elgalad

I had my first road race today - a 40 km out-and-back through some very gentle rolling hills.

It was more of a club race than anything, with the grand total of 9 competitors split into three groups. Four in a "D grade" group, two in "B grade" and me and two others in the "A grade." I was pretty stoked to be in with the A grade riders (I've only been cycling for about three months), figuring I'd get a real workout if nothing else

The D graders went away first, followed by the B grade 8 mins later, and us a further 4 mins behind. I was expecting the A grade guys to go hard, but these guys were pushing 40 km/h into the wind I held with them for about 4-5 km, but eventually couldn't keep up any longer, and fell off the back. Kept pushing hard into the wind at about 25 km/h in the hopes of catching the B grade guys and working with them. Finally caught them at about the 15 km mark, and noticed that they were sucking wind pretty bad pushing into the wind at about 21-22 km/h. I worked with them for the next few km, trying to push the pace above 25 km/h when I was at the front. One of them dropped off the back about 2 km out from the turnaround, and the pace steadied at about 25 km/h with the other B grade guy pulling at the front. At about 500 m from the turnaround, he started fading to the right, indicating that he wanted me to pull. Instead, I jumped out of the saddle and attacked into the wind, trying to get a lead up before hitting the turnaround into the last 20 km with a tailwind. By the turnaround I was ahead by 12 seconds, and kept pushing hard at about 45 km/h for the final 20 km to finish with a lead of around 1:30.

So, overall, I crossed the line in 7th position (after the 4 D graders and 2 A graders), but finished with the 3rd fastest time overall (1:14)

I'm absolutely ecstatic about this result, as I was expecting to be thoroughly left for dead by both the A and B graders, but in the end finished the course over 5 minutes faster than the fastest B grade guy. I'm totally hooked, the feeling of attacking at the turnaround and looking back to see the look of surprise on that guy's face, it was the greatest feeling ever! (in an evil sort of way )

I'm definitely going to be back for some more of this (I've got a crit coming up next weekend, should be great fun).

YATES

wow, congrats man.. how popular is racing over there in australia?

snoboard2

good stuff man!

next time if there are more guys in the race be careful. when i was racing as a jr, another guy and i would attack frequently in races and catch the pack of the cat 5 race. the cat 5's would yell and scream at us to get out of their race if we hooked on for a breather. after talking to an official, it turns out its not allowed.

you'll have a good time next weekend...

elgalad

Thanks for the responses guys!

@ snoboard - thanks for the advice. Since it was a handicap race, you're actually meant to catch the groups ahead of you they just get a head start, idea being that the different grade riders all end up more or less together at the end. Didn't quite work out that way, I only gained 3 or so minutes on the D grade riders that started 12 minutes ahead but what can you do

@ yates - still don't have a good feel for how popular the racing is around here, as I've only been in a few, but I'm assured by the guys I met on Sunday that they usually get pretty good turnouts for the crit races (maybe 15-20 per grade), and there are a few "big" RRs spread throughout the year, but most of the RRs are small club events like this one