My (ahem) 30+ year base is significant, but a new rider can replicate much of it in probably 6 months, seriously. I think it takes about 3 months of serious, steady training, with group rides and races, to get into about 80% fit relative to other racers. The next three months is really fine tuning that year's progress. This means, for most people, being able to hang in a Cat 5 race, contest finishes, and race with the 4s. For the lucky ones talented enough for better things it means being a 3 by then, maybe even nudging into the Cat 2 territory.

This is assuming no gross overweight, no "I just quit smoking last week", other stuff like that. Normal, somewhat healthy, 18-45 year old.

For example I had a club member that was a university professor. Not athletic, very interested in the strategy and teamwork of cycling. He wanted to try it. We rode together very infrequently, like 5 times, and he did his first race, Cat 5s. He got shelled maybe 2 laps in, at Bethel. Part of it was he was helping at the race so he was sweeping, by hand, the course for hours and then getting on the bike, so it wasn't ideal for a new racer. Six weeks later, still sweeping with a broom before his race, he was contesting the sprints, and 8 weeks later he won a Cat 5 road race. The next year he made it to Cat 4 based on points/finishes. The following year he had to request an upgrade to Cat 3 with literally no places - he was really happy being the Cat 4 team's final leadout rider so he never placed. He was given the upgrade but found that he wasn't as effective in the 3s, and then stuff started happening outside of racing and he moved across the country.

I figure it takes between a year and three years to find most of that other 20%, meaning you relative to your peers. So although a racer may upgrade to Cat 2 in a summer it'll be another year or two before they're either a Cat 1, racing consistently with the pros, or simply being a 2. What their numbers are is irrelevant - it's relative to those around the rider, so maybe the rider is competitive in the 2s or 3s or whatever. They're not racing with Quick Step or they are, but they're going to be in the general vicinity in 3 years of focused racing.

Here's the thing about base - it's sort of about the aerobic base, of course. You develop capillaries and such, and those things generally don't go away too quickly. You really need to train that high end bit, where you rev your heart rate. Racing is the most realistic way to train that. Therefore a racer needs to race, as soon as it's safe, in order to understand the magnitude of racing's requirements. One kid, now one of my best friends, would bury himself at the local TT. He rode off the road once as he wasn't paying attention to the road, focusing instead on going fast. I told him his first race, a Junior race, would be really hard. I told him that it'd be as hard as the TT but it would last for 10 or 15 miles. He was practically passing out in the race but he finished, and the first thing he said was, "You were right, it was so hard!" He was absolutely demolishing me a few years later.

Most racers in the 5s, 4s, and even new 3s severely, severely, severely lack two things. One is a fit that allows the rider to take advantage of their body's muscular structure. The second is riding out of the wind whenever they're not making decisive moves.

So, when I see a rider on a group ride I have to figure out, for safety sake, if I can ride close to them or not. Are they smooth? Do they steer with their hips rather than their bars? Do they grab brake as their first instinct? Do they soft pedal instead of coasting? How close are they riding to others. These are things that all racers should ask of themselves because these are major signs of riding fluency or not. If you're not fluent then you're probably in the wind way too much because a non-fluent rider cannot draft well.

Fluid riders don't have to focus on things like the gap to the next rider, the mechanics of drafting. It's like driving - when you started driving it was really scary when someone simply drove the other way. I remember my first drive my mom was in the passenger seat, my little brother in the back, and he saw a car coming our way. "Watch out, there's a car coming!" he screamed in my ear. Well that's a new racer thinking about drafting. A more fluent racer can draft and not really focus on things equivalent to traffic going past them on the other side of the road.

For me it took maybe 40-50 group rides (2 hours a ride) to become somewhat comfortable drafting. If you do bumping drills you can accelerate that. If you do tire touching drills (on grass at super low speeds) then you can really accelerate that. We had first year riders, so new that they had to borrow bikes for the bump/touch drills in the fall, comfortably race crits literally a few months after they started training and maybe a month or two after they got their first road bike (aka March). One of them beat me decisively in a crit in April. I was really upset in one way but also really proud in another - a new rider beat me by using skills and techniques that I taught him.

I regularly race with guys that are far superior to me in terms of fitness and sometimes even finishing speed (my one and only strength). However I can still beat them regularly, if I finish (haha), because I can outsmart them in races. I draft better, I pay attention to what's going on around me, I know how to corner, I consciously work on cornering well, and I know when to dig a bit deeper to make some moves. Because I know my weaknesses I also know what other riders should do to eliminate me from the race. It's sort of hard but not really; when I'm more fit it's really hard.

Back to the group ride. The other thing I check is how are they fit on the bike. Are they so upright that a yoga ball would bounce off their chest? Or will the yoga ball bounce off their helmet? I see soooo many racers (racers, not just riders) that are upright on their bikes, like really, really upright. Look in the picture thread and really look at the pictures. Count how many riders will feel wind hitting their backs. How many riders in those pictures will be taking yoga balls on their chest? Look at the 5s, then look at the more experienced Masters or Cat 2s. They don't look alike, generally speaking.

They're too scared to try a lower position, they think of too many excuses to not try it. I don't have a stem. It's too expensive. I got fit last year. Blah blah blah wah wah wah. Whatever. Better for me, sucks for you. When the race winds up to 35-38 mph do I want to be sitting upright, wind on my chest? No, I want to feel the wind on my back when I drop my head, and I do.

I fit one of my friends, on his request, and I practically had to shove the fit down his throat. Even fully trusting my knowledge/experience he had serious doubts about the effectiveness of the fit I did for him. We made changes measured in centimeters, off of a "professional fit" done at a shop that has a club/team. He went out and won the next three training races and podiumed in his A race at the end of the season. He's kept the fit since.

The fit idea even works with non-racers. Who doesn't want to be more efficient, stronger, ride easier, be more comfortable? A well fit bike does all of that, but the key is getting low enough to do all that.

The problem with the upright position is that you end up not recruiting major muscles that run up the back of the legs and your butt. If you enter a race and you have sore glutes after the race endsd then you're way too upright in training - obviously, because if you were properly positioned on the bike then your glutes would be worked consistently every time you go out on a ride. A race won't be any different. Getting low really improves your power, like seriously. When you climb a really steep hill, when you're almost falling over it's so steep, do you sit as upright as you can? No, you lean way over until you can practically lick your front tire. That's because your body, responding to your demands not to fall over, is recruiting all those muscles it has back there. If you don't utilize them regularly then they won't be there when you need them.

The issue is that you need to be fit enough to be in that position. You can't be too fat (when I was really heavy I ended up raising my bars a good 7 or 8 cm because otherwise my gut and my legs would try to merge on every upstroke), you need to condition your neck/shoulders/arms. The latter takes maybe 1-2 months max, and it's really more like one hard week. The former... well, like I said before, you can't start being too fat.

The other problem with an upright position is that you're not aerodynamic. A well fit rider will be pretty aero even on the tops. If you look at the pros they're pretty low even on the hoods or the tops. Obviously they're fit enough to hold a lower position, obviously they're concerned with power output, but they're also at the office when they're on the bike and they cannot have a bike that they can't ride for 5-7 hours at a time. Therefore their positions are also comfortable, probably more so than our positions.

So, yeah, my 30 year base (I started training seriously, like consistent 150 mile weeks, in 1981 when I was 13, started racing in 1983), it helps. But a properly fit rider, with a few months of pretty serious riding (8-12 hours a week and at least 4 of those in group rides), will realistically be stronger and faster than me. They may not beat me in a field sprint but they'll absolutely annihilate me in TTs and climbs and really sock it to me on courses or in conditions where tactics takes a back seat.