grolby

Bike handling isn't the same thing as pack fluency IMO. I've certainly known fantastic bike handlers who are awful in the peloton, and vice versa. I agree I wouldn't recommend anyone avoid crits, but there's nothing wrong with starting out in the somewhat less frenetic environment of a road race.

topflightpro

I'm sorry, but we really need to stop perpetuating this myth that crits are more dangerous that RRs.

YMCA

yup

TheKillerPenguin

Confidence helps. Racing scared can be a self-fulfilling type thing. You get overly twitchy and over react to things. My impression is that newer riders take the crits are thunderdome stories they hear and ride accordingly (nervous as hell) ...which makes them more dangerous. My worst crashes have definitely come from road races, but I think I've seen more crashes in crits, so it's kind of a wash.

gsteinb

You do more crits because there's more of them, and see more fields race crits because duh

grolby

I agree. I didn't say they were.

gsteinb

you declared them less frenetic (which while not declaring them more dangerous, certainly gives the impression), though that seems to not even be true, when one considers tighter roads and the difficulty moving up with the yellow line etc.

rankin116

For me, the fear I had/still have in crits might be due to the closed roads. There's more room for people to move around and get wide, so I find it a little harder to predict where someone might drift. Not keeping me from racing crits though. And I'm talking 4/5 fields mostly. But I agree, they aren't more or less dangerous IMO. Just different.

TheKillerPenguin

I do crits less often, but you're right about seeing more of races unfolding. You don't get to see other fields' shenanigans when waiting for your road race to start.

grolby

I mean, It Depends(TM), but yeah, I would consider them more frenetic on average. Not intended to convey the impression of danger. Certainly there's this weird idea embedded in the belief that crits are more dangerous, that road races are a relaxed stroll over hill and dale. Which is obviously not true.

gsteinb

often, in a RR you miss the crash in your own race because it's behind you, but in a crit you see it on the next lap!

grolby

Also I do usually find it's easier for me to move up and maintain position in a road race, but that could be specific to me and might actually be because of smaller roads.

gsteinb

fast and energetic in a rather wild and uncontrolled way.



as if the finish of a RR has guys less desirous of winning.

bottom line:

Bike racing is dangerous. If you race long enough you will crash, and ultimately you will get hurt. While deaths are infrequent, they do occur with some regularity. However dangerous bike racing may seem, bike riding is significantly more dangerous. Since riding and racing go hand in hand, and you're reading this forum, you're probably screwed.

TheKillerPenguin

A decent crit never really slows down, and when it does it's for a split second reshuffling, so you have to be fully paying attention. A road race can become fairly civil in the middle part which helps with being able to move up. For me it comes down to mindset, as in how into the bike games thing I am on the day. On days when I'm focused the skill and observation things are easy; on days where I'm distracted by other crap I'm often tailgunning. I am tall though, so when I feel like throwing my size around people will generally give way. The trick is keeping my head in the game.

grolby

Heh. There might be a better word out there, but I don't feel like going looking for it. I think we have the same opinions on this, despite my alleged failures of vocabulary.

Grumpy McTrumpy

The only crash I was in that actually totalled a bike was a team time trial. the most violent one was a crit (body slam at last corner of last lap). The one with the most people on the floor (30 or so) was a road race (rainy). the one where a guy died was a crit, but it was also freakishly random.

canuckbelle

I didn't take myself to be saying that crits are more dangerous. I suspect that crashes are slightly more common in crits, but their severity seems (on average) lower than crashes in RRs.

shovelhd

We had a guy die in an ITT last year. Making Gary's point.

aaronmcd

I've never thought of racing as dangerous. Didn't think about it before I started, and now it just seems like a normal activity with a side effect of crashing sometimes. Like skating, or street hockey, or gymnastics.

Doge

It is not speed that hurts. It is the sudden stop.
None of the racing disciplines have the max speed/potential sudden stop of road racing.
This is not a comment on regularity.

mike868y

i came from motocross so tbh bike racing is pretty safe.

carpediemracing 

A different former motocrosser had a bad fall, head injury. I asked him about his helmet. He said that "well, it's bike racing, not motorcycles, so I didn't didn't think it was a big deal." His straps were loose. Now they're tight.

carpediemracing 

On seeing crashes - in road races you see, at most, one crash, the crash you get caught in or behind. In crits you see all the crashes as you go by each lap.

So in RR max # of crashes you see = usually 1 per race, max

In crits max # of crashes = many crashes per race

Also, in a RR, you typically don't know what's around each bend or even down each straight. In a crit you have a good idea of the course before you start, and even if you don't, in a lap or two you'll have a general idea of what's happening.

Personally I found the yellow line rule in road races worrying because not only are there actual violations, i.e. moving up the field over the yellow line, there is potential for unintentional yellow line crossings, like during a crash. In the Cat 4 state RR one year a driver coming the other direction tried to beat the field to turn into his driveway. He flipped the car in the ditch next to the group (he crossed the road directly in front of the field at something like 40 mph, slid over/past his driveway, went off into the ditch, and went airborne next to the field, upside down, car rolling when it landed). My friends in the field said it was like Dukes of Hazzard, you could see all the detail on the bottom of the car, engine was revving. A guy on a motorcycle, approaching from the same direction as the car, laid it down when the field scattered all over the road, blocking his lane. He plowed into a bunch of cyclists but miraculously no one was hurt, even the driver of the car.

The car driver had had his license for something like a week, so inexperience was a huge factor.

globecanvas

Few things get my inner grumpy old man fired up like seeing kids riding around with their helmets unstrapped (what bikesnobnyc calls "helmet payos"). I ask them if they are worried about objects falling on their heads, because that is the only thing the helmet is doing for them.

... responding to 2 posts above. But the story 1 post above is awesome and should not be distracted from.

gsteinb

Very very sad, but total user error. The guy flipped a U turn warming up without checking over his shoulder.

A guy destroyed his leg at the same event, riding full bore into the back of a car stopped on the shoulder that he neglected to look up at.