AERO63

**

ShutUpLegs

Always tough to determine based on speed because every race is different. This passed weekend my teammates who did the 4/5 crit average 26.2 mph and our Cat 3 race was 25.8 mph. 10 turns is a lot over that short distance! Would be interested to see that layout. Are they actually turns or more like swopping "turns". Sometime too, the more people the faster is can be.

Gramercy

I can't imagine there are 10 turns and an 8% hill in that small of a loop.

My 4/5 crits average between 24.5 and 25.5mph on each lap, and the last lap is around 27 to 28mph, and this crit is a flat course. Cat 5 road race averages are around 24mph too.

globecanvas

My last 2 crits averaged 21 mph and 27 mph. Guess which one was harder?

hack

10 turns and a climb with descent (into a turn??) sounds like a technical course which should, especially in a 4/5 race, yield slower speeds. So, that avg speed with that climb seems pretty quick (can you compare with later 1/2/3 racers?). However, that avg speed may or may not correlate with the avg speed of your next race as the course, field, etc may be different. For what it's worth, I've done 4/5 races with speeds ranging from 21mph to 27mph. As above, depends on the course and field.

Ygduf

I would think and average speed of about 41kph for that course.

furiousferret

It really varies. We have had them in the 21-22 range because everyone refuses to take a pull and lets a guy out in the front to rot, we've had others where one strong guy takes a massive pull and drags everyone along (26ish), and then others where strong guys trade pulls (26.5). Really its the surges that I worry about. When they start hitting 30+ at certain parts thats when gaps form and things get hairy.

bbbean 

Based on my short career as a cat 5 racer, I don't think there really is a "typical" speed, unless you want to use a very wide (i.e. 20-35 mph) range.

ips0803

You'll get a lot of "it varies" responses.

That said, to do a course that short, with that number of turns and a climb, at 24 mph I'd say is pretty fast for a 4/5.

That said if you guys were basically just team trialing in a pack of 12 its less so that the surging and reacting you'll see otherwise.

thechemist

doesn't matter. even if your curious why does it matter? Maybe its fast and maybe it's slow.

Grumpy McTrumpy

post a strava of it.

Creatre

I would get dropped so fast on that course. I probably wouldn't even make a lap. It could be 15mph and I'd probably get dropped. Turns suck if you suck at turns.

lsberrios1 

I could probably be the lead motorcycle marshal on that race! (on my 50cc) ... maybe you'd drop me either way . I don;t think you could have a lead motorbike or car on that course.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptaGDCYz-VQ

carpediemracing 

If more than a couple people put it on Strava you can do a Strava Flyby. This will give you (and others) an idea of how strung out the race got. More strung out means it was harder, relatively speaking, since less people were willing to go into the wind.

23-24 mph on that course seems like a pretty good pace. On a course with a lot of turns I imagine it was strung out, making the overall race quicker. When the field is 8 wide at 20 mph it really knocks the avg speed down.

It looks like a fun course, I'd race it if I could.

mattm

sounds about right!

actually the real answer is speed doesn't matter. just go faster than the rest at the end.

chasm54

You towed him around. One of the things you could have done differently was attack, instead of just doing all the work. One of your team could have buried himself to get a potentially decisive gap, while the other two blocked. If he stays away, great. If he doesn't, now you two are the ones being towed up to him by the opposition, and having, relatively speaking, an armchair ride which leaves you in a position to counterattack once the junction is made. With three of you in a six-man break you have the opprtunity to work them over, instead of working for them.

globecanvas

There are whole novels written about how to drop deadwood in the break. I think both carpediemracing and shovelhd have posted exhaustively about this. With 3 teammates in the break you should definitely have been able to make the other guys work hard. The last of the 3 just needs to get in front of the bad guys and let the other 2 good guys get a gap, over and over. If they come around to close the gap they are working harder than you. If they don't come around, now it's a 2-man break with no bad guys.

P.S. I would love to race on that course.

mattm

to get off the front, pull off and coast. they'll eventually come around.

beatlebee 

haha

shovelhd

for realz.

It depends on the situation as always. If you have more than 20 seconds then you can play cat and mouse. If they continue to suck wheel then continue to coast. Be ready for a counter. Watch for them getting antsy. Don't let it get down to 10 seconds. If they go, go with them. If not, attack, HARD.

With three in the break you should have tag teamed them whether they were sucking wheel or not. You want the break to be just your team. Each team member attacks with the rest of the team at the back. When they catch, your next teammate has moved to the front and attacks. You latch on the back. Lather rinse repeat. If that doesn't work then gap them off. Have a teammate on the front with you in front of the wheelsuckers. You sit up. Let the gap open. Make them chase back on. Lather, etc.

shovelhd

As for crit speeds, it depends. I've been in pro races that averaged 27mph and M55+ that averaged 29.5mph. Why does it matter? If you're calibrating your RPE do it against power and HR not average speed.

shovelhd

Hey, you're asking all the right questions without pretending to know the answers. That goes a long ways around here. Keep it up.

carpediemracing 

As pointed out you and your teammates should have tried to force the others to the front. Attacking in turn sounds good but attacking at the wrong points of a race will just help the others as you wear yourselves down with little or no chance of actually splitting up the break. Typically you want to attack where it's less likely for the others to be able to work off of your draft. Therefore you want to go in a tailwind, a crosswind (and hug the side furthest from the wind, so if the wind is from the left you hug the right curb), through a bunch of turns, or over the hill. Everyone will think of over the hill so it might be the other spots that you need to go.

If you three are lighter weight riders suited for the climb then slow up going into the climb and use your power to weight ratio to hurt the heavier riders as you accelerate over the top. If you're heavier TT type riders then avoid that by driving hard into the base of the hill so it becomes a 3 pedal stroke hill in a big gear, not a 15 pedal stroke twiddle fest. Use your TT strength to go with the wind or by drilling it where it's flat/downhill. Use your physical traits to your advantage.

With so many turns you can simply gap your teammate/s off the front (so the three teammates are in a row at the front and the third teammate lets a gap open up going into a turn). If you ease as you enter the corner (don't brake, it's just an ease) most riders won't notice the gap until the exit. This forces open a gap immediately. You can then pull off or soft pedal or whatever you want, as long as you're going a bit slower than the two teammates who are now off the front. When the other riders start to chase you hop on, sit on, and refuse to do an ounce of work. When they catch back on then you can attack. Etc.

The critical thing is to never work against your teammate. This is way too common in the lower categories (4s and 5s). I call them "Me Too" attacks, where one teammate tries to go with another but never quite gets on the wheel. If you looked at it from afar it would be one attacker, one chaser, and the field, and both the attacker and the chaser are on the same team. It's a bit senseless to try and close a gap to a teammate - unless it's a two rider pack of you and a teammate you should never try to close a gap to a teammate. You should wait and let someone else close the gap for you. If they fail then you let others try. If you let a bunch of guys try and now they're all dragging their tongues on the road then you launch a vicious attack and leave them behind.

If you do try to close the gap to a teammate, you're undoing all their hard work when they launched the attack. In very few, usually "more advanced" situations, this may not be true (like when a team intentionally attacks into a crosswind but the team leader inadvertently gets gapped off). But in pretty much all Cat 4-5 type racing this idea holds true. It especially holds true if the gap seems close-able "in a few seconds", i.e. 10-20-30 feet. It's incredibly crucial to immediately stop your effort so that someone else can make that "few second effort". You should be going nice and easy, on the wheels, only making efforts when accelerating to follow the others. Once up to speed you should be soft pedaling.

So.. in a break with 2 teammates and 3 non-teammates you should ease when the two teammates are ahead, even if it means you come off of the break. You're bringing everyone else off the break also, and they'll need to chase. As soon as they realize they need to chase you should sit up and wait for them to go around. Then sit on and recover, don't do an iota of work. If they aren't going to make it, or they start futzing around, then you can launch a searing attack to gap them off right away. Hopefully, with them working and you not working, you can get clear immediately. If you can't, if your attack only encourages them to chase, then you need to sit up and immediately let them by you, get on their wheel. Get them to the front, sit on their wheel, wait for the surge. If they want to go 14 mph then you go 13 mph. If you get caught by the field then so be it, you have two teammates up the road, you can play the game. They can't.

Chances are that the guy that won was perhaps the weakest of the group. He might have been struggling with the pace. The finish, going up hill (if I understood right) would favor a particular kind of rider, one like me. It's very possible that the winner of the race was the one most vulnerable in the break. You have to force the others to work so you can see who can and who can't. I bet if you did what I described above (leave a gap, let them work, then jump them), the guy that won the race would be the first one to respond. That's why you can't work at all as soon as someone responds - the one that responds will be the one with the jump, the one that reacts quickly, the one that will beat you if you drag him up to your teammates. Therefore you immediately shut down.

Even if you're not talking with your teammates you can start faking being redlined. Pull through slower, pull shorter, get a bit ragged in form, and start sitting on the back. You can police the rest of the break, "just in case". I've done this in races while trying to help a friend on a different team and had other non-teammate friends close a gap for me because they thought I was suffering and wanted the break back.

lsberrios1 

WOW, What a post! Thank you

hack

When CDR responds, he does so with great intentions and a wealth of knowledge. I've learned quite a bit reading his replies and his blog.