 12 minutes the field starts chasing at 120 km to go.

However, for us peons, 120 km is longer than most races we'll ever do. In a 30 minute crit you might cover 12 miles, 20 km. Also if a break gets 12 minutes up the road they'd have lapped you 6 or 7 times. So for us the numbers are a bit different. 10 seconds is a closeable distance for a solo rider. 20 or 30 seconds is getting pretty far out there.

For me, who cannot chase at a sustained level (meaning sustained 350w for more than a minute), I have to jump across gaps. In one race I did a bridge that involved a 1200w jump with an 800w effort - the best rider in the field had just rolled off the front and I expected the race to disappear down the road. It wasn't very long but if I tried to piddle across the same gap I realistically never would have made it. Jump is a bit after 4:30 and I go hard for about 15 seconds.

You seem to be a bit more fit so you can do some 300-400w efforts. However you shouldn't think about "oh, let me go 300w for a few minutes and see what happens". You should be thinking "Okay, I want to cross the gap as soon as I can." Make your bridge efforts in tailwinds and crosswinds, where the same bump in power gets you much more speed. Chasing into a headwind is pretty futile. This means that you'll jump just before a turn into a tailwind section, you'll go super hard, and ideally you'll bridge before you get to the headwind. Then sit in and recover.

Launching into a hill (not on the hill) is good also, since you can build speed before the hill. Accelerating mid-hill is reserved for those with massive w/kg ratios.

Launching after a hard, hard turn, if you corner well, is also good. The field will naturally slow for hard turns. If you're looking to bridge you can count on the field slowing for hard turns, and it may allow you to close an extra 5 seconds just because they slowed so much for an upcoming turn.

All this bridging talk also applies, at some level, to breaking away.

carpediemracing 

Start - I prefer to start off the back. This way I can clip in on my own, no one next to me, and then I look up and see where the holes are. I can get to the front pretty quickly even in a 80 rider field. at 120 riders it's harder to start at the back.

When you clip in don't push off with the foot on the ground. Your shoe is slippery. Much better to use the clipped in pedal to pedal forward, clip the other foot in, then go. Watch out for racers trying to push off with their shoe, it's an indication of lack of education/knowledge. It's also much slower.

On technical courses (say 6-8 turns in 1 km to 1 mile) I'll start as far forward as possible. It's hard to move up efficiently in such courses. I did one race where there were 120 racers or so. I was at the back on a narrow 6 turn, 1/2 mile course. I managed to move up in about 5 laps of super intense effort, got to about 25th wheel (it was basically single/double file). I looked back and there was no one behind me. There were some crashes but eventually I finished. I think I got last or second last, something like 21st place. I remember that because top 20 got money and points, and if I'd gotten maybe 17th I'd have placed 20th overall in the 8 crit series. Instead I was 20-something and out of the GC, out of the money.

Homebrew01

If you have 1 or 2 guys you train with, you can practice starts together. On a quiet road, 1 foot down, race to "that mailbox". Repeat a few times, working on clipping in, and then accellerrating quickly, while riding smoothly. (no zig-zagging). Do it solo if you prefer.

carpediemracing 

Your effort should be whatever it takes to stay on wheels. Don't hold back.

I don't look at my power at all during a race. I do some sanity checks, like I'll glance down to see how fast we're going, or to see how much time went by. But I look at the powermeter so infrequently that in one 1:20 race I only got the last 12 minutes of power because that's the first time I looked down and realized the SRM wasn't on! I used to put tape over the screen, just to avoid the temptation, but now I don't even need to do that. I just ignore it.

Of course I look at my power data after the race. During the race, though, you have to respond to whatever is going on around you. You don't have the luxury of saying, "Okay, I don't want to go over 400w until I'm a bit more warmed up" etc because by the time you're warmed up you may be off the back.

carpediemracing 

Starts - the best thing is to put a foot down at every red light, ever stop sign. Better (for race nerves) if there are cars/etc around, because then you'll be slightly nervous.

Also, if clipping in is an issue, practice while supporting yourself against a wall or on the trainer. Clip in, clip out. Clip in, clip out.

carpediemracing 

Cornering - you should work on cornering lines on and off the bike. Driving, pushing a shopping cart, even walking. Be like a little kid with a toy car. Every bend is a turn.

In a group you corner with the group. If on the inside you follow the rider in front. If in the middle I try to stay parallel but generally speaking I like to ride off the rider to the inside going into the turn, the rider to the outside exiting the turn, this way I don't squeeze the inside rider against the curb and I don't squeeze the outside rider against the curb either.

When solo you should work on late apex turns. This means you turn in pretty late. The reason you should work on this is because its' the most counterintuitive thing for cornering. When you approach a corner faster than comfortable you turn in early ("early apex"). This has the unfortunate effect of putting you into the curb on the exit.

With a late apex turn you turn in really late but you are going straight much earlier than any other exit. It's not a bad thing for driving, etc, and generally doesn't hurt if you are doing it solo. On switchback descents, for example, a late apex is the fastest way around a switchback.

When cornering you can corner very, very hard. When I got shelled in my first race my teammate, who got shelled also, yelled at me to try and fall over in every turn. I wasn't cornering well at the beginning of the race but by the end I was diving into the turns. I don't think I was cornering "well" but at least I could push it. Basically is someone else is doing it and not crashing then you can do it also.

(I'm not good cornering in the rain so even if the rider in front of me seems okay I generally have to back off. Survival instinct or something.)

grolby

I would not emphasize staging so much. Yes, starting near the front can be helpful in that you can be involved in the race right away, but it's not a skill as such and it's not something you can always count on. If you develop your skills appropriately, you will be able to start at the back of most crits without it being a factor in your result.

grwoolf

There is a lot of good advice here from experienced guys. I’m still pretty new to racing in comparison, but one of the biggest things that helped me in crits early on – Learn to stay pretty tight on a good wheel in the turns and start pedaling before the guy in front of you coming out of the turn. Just a pedal stroke or 2 "anticipation" makes a huge difference. Once I started doing that, I went from feeling like I was constantly chasing (reacting) to easily picking up positions coming out of corners.

canuckbelle

Learn how to look ahead without moving to the side. Poke your head to one side a bit and learn to read the race. Use corners to watch the group ahead of you as they go through it before you do: that gives a lot of information about the structure of the group. Is it strung out? Then the hammer is down. Is it fanning out? Then the pace is easing (but there's probably going to be an attack soon). You'll also be able to see if gaps are starting to form.

Don't bother trying to learn "who's who." It's too early in your racing, and it's Cat 5. Just learn to look for signs of a steady/competent rider vs someone who's not smooth and probably isn't going to make it in the race.

happybday29475

Lots of great advice here from the BF cognoscenti.

Nobody has mentioned experimentation, so I will. You learn by trying stuff, right? So try a few different things and see what happens.

a) try being on the front
b) try taking a flier
c) pick a racer - your favorite - and try to be on his wheel for a lap, or for the whole race. Study his tactics, lines, strengths and weaknesses, all while you learn to hold position.
d) try different lines through corners (be safe and aware of who's around you)
e) try to be fifth wheel - just hold that for as long as possible, until you explode.

Do all these things, and more. There are lots of good drills to try, and others here can chime in if you need ideas.

And don't be surprised or disappointed when they don't work out, and maybe result in your getting shelled from the pack. The goal of your racing right now is not to win, but to learn how to race.

I've learned more from trying stuff, and failing, than by sitting in until the final sprint. (And I'm definitely a sprinter-type). In fact, I have frenemies who I consider to be more fit, but because they never try anything, their rate of learning is slower, and therefore they are less adept racers.

Don't forget to have fun, and make frenemies!

therhodeo

CDR has so much knowledge I just with he'd take the time to actually type it all out...