Northern California - Solo Speed vs Peloton Speed

In another thread, Cleave posted re doing two crits. The average speed was 25.9mph. How fast should I be able to ride solo, in order to be able to ride in a peloton at c.26mph?

If you can sustain 18-20mph on the flats without wind, you should be able to sit in the pack. of course, the other challenge in crits is that the effort is not a steady-state effort, but rather a set of intervals (decelerate into the corner, jump out of the corner), especially if you aren't in the front 1/3 of the pack. so in addition to training for speed, train for changes in intensity. and, of course, learn some skills.

Lorri,

Thanks so much. That's exactly what I wanted to know.

My cornering skills are Ok, so tho I'll be in the back of the pack, I may be able to ride around on the outside, to avoid being dropped.

Now it's back to my regularly scheduled training;-)

DavidH

i was actually wondering the same thing the OP was wondering when i went to spectate the early bird crit race which is about 10 minutes from my house. i can average around 18mph on rides around 1 hour, but when i found out even cat5 racers average 25mph, i thought i would have to be able to average at least 23mph on my solo rides, i guess not. haha. this makes it seem much less intimidating, might have to give it a try soon.

good advice for new racers: it's much easier to sit "in" the pack (from an energy pov) than to dangle on the sides or the back. beyond the front 1/3 of the pack, you'll experience an accordian effect that's magnified pretty significantly, so it will take more physical energy if you're not at the front. of course, riding confidently in the pack requires a lot of mental energy, but that's a differet topic altogether.

if you're interested in racing, I suggest finding a good club or a spirited group ride to develop your skills, fitness, and knowledge of the sport. and, of course, participating in a skills clinic or two will help shorten the learning curve enormously (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Lorri Lee Lown, founder + coach, Velo Girls
Register now for our 2009 Bike Skills Clinics (https://www.sportsbaseonline.com/Series.aspx?id=438) for women and men!

You can always come down to the polo field on tuesday night and find out for yourself. Last week our group did 4 x 15 minutes and averaged about 25 mph on each one.
I also highly recommend going to a skills clinic.:thumb:

Phipps, what are the deets on the polo field fun?

Phipps, what are the deets on the polo field fun?

Polo field asphalt track in GG Parl
Tue/Thu meet at 6pm, warm up for about 15 min.
Tuesday is longer intervals 4 x 15 min.
Thursday is hard sprints about 30-40 sec each usually 10 with full recovery.

Hope to see you out there sometime.

Pizza Man, I'm rehabing a knee at the moment, but hope to join the Polo fields Thursday ride soon. (I work Tuesday nights.)

Crit racing is all about going to the redline, recovering, redlining again, recovering again. I came to bike racing from triathlon. I could go all day at 21-22, but had no jump to 27. A couple of quick acclerations and I was off the back.

So make sure you work in some hard intervals in your training. What PM posted looks like great training. And I've seen him race. He knows what he's talking about.

Crit racing is all about going to the redline, recovering, redlining again, recovering again. I came to bike racing from triathlon. I could go all day at 21-22, but had no jump to 27. A couple of quick acclerations and I was off the back.

So make sure you work in some hard intervals in your training. What PM posted looks like great training. And I've seen him race. He knows what he's talking about.

Exactly. Pacing is not relevent in crits. Being able to redline and recover over and over is. Keep doing it and you get better each race. Aslo learning to conserve is very important, there are only so many matches in the book.