petereps

I did pretty well with a pack finish in my first race but have gotten dropped on my last three crits. I think a big reason why i get dropped is the constant sprinting out of corners. I noticed in this last race that i had to brake before almost every corner to avoid hitting the persons wheel in front of me. This would always cause me a loss of momentum and an inevitable sprint to catch back up. Questions:

1.) How can i avoid losing momentum without crashing or overlapping wheels? Whenever i tried to let a gap form before the corner so i could coast and not brake, people would fill the gap causing me to lose places. Also, whenver i tried to go by the person in front of me instead of braking, i would overlap wheels and almost crash a couple of times. How can i not brake and not crash?

2.) How normal/frequently should braking happen? Is it normal to brake on almost every 90 degree turn?

3.) A little off topic but curious: should i be out of the saddle after the corners when the speed surges or is it better to stay seated. I tried to stay seated but felt like i couldn't put the power down.


Thank you!

Creakyknees

1) be at the front, set your own speed and line because nobody's in your way.
2) as little as possible
3) whatever works best; it's a balancing act between conserving effort vs staying in the draft of the rider in front of you (and not losing positions)

jsutkeepspining

step 1: cut brake cables
step 2: race crit
step 3: ???
step 4: profit

carpediemracing 

The short answer is that if you're not surging on the pedals (closing gaps too quickly), if you don't need to brake frequently on the straights (means you're able to follow pace without overreacting), if you just follow the rider in front of you through a turn, even if it's a foot to one side, you shouldn't need to brake any more than the riders around you.

However that really doesn't address the cause.

My first thought is that your Sphere, what I call the area around your bars and front tire that you need clear to feel comfortable, is probably a bit large. This means that you need to be further away from the others compared to the other riders around you.

For example, as an extreme example, say your Sphere is 6 feet by 2 feet. You need 6 feet in front of your front wheel and 2 feet to either side of you to feel comfortable. That's about a full bike length in front and a full bike width to the side. Therefore when you go into a turn you brake if you get closer than 6 feet, and "leaving a gap" might mean 8 or 10 feet or more.

Let's take an experienced rider's Sphere. It might be more like 1 foot by 6 inches. They only need a foot in front of their front wheel to feel comfortable, a few inches to the side. They see you leaving 6 feet x 2 feet (or 10 feet x 4 feet) and to them it's like an invitation. They move in, you back off to clear your Sphere, another rider moves in, and suddenly you're at the back scrambling for wheels.

The solution for reducing your Sphere is to do some close quarters riding drills. Practice bumping to the side. You'll use your shoulders, upper arm, everything above your wrist. You shouldn't use your hand because you need to retain control over your bars. You can't retain that control if the back of your hand is hitting something. You can practice the motion even while sitting at a keyboard - move your elbow out while you're typing. You can still type, you have fine motor control over your hand's position, but you can push away with your elbow, lean with your shoulder, or even tilt your head to the side.

The drills aren't complicated - just ride along and bump another rider. Lean into them. Do it slowly, on a closed type of road (dead end works well), and have a lot of clothing on plus your helmet and gloves in case you fall. Remember you need to protect your bars and front wheel, and since your hands are on the bars, you need to protect your hands as well. Bump with stuff above your wrist (and for me that really means at least halfway up my forearm).

Once you're comfortable side by side then you'll be smoother in the field.

Getting closer fore-aft is harder. That's a combination of experience and, if possible, wheel touching drills. However wheel touching drills are much harder to set up and guarantees you a few falls (therefore you want to do it on grass at 8-10 mph max). I'll describe more if you like.

With drafting you'll find that initially you make too big of an input into the bike to adjust speed. You accelerate to close a gap, you close it too quickly, and then you brake. But you brake a bit too hard so you accelerate. But that's a bit much so you brake. Etc. Not very efficient.

I'm assuming that you play some kind of video games where you control movement of your character/vehicle? In any of those games it helps to be smooth, to ease off the forward instead of just slamming on the stop. It's like that with bikes. When you close a gap you should do it with just enough to bring you up to the wheel, don't launch yourself like it's the finish line to close 4 feet to the next rider. Likewise if you are inching up on the rider in front try to avoid using the brakes. Coast, ease to the side (and into the wind), just 6 or 10 inches, just enough to not lose the wheel. The sideways thing is best done either in group rides or near the back of the field because I found out the hard way that it's an invitation to take my spot (and I've lost spots because I did that and another rider took advantage of it).

As you do more races and group rides you'll find yourself able to better judge how much of a surge to make or how much brake you need (or don't need) to keep from running into the riders in front.

A huge factor in all of this is where you are looking while you're in a group. If you're focusing mainly on the rider in front then you lose the overall picture and you will be surprised when someone slows. That surprise means you're much more likely to overreact, open a gap, and then have to close it.

Instead of focusing on the rider in front of you try to focus a bit further up. I know it's very, very, very hard to do. Initially look up every 15 seconds or so, like a swimmer taking a breath, and look up and around and see where everyone is, sort of what they're doing (setting up for a right turn vs dead straight for the next 500m, etc). As you get more experienced in the field you should be able to keep your eyes a bit higher than staring at the cassette in front of you. If you're shorter than look through the rider's legs, perhaps looking sort of in line with their rear brake. If taller then look over the rider's shoulder. If about the same height then you may need to move to the side and look past their arms.

To answer your questions:
1. If you're fighting for position every corner then you're probably working too hard. If you're near the back, especially in a smaller Junior field, you should be okay for a bit. I find fighting for position to be very hard and I have to avoid it to avoid getting shelled.

2. Light braking is normal but unless the riders up front are slowing an abnormal amount you shouldn't need to brake for every turn. The further back you are the more likely it is that you need to brake.

3. In/out of saddle depends on the rider, the rider's energy/fatigue level, and the importance of the corner. If you're a bigger rider then standing takes a lot of energy. If you're a smaller one then it's not as demanding to stand, and in fact it can increase your leverage significantly. For Juniors I figure a bigger rider is 140-150 lbs or more. I was under 100 lbs and I was out of the saddle seemingly all the time.

Energy/fatigue. Is it the beginning of the race and everyone is going absolutely bananas out of each turn? Then you need to get out of the saddle to maximize your power and stay on wheels. You'll be reasonably fresh so you should be able to do that. In the middle, when things calm down a bit, it may not be as critical, plus you may be getting tired. Towards the last part of the race it's imperative that you stay with everyone so you should do whatever it takes, regardless of your fatigue level. Later you can worry about saving something for the sprint, but until you're finishing regularly you should focus on finishing. I seem to find hidden reserves in the last part of a race and I will use that energy like there was no tomorrow. It doesn't help to be fresh but off the back. It's better to be absolutely cooked and unable to contest the sprint so you finish at the back of the field.

Importance of corner. In some races there's a pivotal corner (or hill or whatever). In crits it's usually the sharpest or narrowest corner. The corner really stretches out the field so it's critical to stay on wheels after such a corner. If you're dealing with a pivotal corner like that then you use everything you need to use to stay on the wheels. I've made the mistake of "saving for the finish" and then leaving just enough of a gap that I end up off the back. Again, it's better to be in the field than off the back, even if you're in the field just one more lap. When you get shelled you should be so blown that time trialing around the course shouldn't even be a thought, at least not faster than 12 or 13 mph. If it is then you weren't trying hard enough.

Hope this helps, good luck with your next races, and post questions as you have them.

cdr

ovoleg

fwiw, I listened to CDR's advice last year and started working on the whole sphere thing and it's improved my results dramatically. When I see people with huge spheres, for me thats an invitation and I take it! It's as important as improving your w/kg!

petereps

Thanks for such a thorough response! It helped a lot in seeing my problem. I think the large comfort zone is definately my issue. Side to side I am totally comfortable bumping elbows and everything but having wheels close to my front wheels always freaks me out. I always feel like theyre gonna swerve and im gonna be the start of a 50 man pile up. Guess i have to start thinking less haha. Thanks again!

carpediemracing 

Try what I call "offset" drafting, which is sitting maybe 6-12" to one side. You're not too far over that you're giving the spot away, not unless it's really, really, really tight, but at the same time you can see so much more that you should be able to move up a bit.

Other things you can do - ride off road if you can, cyclocross or mtb or similar, even your road bike if you feel like getting it a bit dirty (and you know there are no big rocks or ditches or humps in the grass). You want to have opportunities to really push the front tire's traction limits safely and doing so on dirt/grass/etc is not bad. Better than pavement at any rate.

Touching wheel drills (where you touch your front wheel to another rider's rear wheel) work wonders too - it's what really firmed up my confidence in a pack - but it requires at least one other like-minded rider, some grass/dirt (100-300' of grass/dirt works, it needs to be smooth enough for your road bike). I can go more into it, I have a post somewhere around here that describes it. If you can do this then it would be the best thing. It will reduce your sphere to something ridiculous, maybe 3 inches in front.

To put things in perspective I only get the sort of fight-or-flight reaction when I have 2 or 3 sides very close in, so front is a few inches, side is 1-2 inches, and maybe the other side is 1-2 inches. If I'm in that kind of a position then it's probably inside the last 500 meters so I'm not backing down, I'm hyperaware of what's going on around me, and I'm definitely in an adrenaline rush mode. It's usually when someone is trying to get me off a wheel. A good example is in the last two laps of this race. One guy tries to take me off of Shovel's wheel (he's a BF member) from the left, before the bell. Then when I get back on Shovel's wheel a rider to my right gives it a shot. Remember that the wide angle lens makes everything look far away.

In this still from the same cam (but earlier this year) I'm actually looking past my teammate's armpit at a car that is about 100 yards away to the front left. If you use my teammate's jersey as reference the car is under the "O" in Expo, below my teammate's ear. I was struggling on this ride and the wind was from the front-left so I was drafting my teammate as best as I could draft him.


In most situations I'll approach 3-6" to the back tire but there's usually a foot or more to the sides due to other riders' Sphere limitations. I feel sort of exposed like that. 6 inches to a ride on one side, now I feel more sheltered, more comfortable. Riders to both sides, 6 inches away, while following someone at 6 inches, now I feel nice and cocooned in a drafting box.