You know how in a running race the real serious people, the ones who will be contesting for the win, line up in the first and second rows?

Bike races only have those people.

True indeed!

That is a very good way of putting it. I usually don't care where I start in a 5K.

To be honest I prefer to start at the back. Because you can have a much more significant speed differential on a bike (vs running) start position is much less critical.

Def not true.

Bike races only have people who THINK they deserve to be in the front.

In reality, only a handful of them in the Cat5 division deserve to be there. A typical newish Cat5 rider isn't fast at all - a typical runner contesting for the local overall win (18:xx 5ks) would easily cruise to the front in a Cat5 race after getting a little bit of experience on the bike.

But it's true that you pretty much don't have any "I'm here just to finish" folks in bike racing, which make up 95% of the participants in running races.

From my limited cat 5 experience in 2010, I'd second this. My first proper Cat 5 event was a hill climb, and the winning 5 time was good enough for 3rd in the 3's and mid pack in the Pro/1/2 field. I then tried a handful of crits - no idea why I ended up doing that, and it was a blast. Definitely get some pack riding experience or do a mentored event first though - it'll build your confidence and really improve your riding. Managing the surges seems key to me.

Is that really a winning 5k time where you are? Tell me there are some steep hills in these courses, because I ran a low 18 at my first high school XC meet... 182nd place.

At my age an 18 minute 5K would probably win the age bracket. The overall winner is normally in the 15-16 minute range. I'm running the 21 minute range, depending on how hard I want to run that day.

I guess what I'm learning here is that you just don't jump on your "10 speed" and sign up for a race like you would do for a 5K. I'm reading "The Roadie" right now. Although I have no desire to be a "roadie" I would like to get to the point where I could hang with the pack on a Cat IV/V crit or road race. Just like I have no desire to run a 15 minute 5K...but it's fun to finish in the top 25% of the age bracket. Sounds like staying with the pack takes a bit more training and race knowledge than simply running a 5K fun run.

close but wrong, thurlow is not a good sprinter and he rarely lets that happen because he's so strong in the other two

With bike racing, don't think in percentages. "Top half" etc. It's basically "in the money" or not. Top 3 (podium, even if it's just imaginary), top 6 or so (points for upgrades on your license, more places for certain qualifying race traits, less for others). Everyone else is The Pack, i.e. "I finished in the pack" or "I was off the back".

Some races won't score/publicize more than the places - 3 or 10 or whatever places. You got 11th? You may not get listed. It's actually unimportant in the scheme of race results other than showing you finished or not.

Bike racing is much less a measure of strength/fitness and much more a measure of tactical skill. This isn't true for time trials or climbing longish hills but, importantly, time trials don't count towards upgrades. Why? Because you can be brain dead and ride a really good time trial. You can be an absolute menace to the safety of others in a pack and still ride a time trial really, really fast. In fact I'm going to meet with someone who is petrified of riding in a group but does 27-28 mph time trials (and runs about a 5:30 minute pace for 5-10k races - she won the overall at a local-to-her race a few weeks ago). She's a friend of the family and is thinking about getting into bike racing.

For a long time road races counted for more points than crits. Road races require both tactical sense and fitness. Crits tend to measure tactical sense more than anything else.

Fitness-wise I'm probably a Cat 5 in a road race, Cat 4 or 5 in a time trial, but I'm a reasonable Cat 3 in a crit. Remember that in crits fitness is not the end all, it's tactics. One of my hardest races in 2010 was one where I averaged 179 watts for about 40 minutes. Kind of a joke right? But that was a Cat 3 race, a hotly contested one too, one of the big crits in the summer.

The reason bike racing is addictive to some (like me) and not to others is that tactically you can always improve. Although fitness gives you more tactical options, you can be unfit and do well. I raced against a guy whose belly literally hung on his top tube. It swayed back and forth when he was out of the saddle. I thought it was an absolute disgrace that this guy was in the same race as me, a Cat 3 or Cat 3-4 race.

But you know what? The short-ish quarter ton rider won the race. He demolished the field in the sprint. He rode a smart race and used his "former professional bronze medal in the Keirin" legs to propel all that extra fat and stuff across the line probably 50 feet in front of the next guy. He's an extremely astute tactician and used his brain to beat everyone else.

If he can do it, so can I. I won a field sprint at almost 200 lbs on an uphill finish in a Cat 3-4 race. My belly probably swayed too - I ride a size S Giant or a 52 Cannondale, and I'm 5'7". If I can do that, I can try to do as well at a lighter weight, with a much lighter bike, etc etc etc. So I come back and try to do better with whatever I have. It's frustratingly addictive.

cdr

Age bracket.

The Carlsbad 5000 goes a wee bit faster than that for the fast guys. ;-)

-Z

The analog to a 5k fun run is a half-century bike ride, not a cat 5 bike race.

+1 Look at the results for a stage of the Tour de France. Most of the people (the pack) have the same finishing time.


The one caveat being that there is still a base fitness required that is well above what the average recreational cyclist has.

I'm going to nominate this for "Understatement of the Year".

Isn't that one advertised as the "World's Fastest 5K"? I think my wife ran that one. It's pretty much all downhill, right?