Its good to have choices:
Scope out the field pre-race and during, stay with the more experienced ( looking ) riders ..... keep away from the " squirrels " Feeling tired? Hang on...... Feeling scared? bail out...Feeling good? watch for breakaway's / form your own brakeaway with the strongest rider, feeing tremendous? Lap the entire field.

My advice, from experience, Stay in the top 10 and be prepared to sprint after each turn. You will get leaned on by other riders. Be ready for it and lean back. Good Luck!

Can you get some of those Ben-Hur hubs for her?

With three right hand turns each lap there is going to be a lot of accodioning if she is at the back. That will make her work harder playing catch up three times a lap. I would think that being in the front 25-30% of the group would be better for her.


Good luck also to her and for you relax and enjoy watching her.

Remind her that she'll never get a second chance to win her first race.

I did tell her that :), and guess what, she WON!

It was a mixed boys and girls junior race with about 75 kids total between the age of 11-14. She stayed with the front pack for the most of the race and was in top 10 into the last corner, and was out-sprinted by several of the boys, but she came in first for the girls. The race was a lot faster than I expected with average speed over 24 mph. Perhaps because these are kids so it doesn't appear to be very tactical, all the kids were just riding all out pretty much the whole time for the entire 16 loops (10 miles total). She took the corners wide because this is her first race, but she definitely learned a lot in terms of her positioning and how to communicate with fellow racers.

She appears to be really enjoyed the race and wants to do the next one in July. I couldn't ask for more for her first race.

Stories like this aren't supposed to have such perfect endings.

But I guess we can tolerate just this one .....

I know, and it was a surprise to me, but I am very happy it turned out that way.