"The 33"-Road Bike Racing - Sprints when riders have lapped field

Just curious - how do things work out when a small break laps the field, but there are still points to be had in the field? Do the riders in the break sprint right alongside the sprinters in the field, and it's up to the race officials to figure out who belongs in what group?
I would guess that lapping the field is unlikely to occur in the 15-mile crits I hope to be racing for the foreseeable future, but it's fun to at least contemplate :lol:

Riders in the break are a lap up so...they would be sprinting at a different time.

Unless the rule changed I thought that once the field was lapped they were on the same lap as the break.

http://www.usacycling.org/forms/RdTrkCx_rulebook.pdf

See page 70. Lapped riders finish on the same lap as leaders.

Riders in the break are a lap up so...they would be sprinting at a different time.

D'oh!

The tend to sprint them out at the same time.

I have seen the riders 1 lap up drop off the pack on the last lap so they can sprint each other and still let the pack do a sprint 1 lap later if the money is still in the pack.

The tend to sprint them out at the same time.

I haven't done a real crit in at least 5 years. IIRC the bunch sprinted it out a the bell and the break rode the last lap alone.


I have seen the riders 1 lap up drop off the pack on the last lap so they can sprint each other and still let the pack do a sprint 1 lap later if the money is still in the pack.

Best option.

This happened at the P1 crit at Cascade this year. The riders from the break were trying to work their way up, and sprinted from various positions within the field. I think it took the officials at the finish line many minutes to figure out who finished where, and to assign finishing places accordingly.

What Psimet describes seems ideal, though I have never seen that happen here.

I have seen one of two things occur:
1. The group that lapped the field has moved up to the front and tried to get out in front of the field before the last lap, so that the riders who are a lap up can get their positions.
2. The whole field sprints together, with the guys who are up a lap getting the top spots, based on the order the finish in the field sprint, and the rest of the placings based on everyone else in the field.

As a serviceable field sprinter when approaching the soon to be lapped field it becomes my absolute mission to get there. Odds of winning shift greatly in my favor once we lap the field. I've got a team to lead me out and I'm usually better in a crowd than the other sorts who would end up in a field lapping break.

Sometimes the officials will have the field sprint for the remaining places on one lap, then the break sprint for the win a few laps later. If the break is big then the official could pull the whole field at 2 to go.

In some races the field will let the break through and go off the front again. Many times it's not a choice - the break is much faster anyway so the riders there can probably get away again.

One race earlier this year the break lapped the field at 17 to go (.8 mi course, P123). One guy, a strong Cat 3, couldn't quite make it, and the rest of the field was going hard so the pace skyrocketed for a while.

The Cat 3 soloed for 17 laps, staying clear, never able to bridge but never getting caught either. We went pretty hard for the last 15 laps. A lot of guys didn't believe he soloed, even the guys in the break. But the spectators/officials saw him, lap after lap, trying to get back on the back of the field.

In the end a few of the break took off again and the rest of them almost swept the field sprint places.

I've been in CDR's first scenario this year. Worked out great. I've also been in a break that collectively decided to hold back and not lap the field in order to sprint it out unimpeded. Both work. Unlike gsteinb, I have no teammates and thus prefer sprinting out of the break.

If you're in a break and are a good sprinter there's a good chance that at least of the guys in the breakaway is a threat to get away from you on his own. If you bring a guy like that into a crowd it helps to neutralize him. As in any race situation you need to evaluate who'd there and what the scenario is on a case by case basis.

I don't disagree with that. I'm just saying that I usually won't let anyone get away without me from the break, and I'd rather sprint against the break than the field as I am not a pure sprinter and I don't get a lead out.

As a racer that races the friggin' old Masters races I sometimes get into fields with three different "races": 55+, 65+, Women's 3-4. Even though the stakes are minuscule I have seen some very creative shenanigans to "play" the system and it pissed me off even though I had no dog in that fight. It would be so much better if on the last several laps for a crit or the last several km's for a road race all the different races split apart to duke it out on their own at the line.

I have no idea how to enforce this, but it would be awesome.