exhorserider

Hey guys,

I've never raced before and my school doesn't have a racing team, BUT I'm thinking about trying to get registered for the spring racing season. Since it's my last year, it's kind of a final shot at collegiate racing (don't know if/when grad school is in the cards) I'm hoping to piggy-back on another team in the area for training rides. So I have a few questions-

1) Am I completely crazy trying to go into this without the experience? what are the Women's cat B races like in the area?

2) Any specific team you'd recommend trying to meet up with (in terms of location, attitudes to beginning racers) I go to Occidental College which is right near Pasadena.

Thanks for your help!
Becky

asmallsol

Not in the so-cal region, but I kinda have experience on the topic. The process isn't hard at all. You will need to register your school with USCF as a club. I'm not sure if you need an advisor or not, but if you plan on getting any founding from your school (such as for the club regiestrion fees) you may want one. You need a jeresey with your schools name on it and your Collegiate Licience. Other than that, just race, and have fun.

I raced/race for Michigan Tech. We're 8 hours from every race, so it would only be me and one other guy going to these races.

ri_us

Go for it. Collegiate is the best place to start. I suggest you try to get your club sports department to reach out to others at your school who want to ride. It's a lot more fun and makes the drives much easier.

bitingduck

1) a) No. b) No idea, I'm a guy, but I'd bet not that bad.
2) PAA has a pretty good attitude towards developing riders and lots of people in the area. SBW has a stronger women's team, but they're farther away.

jmechy

I don't recall seeing any riders from Occidental this year, I don't think they have a formal team. However, there were quite a few girls racing out their on their own, so you shouldn't have too much of a problem. The women's B's races were not nearly as intense as the A's races, but were still very competitive and looked like a lot of fun.

You can take a look at https://www.wccc-info.com/2008/Road/index.html to see where the races were held this past season. A lot of schools that hosted this year will host again next year. You may also want to email Hans and see how you can go about joining the WCCC.

esammuli

Try contacting the Cal Tech team. They're reasonably close to you.

exhorserider

yeah, they don't yet. I'd have to get registered. Any idea how fast they rode over specific terrain? I'm just curious how far off I am!

bitingduck

Racing isn't really about how fast you can ride over specific terrain so much as the top speeds during attacks, especially at the beginning levels. Breaks don't usually stick, but if you can't accelerate with the group and hold whatever speed they're holding (it's easier in a group) you get popped out the back and slog in by yourself without a draft.

You should do some of the local group rides-- Montrose is ok for getting a taste of pack riding, the "Tour of Sierra Madre" wednesday night ride is good for pain. I don't like the Rose Bowl all that much for a variety of reasons, but it may have improved now that some clubs are trying to make it more civilized.

There are also two velodromes that are easy to get to where you can get a lot of really good speed workouts and probably some practice racing over the winter.

jmechy

I uploaded almost every collegiate race to motionbased, lost a few due to my garmin dying though.
https://trail.motionbased.com/trail/user/jmechy
- click reports in the left menu, click event type, then click race. Almost everything from UNR down is collegiate, but keep in mind that the speeds were for Mens races (Cat C and B).

Val23708

wccc-info.com

womens b's races are mostly teaparty or a completley shattered pack. norcal is dominating the WCCC atm (stanford, davis, berkeley took the podium this year)

aicabsolut

Collegiate Women's Bs is a good place to get started with road racing. They can be a big snooze sometimes ("tea party"), but when you get too bored, that's when you attack! Most of my WB races in the ACCC (and ACCC/ECCC) averaged around 20-21mph this year. Terrain was typically lightly to moderately rolling (most crits had at least one hill), and most crits had at least one technical part.