Ygduf

UD was asking about how to avoid being cycled back. I was addressing his problem. If, when it strings out he stays up front, when it get's easier and guys try to move up he needs to stay mean and not let them in.

No offense intended.

waterrockets 

Yeah, I muscled my way to the front line of a big P/1/2 crit at the start because I knew I'd be OTB in 15 minutes if I didn't start way up front. So I'm saying "excuse me... oh hey Dave!" to the nat'l crit champ, and making room for myself, and he and I know I'm the low guy on the totem pole for the first 5 rows.

UmneyDurak

Maybe I am a bit to hesitant through the corners. I am not "affraid" to be on wheel, and take corners in a pack. I just can't seem to judge effort required to stay on the wheel, or when people in front brake not to over brake myself.

As for question about getting swamped. I meant more of not people pushing me off the wheel, but when people start going around me and the guy I am behind. I am hesitant to move out because I might cause a crash. Today crit was a complete disaster. Lost spaces with few laps to go, and just could not move up. Tried to stick my fat azz where it didn't belong on first corner of last lap, got yelled at. In retrospect that was a mistake going for that line.

shovelhd

Judging effort takes practice at speed. Training races are good for this. If you don't have any of those nearby, use the first half of your next race as practice. Resist the urge to brake. Start slowing early, come off your wheel on the inside and overlap, coast, then power out as the wheel surges ahead of you. It takes time and practice to do this smoothly. You have to be relaxed and confident.

Guys will yell at you. Pay no attention unless it's a herd of idiots yelling at you. Someone will always have something to say. There's a guy on a prominent Boston team that has it out for me. He always has something nasty to say to me during a race. I don't know what his problem is other than I usually beat him.

If you were forcibly trying to steal a wheel away, that's racing. If you caused a lot of panic in the pack with a dangerous move, then the feedback is justified. Do it better next time. You can practice getting to the front and holding position on prime laps.

waterrockets 

Yeah, as shovel suggests, if you don't have training races you can do, you really need to let go of results for a while and learn the race pack skills. You can end up 5th-15th for the rest of your career, or sacrifice results in 3 or 4 races so you can win in the long run. It's good to make sure you know what an A race is for yourself, and treat other races as ladder rungs to get to that A race. It doesn't have to be the biggest purse on the calendar, or some epic course with full fields every year; just pick a race that appeals to you, learn before it, and then take it out. That way the pressure is off on the other races.

shovelhd

Excellent point. This is how I plan my season. Of course I want to win every race, but I don't set that high a bar for myself. Focusing for an A race takes a lot of mental energy. I would rather use it for when it's most important to me. It can be a fine line between success and burnout. I've been there before. It's why I quit racing. I don't want to go there again.

Ygduf

It's heresy in this forum, but do you do many group rides? This is the kind of thing you can practice on M-F and put to use in races on the weekend.

Jandro 

I think it's considered heresy here because the definition of 'group ride' varies wildly between individuals. I know of a few 'group rides' around these parts that are more like unsactioned races than your average sunday morning shop ride.

Find the former and I'll +1 to what Ygduf says.

shovelhd

Just be careful. Hammerfests can be more dangerous than racing.

jsutkeepspining

The only thing I don't like about hammerfests is a lot of the guys don't race, so it becomes their "race". They end up taking huge risks (running red lights/stop lights, jumping over the yellow line, etc) to prove they are "better". Where as I, on the other hand, don't want to take any undue risk because I have to line up on saturday and sunday and race my bike.

Also, even really hard group rides are hard to get a really high quality workout in. You get some z5+ work, but a lot of it is z1 sitting in even at higher speeds, versus racing where it's constant surging/hard efforts.

waterrockets 

I've mentioned this before, but former Elite Nat'l Crit Champ, DW here in Austin told me that he shows up on the hammer rides and still gets a good workout. He just goes to the front and rides a bit above threshold until someone finally comes around him. He slots back into the top 10 somewhere, and when he sees the front again, he just ramps it back up to a pace that people are happy to follow for a few minutes. Ends up as a solid SST ride. So, it's possible...

jsutkeepspining

It is possible, but it doesn't always work. You need the right group of people.

mattm

He sounds like an outlier.

Hida Yanra

nat'l champs usually are

waterrockets 

Well, if you're looking for a lot of structure, then the group clearly does not make sense. Still, if you want to get 10 minutes at threshold in a fast group, dial it up to threshold and either get to the front or vary your draft to control speed. I'm able to ride at high tempo for an hour with no problem with a training partner who's stronger than me. I just draft surf, and keep power steady, in and out of the draft as needed. If I am going faster, I pull up next to him until my lower power takes me back b/c of the wind, then I hop back in the draft and roll forward again. If I'm the fast guy, then I stay at the front, and if I'm too fast, I grab some brake and keep it on.

gsteinb

#t=12m0s

notwist

I did the category races the day after. Not sure if it's the past week's training load or lack of warmup but I just could not get comfortable on that course. I felt like I was killing myself sprinting up the kicker on the backside of the course each lap. I felt a lot better (and safer) in the 3/4 but overall I just didn't feel too hot that day. Will you be doing the State Crit this weekend?

gsteinb

Hard course. Took me a while to figure out I had to under gear the hill. I was spinning up around 110 on it seated.


I hate the course they moved states to. In on vacation though so will be missing it anyway.

shovelhd

You on the island yet?

gsteinb

No. Next weekend. Back to NJ now. Race Thursday.

MDcatV

^G - nice!

ovoleg

Ohio State RR Cat 4. I blew it in the final sprint when I unclipped by twisting like a moron

Anyways I just finished editing at 1am last night because my friend really wanted me to finally post it. Turn music off if you're at work.

MDcatV

^i only watched the last 30 seconds, but did the guys who went to the last turn 1st and 2nd finish that way?

ovoleg

No, they got 5th and 6th after the train swarmed and passed them. It was pretty far out to the finish after the last corner. The guy in the blue kit is a good friend of mine(Nate) and the other is another friend I've raced with before. The guy in blue is super strong but races sorta bad.

rkwaki

I miss the friendship of a good group ride. When I was coming back into the sport a while back I did a charity century and was looking for a good workout so when we started I went to the front after a few miles to weed out the Freds. Once the group thinned a little I think we ended up with a group of 8-10 and I pulled the group. At mile 75 a friend of mine (Cat 2 lady) pulled along side and said go, we'll see you in the parking lot, at that point there was only three left.
Last year we had a regular group ride on an established route. As I was moving pretty well last year I would lead us at rollout and stay upfront and riding 2 wide guys would rotate out on my left and I would just stay there and take us to the first big climb at which point I would set tempo. At the end of that road we would regroup if someone got dropped then I would rotate back and shoot the breeze for a while. As we started back into town I would ramp up the pace a bunch as we were no further than 20 miles out. One ride that we had done just before I started to race I think I pulled over an hour straight (this was with a group of various category racers).
Group rides to me are about having fun BUT you can get a workout if you are with understanding riding partners.