tetonrider

For those of you that have won a race solo, what has been your biggest margin of victory? Love to hear the stories behind the wins...whether it was 1" ahead of the chase or 10'.

Any takers? We've got lots of wins by members of this forum.

gsteinb

Kilo solo, floyd bennet field.

I bridged to a solo rider who rolled off at the end, and rode through him when I saw the field wasn't on my wheel.

waterrockets 

Nothing larger than 5" for me, and that was a Kilo flyer

carpediemracing 

I think I won by about 30-40 seconds in this race, the only race where I won solo. Story here. It might have been more. It's a 20 second hill if you're sprinting and I gapped the other guy maybe 200-300 meters before the hill (that's a semi-spoiler but you should read the story).

carpediemracing 

Also if you mess up a title just put "MOD!" or something in the body along with what was messed up and we can fix it for you. Or report the thread, with the request to fix the title.

YMCA

a few minutes
couple times
road races obviously

crit solo wins have been half a lap or so at most
lapping the field was never solo, always with others

mattm

A couple of seconds, if any.

Usually it's by inches! Good enough for me.

The time I lapped a field, it was with two others, and I lost.. need to correct that one this year!

cannondale125

Pic looks a little staged to me

rideaz

I've lapped the field in a few of my races this year. It's awkward and makes for really lame race pics

rkwaki

That's what she said...

Ygduf

Patterson Pass RR in the 4s, finished solo 60-mile break about 80 seconds up on the pack.
Boonville RR last year in the 3s, chased down a 50-mile solo flier and passed him before the finish climb. Put about 2 minutes into him before it was over.

before anyone thinks otherwise, know I've also been caught <20s from the line on like 5 separate occasions after extended breaks.

Ygduf

Unlikely that I will ever need to know, but what's the etiquette in that? Can you just tailgun your own field one lap up? they get the bell lap and you win?

rideaz

They still gave me the bell lap, using my time. The field then just finished after my bell lap. I guess that works if you lap the field and they stay together as a pack, not sure what happens if there's another rider that also goes otf at a different time and also laps. It got really complicated at a couple of races when I double lapped the field. I also learned that if you lap the field you can then sit on the back and cruise (I didn't) but if you get in front of the group, they can't sit on your wheel after you lapped them, they have to let you go.
In a couple of the races, I wasn't even eligible for Primes after I lapped riders :-(
It's not going to be happening for me anymore anyways!

Ygduf

there should be a mercy rule. double lapped? you're done!

Andy STi

On March 29th I won after a 30 mile solo break. My break away companion flatted so I continued on. Race was windy with gravel climbs, good conditions to hinder a chase plus I had teammates in what was left of the pack. I won by 4-5 min.

save10

Henleyville RR cat 4's 3 years ago.
gap 7 minutes.

last race of the season. way far away from where i lived. field of 18-20. more that 1/2 from from the local chico team. One of the Chico guys goes solo 10 miles into the race and i go with him (its a 70mile race). apparently major blocking was going on behind us. We alternate cat 4 pulls for 30 miles then he decides he cant do it anymore and drifts off. i was thinking...crap...its a long way to the finish, i have no idea where the rest of the field is so decided to keep it a like a threshold training pace (240W based on my FTP at that time) and if get caught then so be it. i spent the next 30 miles staring at my garmin playing a game of try to stay as close to 240 as possible. that's the mental game i was playing with myself. Well i never got caught and i was dead freakin tired at the end. the guy that was with me decided to re-chase and so he was in no man's land so it took a while for the pack to catch up. Once the chico guys started chasing it was too late. They eventually stopped for a pee break and decided to just fight it out for 2nd. the worst part was i ran out of fluids and didnt bring enough food in my pockets.....and i dropped the water bottle exchange at the neutral feed....

That's my one of my only two wins on a bike. it took alot of fortuitous things to happen to get win, but i took a risk by going into the early move and it paid off. I still cant quite belive that i did that....60 mile breakaway with 30 of it solo. my race report is buried in these pages from a RR thread from that year. i can definitely say that i have savored and not taken for granted the two wins i got as a cat4 because i know that know as a 3/masters 123 the chances of me winning again are much smaller and also because so many of the guys i race with have never won a race.

grolby

45 seconds or so, but that was a cyclocross race. No wins on the road, so that's all I've got.

mollusk

My first ever race was a time trial about 10 miles long. I rode it on my road bike with nothing aero. My "30 second" man was the guy that was the guy to beat on a full time trial rig and aero helmet. I passed him just after the turn around and put another minute on him by the end.

Not like a crit or road race, but it still was cool.

mattm

How about you?

carpediemracing 

P123 race 7 riders took off, 4 chased. They lapped the field. 5 of those 11 took off again. 1 attacked them, lapped the field again after a number of laps. Debatable what happened to those other 4 but it was all together in one lap after the field, dragged by the 1 solo guy, started closing in on the chase. Some of those riders say they also lapped the field, but they had to have closed a massive gap in one short lap (like 40-50 seconds in a 1:40-1:50 lap). Officials scored the one guy ahead with 2 laps, the other 10 with 1 lap. It was nutty.

Racer Ex 

Road race...10 minutes after a 58 mile solo. Longest solo as well. It was unplanned, but I got a pretty good gap after an attack and had teammates in the field so I figured I would just put my head down. They held the gap to around 20 seconds for the first 20 miles. Then they gave up chasing. I had flatted 70 miles in on another solo flyer a few years before so I kept my foot on the gas just in case.

Won the state crit one year by lapping all but 5 or so guys...3 minute gap. Think I won the state TT by around that one year as well after a 25 mile solo

Crit/last stage of the Tour of Arkansas I flatted on the second lap, got a wheel, went through the pack and bridged up to a 2 man break. We lapped the field 3 times and I kilo'd the guys out for the win and the GC. That would have been around 6-7 minutes.

We should start a "longest failed solo" as well. Have some good stories there.

dz_nuzz

Gap to field or gap to second place?

Gap to field has gotten as high as 10 minutes, gap to second place has been around 1:45 in a few races.

Homebrew01

I could post in the "Biggest Gap Off the Back" thread.

Wylde06

Now there is a thread I can contribute to

echappist

i was waiting for your contribution

as for my own, 3-5 seconds or so? third mass start race i had ever done, and it was on a hilly circuit.

From my original race report from four years back

And my racing career went downhill after that; that was my last Caddy, and i've been looking for one ever since... I've come close a few times since, but have only steak knives to show for...