What constitutes a good crit course??
 

What do you crit riders/racers prefer?
A basic, flat oval shaped course with sweeping turns, or a slightly more challenging course with a couple of tight 90 degree turns and a small climb?

I hate 180 turns. Although I also don't like frequent 90 degree corners, I feel they encourage riders to be up front. Long runs to the finish make leadout trains easier and more likely to be seen, but short runs make for some interesting maneuvers during the final lap.

I love flat, but extremely technical courses. I do best when there are lots of >90 degree turns and chicanes.

Cover, so breaks stick.

Hilly, short, technical courses with lots of turns. On those courses its easy for one guy to get away and lap the field because drafting doesn't help that much, its bike handling in the corners and short uphill sprints that let you get away. Flat, long square courses are the worst.

6-10 corners, ~1.5 mile loop. Mix of 90 degree corners with sweepers. Flat or small climb on one side.

Me too.

+1, though some climbs in it are ok too

Just don't give me anything with sweeping turns, that's not a crit!! I wanna dive some corners..

I like uphill or flat finishes. I hate finishes where the preceding straight is a hill (i.e. up hill, turn, 300 meters to line).

I like 90 deg turns. Nothing like diving into a turn.

New London's crit had a 90 left, 90 right, 90 left, 180 left, 90 right, 45 left, downhill, 90 left, uphill to finish. All roads relatively narrow. Loved it. I think the loop was under a mile long.

I also like Bethel (0.8 mile, no real turns, uphill finish) simply because I seem to have the hang of that place. Also I promote the race, but I like the race because I can do well there.

New Britain I like too. Slight downhill to last turn, then flat finish. I've never won a summer race there but I place there consistently.

The most challenging course ever was the final race of the Tour of Michigan. 8 x 90 deg turns, 1/2 mile course, flat, 100? riders, in the rain. Dry would have been better, but it was a crazy awesome race. I think we did 50 laps since all the races in the TdM were 25 miles for us.

cdr

Isn't there a racing forum?

I hear Figure 8 courses are interesting, though I've never done one.

fig 8 courses are cool. i like some elevation change, stay in big ring, but need a 23 on the back. totally flat and technical i struggle with, for some reason, i corner way better when my speed is partly generated by gravity than when i have to pedal into the turn.

that being said, i have fun on stupid industrial park crits with sweeping turns too.

i'm not a fan of 180s or picking stuff that is what i would call "tricked" up, and i hate bad pavement. i'm small and get bounced around alot on it.

I like the really technical courses where the guys at the front can set a pace that shells people every lap.

Short courses are a plus too. Better for the fans, better for lapping attacks.

Downtown crits are awesome with the shadows of the tall buildings and the crowds that come out.

I also like racing weekly at our local auto track because the asphalt is a different mixture with more sand, so you have much more traction than out on roads, and the rain traction is 100x better than the roads.

downtown crits are the best. crits are a lot more fun with a crowd.

Yep. That's why I love the Davis 4th of July Crit.

They have a regular crit on my normal daily ride route. (Based on the criteria above, it'd fall into kind of a mid-range, I think). Anyway, it is on a subdivision loop where the streets have been built, but there aren't any houses. Zero. Which means, there really isn't any traffic to speak of. And the streets are new, as well. That kind of situation may be hard to find, though. (See the Texas forum for some photos and video from that course).

If you expect an audience, we don't like to stare into the sun to watch the race.

I love brutal crits where everything gets blown to pieces in the first 5 laps then you have 40 minutes to stare at your opponents in the final selection. A slight uphill sprint with a long finishing straight is nice for me too. And generally the tougher it is the more I enjoyed it.

You don't finish a good crit saying "That was fun-lets do it again!"
You finish a good crit gasping for air, dry retching, not knowing or caring where you came in the bunch sprint, simply glad that torture is over.

What about something like this?
http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/7157/bikecritmap.jpg

Finish might be a little close to turn 1 (high speed and tired plus corner equals crash)
The top five going into the last zigzag will contain the winner, everyone else is a pretty big crash risk in the lower cats.

All that said, looks fun though. My thought is that everyone races the same course, they can figure out how to deal with its unique attributes. I've got my own methods to stay safe and compete for the finish, and everyone else can find their own as well.

A lot of primes would keep the pace up and probably keep it a lot safer. Even stupid stuff like a Mr. Potatohead.

Yeah, can you put the finish somewhere else? Otherwise, it looks like a little something for everyone.

plenty of room in the turns, especially for those cat5s

We had a 5 race crit series on the local go- kart track, and it was awesome. I won my first crit there, and my roadracing background certainly helped. THe final three turns were a one line ( pretty technical ) which lead out on to a downhill sprint of about 75 yards to the finish line.

The other races I did were on a 1 mile course laid out in an industrial park. Basically a rectangle with the front and back straits about 1/3 mile. I had a harder time keeping with the lead group, but then again, they were my first races ever.

I also did one race in NY, and that was a TON of fun. ~1mile cours with a 180 hairpin and small climb before the ~1/4 straight to the finish made for some exciting racing.

The course is a minimum of two car lanes wide.
The area past the finish line contains plenty of room to go straight (roll out?)
I thought if the the 'zig zag' was at the end, there wouldn't be as large a group going through it.

I want challenging, but I don't want a splatterfest.

Well, people are going to freak out a bit with those turns close to the finish. Will it slow the speeds? Yes. The problem is how everyone in the 5s, 4s, and 3s thinks their Cavendish and deserve a good run at the sprint. You'll have people sneaking up on the inside where there isn't room, over-react to something, and they'll take some people out. The crash speeds will be slow though (<25mph).

Whenever we run the Driveway counterclockwise through the chicane, someone crashes in almost every race of the night.
(finish is on the bottom-left, the straightaway, about 3/4 of the way to the next turn)
http://drivewayseries.com/Course/Cou...4/Default.aspx

Still, if you have a non-technical course, then people will crash because the pace will slow, the pack will get wide, and things get dangerous. Not much you can do about it course-wise. Just keep hay bales up for the corners, posts, and hydrants.

I really do think primes will quell the crashing. If someone lights it up every two laps, nobody will be that fresh at the end. Maybe you can have a most aggressive award to encourage attacks (anyone in a break gets a point at the start/finish, and the guy with the most points wins, or best placing if it's a tie).

Whenever I have sprinters to protect, I just ride hard tempo up front any time the pace seems to be lagging. I'll attack mildly before the corners or right at the tops of hills to cause a massive accordion effect and keep people thinking about oxygen rather than stupid moves. Hard riding is so much safer.

Tour of Lawrence (Kansas) was a figure eight and fun.