flik9999

Hey so firstly im a woman so assume I would be racing against other women. I plan to start training for it soon and joining a club. How fast would I have to be to standa chance in the lower leagues (think its cat 3 and 4?). I currently average about 17/18 mph on the flat with little traffic to stop and start.

johnny99

If you can ride 18mph in 1 hour, then you are certainly fast enough to "think about racing". Certainly join a club. That will immediately show you how fast you are as well as teach you about group riding.

on the path

I'm not going to give you numbers. I will suggest that you get with a group of strong riders who race and see how you do.

I race very occasionally, ride respectably well for my age (62). While getting ready for yesterday's race, a stranger came up to me and proceeded to introduce himself, says he does hill-climb events, rides a lot, wanted to try racing. He'd never done a group ride. He wanted to know what to expect, was asking for advice. I gave him suggestions.. watch what the other riders do, protect your front wheel, etc.

After the race, which was over a brutally hard course, I cruised back to the start area and on to my parked car. He was there and I asked him how he made out. He was visibly upset. I'd say disappointed, dejected. He didn't finish. He had made it to the start of the 2nd lap (of 2) and gave up. Apparently he then drank many bottles of water, but was still unable to ride. He ended up walking from the finish area to the parking lot, 3 miles.

The point of my story is that this guy thought that he would try racing, though never had been in a position to compare himself to others. He was woefully unprepared, and seemed to be oblivious as to how difficult such a race can be, and even for very strong riders half his age.

Again, get with some strong riders. Learn how to ride with a group. In short, expose yourself to the real world. If you show some ability, willingness to learn and have a good attitude, you will find some riders that will be very willing to accept you and give you a chance to learn.

rubiksoval

If you've done some group rides before, just go race. There's no explanation that will do it justice. Doing it yourself will let you know exactly where you stand and what you need to work on.

Besides that:

Do the group rides. Learn how to draft, take turns in a group, ride in close proximity. All of that is more important than your average speed, which pretty much doesn't matter a bit in regards to road racing.

What matters most is pack skills and being able to go really, really, really hard. And then recovering. And then going hard again. And recovering, etc. Very stochastic efforts.

Besides the group rides, I'd work on getting in some short, intense effort workouts. Maybe doing a ride with lots of hills and hitting the hills hard, or doing something more structured like 3 mins hard, 3 mins easy, etc.

And i'd work on sprints. Always. Every ride I'd do some sprints. Takes some practice in learning how to maneuver the bike and your body to get maximum power to the pedals, and how to time your jumps/how long you can go for, etc.

TimothyH

Realizing that this is a road forum, one option might be gravel.

Races are typically mass starts. Someone yells go and everyone starts pedaling. The first one to reach the finish line is the winner. There are no categories like road racing although there are age groups like running races. Many of the same tactics apply - drafting, attacks, etc.

You are in a race with everyone, or no one if you prefer, or with yourself, or against nature. Those in a group cooperating with each other at the beginning will be racing each other at the end.


-Tim-

berner

You might try spending some time on the racing forums of this website and asking questions there. Also there are many you tube videos of racing with commentary by the cyclist. On some of the videos, the cyclist will link the output of a power meter to the video showing speeds, cadence along the bottom of the screen.

chicagogal

Most crit racing and short road races that I have done at the womens cat3 level ended with average speeds around 20-21mph. However, these are not steady efforts, as another post mentioned. Slow parts of a race may be 16-17mph and fast parts may be 25-26mph (with sprints much faster). If you can do those kinds of repeated efforts in a group ride context, and have good group riding skills, then, sure, try a race or two and see if you like it.

caloso

MyTi

Would I presume that for amateurs they are usually able to push around 200-250 watts constant? Seems like a power meter is more telling of if you can keep up in a race than average speed.

rubiksoval

Again, what you can do on average doesn't matter. It's how hard you can go and recover. I've done races where I averaged 250 watts but went over 700 watts 100+ times.

It's surviving the accelerations and surges that separate a bike racer from your weekend warrior.

cthenn

Speed is practically irrelevant. It's all about power, and your strengths within power zones. You can have a good FTP and still never sniff the podium. Or, you can be a great sprinter and get dropped halfway through the race. If you don't have a power meter, get one, and go from there.

Or, you can just start racing and learn by doing... That might be easier

cthenn

Yep. I dabbled in racing a long time ago, and I'm way too much of a diesel to stick with the snappy accelerations and 1 minute zone 6/7 efforts. If it was just a test of FTP I might do ok, but dealing with breakaways and rotating pulls is very hard for me.

cthenn

For the men, 4 W/kg is good enough for top 5-10 in Cat 4 at my local races.

caloso

You don't need a power meter to race. I have one and it's been a tremendously useful training tool, but it's not necessary in the least.

What Rubiksoval said: the physical part is about digging deep and recovering but the more important thing is learning how to ride your bike. I know, you're probably thinking "I already know how to ride my bike." I used to think that too until I started racing and then I learned there is a whole new level (several levels actually): how to hold a wheel, how to sniff the wind, how to spin up to match a surge, how to rotate, how to move up through the group with the minimum of watts, how to recognize a good wheel, how to recognize a squirrel, etc.

A lot of these skills you'll learn by going on group rides, especially the "race rides." So that's why it's suggested that prospective racers try those out first. If don't know which rides those are in your area, go to the LBS that caters mostly to roadies (even better if it sponsors a team), and ask the person at the counter. They'll know.

Also, when you go, make sure you're totally self-sufficient, just like you were going on a solo ride: tube, pump, minitool, bottles, food if necessary. Know the way home. If you get dropped or have a flat, no one is going to wait for you. It's okay though. Recover, get a drink, and ride tempo home to get in a decent workout. And then come back next week with the goal to hang on just a little bit longer.

firebird854

The biggest mistake people make about racing is assuming an entry level citizen cat 5 race is like your local friendly 5k run. Seeing a race that is 30 miles and thinking, gee, I can ride without stopping for 30 miles, I've never done a group ride, but I'll show these guys how fast I am! This was my thinking when I did my first race last year, I had an ftp of 180, was on $700 bike with reflectors, I got destroyed on a whole different level.

Best advice I can offer is, find your fastest local group rides, something around 40 miles, with plenty of climbing, and average speed (depending on how much ascending there is) between 23-25mph. Make sure to take pulls, work on drafting, and go for sprints (if there are sprint points in the ride). This, however, is still not the intensity of a race, a race (in my experience) is around 10-20% harder (power wise) because people won't let you in, because you'll try to bridge, and there's no stopping at lights, flat tires, etc.

I just started racing this year, category 5 (now 4), and have had a pretty even split between Criteriums and Road Races. I raised my FTP w/kg of 4.2 with Trainerroad/Today's plan over the winter, I'm 138lbs so my FTP power is mid 260s. I've both gotten podiums and gotten completely dropped, so numbers, especially speed, are quite useless.

I recommend trying a race, just make sure you don't have reflectors, a plastic chain guard, flappy clothing. Come in there with a great attitude, nothing to prove, don't get in other people's way, and if you get lapped a few times drop out and laugh it off.

ksryder

27 MPH, what's this all about?

Dan333SP

@Heathpack

rosefarts

I found that no matter how fast I was, I was slower than the people racing. The only way to get myself up to their speed was to continue to race. Learning to ride fast is not simply a function of fitness. It comes together from racing. Some communities have super fast group rides and informal crits at office parks etc, most people aren't that lucky and have to pin on a number to get this effect.

Dan333SP

One point worth making is that, depending on your location, women's cat 3/4 fields can be pretty small which can dramatically alter the dynamic and intensity of the race. We've had declining numbers of racers overall around here in the last couple years and women's fields in particular are being hit hard, we staged a road race last summer where the entire women's field (1/2/3/4) was combined and there were 7 ladies racing, so it effectively turned into an hour long rotating paceline with attacks during the last couple of laps.

Heathpack 

Ditto for the advice of "just going out and doing race rides". Not really sure most women are going to get much out of that. Young, good peak power, good bike handling/ability to integrate into the pack to recover- maybe. But your typical newby woman is just gonna get dropped so hard and so fast that she won't be on a fast group ride, she'll be solo off the back and learn zippedty squat. Coming back next week and the week after and the week after may not change very much- the physiologic gap is very large and its not just a matter of diligence for women. The 1%ers, or maybe 10%ers, can do it. The remaining 90ish % of women can't. Hence the disparate ratios of men to women in bike racing.

What's good advice for racing men is not always good advice for racing women. I can ride 22-23 mph solo for an hour, but I still get dropped from fast men's rides to the extent that there's really no point in me doing them.

The best thing for a newby woman is to join a woman's race team, but they are few and far between. The second best thing is to join a men's race team that includes some men who care whether women race and are willing/able to create a scenario such that at least sometimes the group ride is something that works for a woman- however these are also few and far between. The third best (and often most practical) thing is to hire a good coach who works with women and can help you find your way into racing.

Good luck. There's a reason not many women race bikes, it takes a lot of determination, independence, flexibility, etc to figure out how to do it successfully. This is true for men too of course, but women have some unique challenges in the sport and not many peers to help them navigate it, in an overall organization to the sport that sees no problem with it being mostly a male thing.

Maelochs

You already thought about racing. How fast were you when you did? There's your answer.

Dan333SP

+1. We have sporadic upswings in interest among local women for racing/race rides and for a while there was a Saturday group ride focused on helping new women learn to race, they had a pretty good turnout each week. Sadly, most of the core members of that group have moved or no longer ride so it's kinda fallen apart. Hopefully OP lives in an area with a strong community of female racers, which these days seems limited to parts of California or other high density markets.

goenrdoug

Once thing that a number of the local fast rides do end up with is a number of tiers.

For instance, the Montrose Saturday ride out in Pasadena traditionally leaves at 8am, but a sizable "B" group leaves at 7:45. It typically gets caught about 3/4ths of the way into the route.

The same thing has evolved on the Rockstore Tuesday ride out in Westlake. 5:30 is the "Fast" ride with the 5:15 group being the "B" group who, depending on regroups (or not) sometimes don't get caught on the ~28 mile loop.

At various times of year, both of the above-mentioned rides even develop a C group that leaves an additional 15 minutes earlier at a more social pace. I haven't personally ridden the Simi ride or any of the other standing 'fast' rides in the region, but I would imagine a similar thing exists... I'm a regular/instigator for the Rockstore B-ride and I can attest to people showing up to test themselves and learn from the ride's dynamic. We've had kids be thrown into it by their over-eager dads (who then proceeded to follow the ride in their car, yelling at the kid to dig deeper, etc.) and men and women of all skill levels. Some quickly return to ride the A ride the next week, some get dropped and return multiple weeks in a row until they too become regulars.. It's a thing and it's golden.

Speaking of which, it's Tuesday, I gotta get my stuff together and start going through my 100-point checklist of getting ready...

caloso

Similar in Sacramento. Saturday the B's leave at 9:45 and take a slightly different route than the A's who leave at 10. It's possible to do a "B+" ride where you go out with the B's to warm up and then catch the A ride at the the turnaround. On Monday night the A's leave first and if you get dropped you can just sit up and let yourself get caught by the B group. It works.

But I've never seen a dad follow the ride to yell at his kid. That would be .... special.

goenrdoug

Yeah.. It's definitely special... The kid is awesome. He's strong (for an 11 yr old.. he's probably about 13 by now..) and he doggedly keeps trying. The Dad.. meh, not so much. We have tried to work with the kid, get him into the middle of the line a bit, let him get in there and get the work in, rotate, etc. But, once the Dad gets too annoying (following behind us with his hazards on, half in the bike lane/shoulder, occasionally pulling alongside to tell the kid to bend his arms or something) a contingent of the ride tends to ramp up the pace a bit to where the kid can't hang and the Dad pulls him over and puts him in the car. Once, the Dad actually drove ahead and dropped the kid at the top of the climb to re-join us... Sigh.. He was summarily dropped again almost immediately. I shudder to thing of the tongue lashing the kid got at the point, but, unfortunately, that's not something we have much control over...