KDTX

First race:

Cat 5 crit - circa 1997

Two laps with the pack (i'm dying)

Dropped

Lapped

Pulled myself with a handful of laps to go

Humiliated

Didn't try racing again until 10 years later

Now: Not DFL, Not getting dropped (in crits anyway), just catted up to the 4's and having a blast!

Wish I would have known someone or more about racing back then to stay with it. I missed out on some good racing years. Was probably fitter back then. Just didn't know what the hell I was doing......

aggro_jo

First 5 RR. Placed 7th with a full field. It remains my only top 10 finish in any road discipline.

edit: apologies for contributing to the zombie

Ygduf

First RR - made the selection on first hill. Dropped on second hill. Time trialed by myself between break and main pack. Finished 8/50-something.

waterrockets 

In my first race, I merged all the old threads folks were bumping. And won.

botto 

waterrockets 

SushiJoe

WR FTW!!

spinwax

My first race. 11 yrs old. 1985. I think I was 3rd to last place.




I came in to my own eventually. I was a Cat II before I turned 16yrs old. Jr Nats in 1989.

mike868y

My first race was at cdr's bethel series. I finished in the pack, which is something I can't say so often these days.

SushiJoe

DNF pretty sure

echappist

6 out of 57 or 13 out of 105, depending on how you count the field. Someone messed up and had 100+ collegiate D's on the road at once. Given the conditions, i'm amazed i didn't crash...

gbot

brainnnnnnsssss.

I got into a very early break because I couldn't stand to see a guy going up the road. Turned out that the 4 of us dropped the peloton and ended up battling it out amongst ourselves at the end. 3rd in the sprint.

Didn't learn much about riding in a pack, but had fun.

carpediemracing 

I must not have posted to this thread since there's no green icon. Fourth or so through first turn. Shifted into 42x21 for the "hill". Everyone else went up in their biggest gear, 53x15 (Juniors). Last out of second turn. Off the back halfway down the straight. Lapped very quickly.

https://sprinterdellacasa.blogspot.co...iddletown.html

btw I hated those "Cat 2s before 16" because they made life hell for us normal Juniors. I did win the first 3? races I did in my category (Cat 4) though, so the 3 years of hell paid off at that point. Took me 26 years to get my upgrade to 2, and only because the standards relaxed a bit. You can do "specialty" upgrades now, just doing crits and stuff. Before you had to place in road races and crits - I searched high and low for flat road races but never placed in one.

cdr

Aerodee80

Santiago Canyon Time Trial March 2008 my first TT , dead last probably the new low at that time . I was too nervous to ride.

CBR Crit at Long Beach May 2009 my first Crit, fourth place.

In between these two races, I started to do group rides and get some leg miles on. Prior to that Im just a commuter.

mollusk

omg.

SushiJoe

chadteck

I finished 28/50 in my first mass start race. I was with the lead group until about 2 km to go but had a mechanical on the final climb leading to the finish and had to stop and fix it. It was the road race stage of a stage race and I was so mad that I won the crit the next day.

A good fail story is the mixed 4/5 crit I did about a month later. It was my 2nd or 3rd crit ever and my first crit with primes. I got totally confused by the primes and wasn't paying attention to the clock or lap counter. I ended up demolishing the field in a 1 man sprint on what I thought was the last lap. The only problem was that it wasn't the last lap - I just misheard "prime lap" as "three laps" and started counting down from there. So once the field caught me, I jumped back on and thought that I must have miscounted by a lap. I was positive this lap was the last one, so I did the same thing again. I was way too tired to catch the field when they came up on me this time. I ended up cruising to the finish with one other guy. I think we tied for last.

bikesandcode

My first mass start road race was the Ottawa Bicycle Club's Grand Prix. The novice category was 2 laps of the hilly 21km circuit. I'm pretty sure they've changed the start point, but in those days the start/finish line was just after the Camp Fortune turn off. In other words, about 1/3 of the way up a ~2.5km 7% climb.

The race was reduced from 50 or so starters down to less than 10 in the first kilometer and a half. I stayed with the second group on the road for a couple of kilometers and was dropped when the road turned upwards again.

There were no chase groups or anything of the sort. A group of 3 was a pretty sizeable bunch.

I finished 9 minutes behind the winner pretty much exactly in the middle - 25/50.

Tinton

Broke my chain 100m into my first race.

Crashed into the back of a car on a wet mountain descent in my second race.

badhat

4th in my first citizen race (mt evans)
12th in my first licensed race (a TT)
8th in my first licensed mass start road race

mattm

I hope your 3rd race was better!

bostongarden

It was me and my just purchased English Raleigh with 3-speed Sturmey Archer (my dream bike at the time for which I had saved up from mowing lawns and shoveling driveways) against a friend who just purchased a Fuji "racing" bike (5 or 6 speed?). I really thought I could take him, but, it wasn't to be on about a 2-3 mile race up and down the streets of our neighborhood (where he started out going south and I started out going north and we criss-crossed along the way).

Issaquatch

1st road race: 34th out of 45. I finished in a pack of 20 riders, but since we had already been dropped I didn't see the point in sprinting at the end for 20th place so I just rolled across the line at the back of the pack.

1st crit: Dropped and lapped but I was allowed to finish.

kj5423

thanks for the replies, all. i apologize for not searching before posting a topic. looks like i have pages and pages of stories to make me feel better about myself when i end up getting lapped.

kj5423

yeah that! although he still cares enough to post on a bike forum so his luck must have changed. i hope my first races go better. but if not i'll remember tinton and keep trying no matter what happens.