Originally Posted by
WonderLake
Make room.
Yes. This.
Originally Posted by
Creatre
4/5 road races usually are packed and hard to move up in. People just don't have the pack skills and end up boxing you in all the time. Last weekend I can't tell you the amount of times I should have been able to move up and was blocked at the last second because of a guy not holding his line. Trying to find the holes and gaps takes time, but it's the only way. I prefer to move up in the middle of the pack instead of the outside, unless I want to move up asap, just because the wind sucks on the outer sides. It's much nicer in the lower categories because it's a lot more fluid, and you can move up when you want as long as you make your own gaps.
These are excuses. If I had $1 for every time a rider blames "others" for them being "boxed in" - that is a situation you create yourself. Learn to read what is going on. Move from wheels moving up to other wheels that are moving up. Predict the shift in momentum. Those moving up at some point will stop - and then they are in effect moving back. Getting "boxed in"is a result of getting mentally lazy and not reading what is going on. The race is fluid - you can't just get in a good spot and grind away for 1/2 hour.
Originally Posted by
Debusama
There's nothing I hate more than an unsolicited hand on my body. I try to be courteous, and I'll generally make room for someone who verbally requests it, but the best way to make sure my ass doesn't budge one millimeter for you, is put your hand on it. Particularly in a cat5 pack full of people with less than 10 races under their belt, unexpected contact can be quite jarring to one's concentration... There's nothing safe about nudging a guy in the hip to get him out of your way.
Get used to it. The safest thing in the world is to lightly touch someone on the hip when it looks like they are going to come in on you. If you can't handle touching in the pack then you should probably walk away from racing. Touching leads to less over-reacting than yelling at someone does.
Also - if forced to move up in the middle it is the best way to keep your space - a nice hand check. It's better than banging bars....which I have been known to resort to. Leaned on a guy for a good 1/3 of a mile this weekend. He thought he could force his way in and I showed him he couldn't.
Racing - especially crit racing - is a contact sport. If you don't like that then don't race.