Cat4 - Race day, any tips?

[anonymous-user]

[redacted]

[Castrol for a knave]

Be up at the front at least in the first few corners - you'll be blowing for a short while but find yourself doing less chasing to get back on.

Pick a couple of riders who look decent and try to sit close to them.

The first 15 minutes will usually be a bit of a thrash, then settle down. Once it settles, just try and sit in the group. As a newbie, try to hide in the bunch and don't feel you have to upfront.

Racing is as much positioning and reading the ride as it is fitness - that said, I am perfectly capable of being spat out the back while chewing my stem

Good luck.

[okgo]

Being able to ride in the bunch away from any wind is crucial if you don't have the fitness yet. The tips in the post above mine are broadly right, though obviously there can come a point where you just need to get a bit fitter if you are just going straight out the back. The general standard of entry level racing in cycling is quite high, and at the one end you'll have people who win their first ever races and are more like cat 2 standard from the get go, and at the other you'll have those that are miles away and get dropped every week straight away.

You also have to bear in mind that different circuits suit different people, Hillingdon is non technical and flat, it doesn't really lend itself to small riders with no grunt. You have to figure out what you're good at and pick circuits that suit. For me, I am not a great cornerer so Hillingdon I always found easy as I'm a bigger bloke and there's no braking. Crystal Palace was always a much harder circuit as if you cannot corner you're working far harder than those who can. Hog Hill another option, not too technical but the hill takes its toll on the bigger riders.

[calvinhobbes]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

160 psi for crits?! No wonder you're not confident in the corners!

You /might/ get away with 160psi for pursuiting on an indoor velodrome, but I find 140 too skittish for indoor bunch racing. 160psi for circuit racing is insane!

Being able to corner is a massive part of crit/circuit racing and most riders will actually lower their pressures from normal road pressures to improve cornering ability. For Hillingdon, I'd say 100psi max and, given that you're only 67kg, I'd go significantly lower than that. As a guide, I think I ran about 85psi last time I raced there and I'm a few kg heavier than you.

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Yes, this is how racing works

anonymous said:

[redacted]

It's not about left or right, it's about not impeding the line of faster riders. Basically, if there are riders behind you, just stay as far away from the racing line as you can. This may mean braking or pretty much coming to a stop to let people past. And just finally, stay predictable! Far better that you find yourself on the wrong line and slow someone down than realise that you're in the wrong position and start swinging across the track.

I mean this in all sincerity: it genuinely doesn't sound like you're of a high enough standard to race, either from a fitness or a riding standards perspective. I would strongly advise you spend more time group riding with your club and invest in some race training days.

[anonymous-user]

If you’ve been dropped to the point of being lapped, you should really pull out and DNF. It’s not pleasant but it’s courteous. If you think you’ll be dropped, I’d just go hard at the start and have fun.

[lufbramatt]

Does your local track do training sessions? I know at the local league at cyclopark you have to attend a couple of sessions before they let you race. I expect they will explain the track etiquette etc...

From chatting to guys that race, it's all about maintaining momentum around the corners. Then you don't have to burn as many matches trying to sprint back onto a wheel. Practice practive practice.

On our little chain gang ride last sunday I missed the last guy's wheel after taking my turn on the front due to a pothole and ended up having to do about 600w trying to get back on the group. Don't want to be doing that too often.

[outnumbered]

I've never raced at Hillingdon, but used to go to weekly training sessions there back in the '90s soon after it opened. Like okgo says, you don't need to brake, and you can pedal round all the corners (maybe bar one ?). Riding those sessions taught me a lot, much more than I'd picked up from doing less structured club rides previously.

A race environment will teach the same lessons, if you watch the right people, so you should find that it'll get a bit easier with experience, if you can avoid crashing in the meantime...

[Centurion07]

I've done a whopping 4 races now and have yet to finish with the group.

Since buying a Wahoo with heart rate monitor I can now see why (could only feel it before!); I simply can't do enough work within my heart's range.

I am maybe 4 or 5bpm over the rate I could comfortably maintain for a good couple of hours when racing in the group. After a few laps this takes it's toll, I start dropping back, I get spat, I have one last push to stay on a wheel but it's already too late; I've spiked my HR and have to back right off.

I am not looking forward to the interval training required to remedy this.

[Centurion07]

Copied from my own thread on the subject:

Centurion07 said:

SpartacusF said:

The least hard way to ride a crit is mid-pack, but that requires confidence in those all around you and confidence in your own bike handling. Handling skills you need to work on include protect your front wheel (avoiding an overlap) and not being spooked by touching shoulders. To keep mid-pack, beware of unwittingly drifting backwards so far that you are dangling at the back and sprinting harder than you need to. (It's the concertina effect you see on the motorway, everyone in front of you is braking 1% more than the one in front of them, so if you are 50 back, that's a big difference). Staying front 'cone' requires horsepower, or keeping aero, or both, but is the smoothest and feels great. Some TTers and triathletes have been able to solo off the front of their first 4th cat crit.

EXACTLY that^.

My first race was learning that and my second was putting it into practice. Made a huge difference.

[calvinhobbes]

Centurion07 said:

I've done a whopping 4 races now and have yet to finish with the group.

Since buying a Wahoo with heart rate monitor I can now see why (could only feel it before!); I simply can't do enough work within my heart's range.

Heart rate is just a (lagging) proxy for effort. It doesn't determine whether you can or can't do a certain amount of effort, it's just a reflection of how hard your body's working to achieve that effort. Your sky-high heart rate during the race is merely confirming what you already knew through perceived exertion.

Arguably, analysing HR for short bunch races is pretty much pointless. These races are dynamic and you just have to race with whatever you've got in the tank. There's nothing you can do about your HR in these scenarios. It just is what it is.

[Centurion07]

calvinhobbes said:

Centurion07 said:

I've done a whopping 4 races now and have yet to finish with the group.

Since buying a Wahoo with heart rate monitor I can now see why (could only feel it before!); I simply can't do enough work within my heart's range.

Heart rate is just a (lagging) proxy for effort. It doesn't determine whether you can or can't do a certain amount of effort, it's just a reflection of how hard your body's working to achieve that effort. Your sky-high heart rate during the race is merely confirming what you already knew through perceived exertion.

Arguably, analysing HR for short bunch races is pretty much pointless. These races are dynamic and you just have to race with whatever you've got in the tank. There's nothing you can do about your HR in these scenarios. It just is what it is.

Isn't that what I said?

[outnumbered]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

It’s odd how a lot of your stories seem scarcely believable.

[MrBarry123]

Do you live inside a pin factory?

[JEA1K]

160psi I imagine your neighbours assumed it was gunshot and took cover?

I run my 25mm tubs @ 85 - 95 depending on the conditions.

I would advise you give up racing until you can safely and confidently ride in a group. I don't think I have every heard of anyone getting dropped in a 4th cat race which leads me to think you need to seriously up the combination of fitness and riding experience to get the most from racing.

[Castrol for a knave]

JEA1K said:

160psi I imagine your neighbours assumed it was gunshot and took cover?

I run my 25mm tubs @ 85 - 95 depending on the conditions.

I would advise you give up racing until you can safely and confidently ride in a group. I don't think I have every heard of anyone getting dropped in a 4th cat race which leads me to think you need to seriously up the combination of fitness and riding experience to get the most from racing.

160 psi is scary - I wouldn't like to think I was following those wheels in the bunch.

4th cat races - depends where you are. 4th cat where I live would probably be 3rd elsewhere, although we rely less on circuits and more on lumpy, open road which are brutal.

[anonymous-user]

JEA1K said:

160psi I imagine your neighbours assumed it was gunshot and took cover?

I run my 25mm tubs @ 85 - 95 depending on the conditions.

I would advise you give up racing until you can safely and confidently ride in a group. I don't think I have every heard of anyone getting dropped in a 4th cat race which leads me to think you need to seriously up the combination of fitness and riding experience to get the most from racing.

Never heard a tub go bang (not to say they can’t). When mine have punctured catastrophically there’s a very loud Tszzzz-tsz-tsz-tsz and the feeling in your arse of an expensive carbon rim being ground into the road.

Coming down the back side of the Galibier the first year I did the Marmotte a load of riders were blowing their clinchers off the rim through pressures too high + over braking into the hairpins + overheating. Those were proper gunshots. Made me pull over and let some air out, to be on the safe side.

[okgo]

Given you're riding in Regents Park at the crack of dawn anyway, why not consider joining one of the clubs that train in there? It will give you good exp of bunch riding and if you're going to get fitter, you'll certainly do it by riding with that sort of club.

[JEA1K]

Castrol for a knave said:

4th cat races - depends where you are. 4th cat where I live would probably be 3rd elsewhere, although we rely less on circuits and more on lumpy, open road which are brutal.

4th Cat only road races don't exist only 3/4 which has a huge variability in talent and experience. I'm in Yorks, we have plenty of lumpy road races, this lad is getting dropped on a pan flat circuit.

BlackWidow13 said:

Never heard a tub go bang (not to say they can’t).

I've heard plenty in crashes, sound of grown men shouting, carbon rims and brakes snapping .... and bones. Horrible!

[okgo]

I'll buck the trend and say that it isn't that uncommon for people to get dropped at their first few races. While Hillingdon is pan flat, it is very quick, the E12 is regularly 29-30mph avg, if you're not confident then you get found out quite quickly there, even in the lower cat races. I'd have to go back a long way on my strava to see how quick 4th cat was a decade ago, but I don't think it was as quick as 27mph, so the standard may be higher these days.

That all said, I do think the OP probably needs a few more watts.

[Centurion07]

JEA1K said:

160psi...I don't think I have every heard of anyone getting dropped in a 4th cat race which leads me to think you need to seriously up the combination of fitness and riding experience to get the most from racing.

Then you must not get out much.

I've been dropped in all 4 of my races so far, at varying points, and not once was I the first to get spat and I'm in my late forties!

I spent a lot of time on YouTube before taking the plunge to try and pick up as much knowledge as I could and it certainly appears the vast majority of new racers get dropped in at least their first race if not several.