I raced Really Rad this weekend and it was a blast. The course was awesome and fast with nice little technical bits that didn’t make me feel like a fish out of water like other races have this year. How do you handle pacing throughout the race? I am getting passed in the final 2 laps of the race by people who I dropped earlier. I am trying to go hard out of the corners to bring me back up to speed, but I don’t want to blow myself up. I also get passed while running through the deep, long sand sections, but I think I just need to go harder through the sand.
I think you have to ride to your strengths. Personally, if I attack out of the corners I’ll get gassed on blow up before the end of the race. So for me, I just try to be as smooth as possible. I don’t accelerate too hard out of corners but I also try to not to slow down to much into corners. Really the only time I get hard on the pedals is up and over climbs to keep the momentum up. Usually this means that my fastest lap ends up being my last lap as it’s really the only lap where I just go full gas. I’d say over the course of the race I typically let guys just ride away if I feel they’re surging too hard out of the corners for me. Typically, it’s probably 50/50 if I catch them back by the end of the race.
Regardless of my results, I’m always really happy when I can hit my laps like this.
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Did a race this weekend in Georgia it was really fun with a very technical off camber part, Belgian style stairs and punchy climbs; oh and a giant sand pit. Felt kind of sluggish before the race since I drove about 4 hours to attend the event. Came in 7th out of 18 in cat 4, come to find out a few of the people in the top 5 also raced in the cat 1/2/3 field, sandbaggers! Maybe I’m wrong but why do they let people do that?
If you’re racing and getting podium in a cat 1/2/3 race why let them race with the cat 4 chumps?
Whatever I had fun and that’s all that matters!
Here’s my power profile and a couple pics of the course!
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using this as an excuse as to why my results this year are so bad
That’s very good advice and its just so tempting to try and stay on the wheel when they are surging out of corners. Sometimes I feel like if I only stayed on that wheel then I’d do better. My lap times from the weekend were first lap was the slowest, second lap was the fastest, then it gets slower from there by 5-10 seconds per lap.
Those are great lap times.
I do use HR and my HR stays slightly below LTHR for the entire race and stays constant throughout the entire race. The max that I’ve seen in a race was 195 and my average for both races was 186. I definitely scrub too much speed going into corners, but I feel like it’s getting better with every race. I keep reminding myself that smooth is fast and fast is smooth.
I think staying on a wheel does help, but only to a certain degree. If you know who you’re racing and they about the same strength as you and they’re riding smooth then it makes a lot of since. However, I feel like there’s such a big mix of fitness and skill levels in amateur cyclocross that it can’t be really hard to find someone to ride with. I guess that’s the nice thing about doing a ten race series in that you kind of get to know who you’re racing with.
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That’s definitely true! It’s also why a lot of times I find staying on a wheel just isn’t worth it. I don’t feel like it ever really helps that much, so if it’s an easy wheel to follow I’ll do it. Otherwise I’ll just let them go knowing I’m better off trying to just pace myself. I’d say this is also somewhat course dependent. Most of the courses in my area really only have one short straight where holding a wheel is helpful, so depending on the wind it’s more or less helpful.
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Spesh Terra are 32.5 for me, on a 25mm hookless
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My revelation this year was that to leverage my fitness, I just need to go hard from the gun and continue to go as hard as possible the whole race. That means blasting out of corners, on climbs, and any flat power section. I generally lose some ground in technical sections, but maximizing my fitness advantage (thanks TrainerRoad!) got me 2nd and 1st in the last two races.
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Yeah I’m not sure about “pacing” a cross race. Just go hard anywhere you can.
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My pacing strategy is “don’t puke” and “try not to be last”.
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Had my “A” race today and it went really well apart from the odd front derailleur mechanicals that I had. It had a lot of climbing and off camber sections with a fun technical wooded section. I didn’t kill myself on the climbs, but kept it steady and then accelerated out of the corners. I tried my best to stay on wheels as they came. I lost the function of my front derailleur during the last lap, so I finished the race in the small ring sprinting with another racer for 35th place. It was an awesome competitive finish to the season. There is one last race, but it’s more of a fun race in my region called Ice Weasels in December to round out the year. Thank you all for the helpful advice over these past few months.
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Nice! We have a pair of CX races after Thanksgiving here in the Buffalo NY area. With several feet of snow on the ground, they will be… “interesting”.
If you wanted to extend your season a little more, there a couple of races down here in CT you could do: Governor’s Guard (day after ice weasels) and then cx nats (a non championship race if nothing else). Just sayin’ 
CX is being resurrected here in Louisville after some time without a race; Saturday and Sunday races December 3 and 4.
I’m signed up for masters and single speed, both days. Happy to get some races in this year, albeit last-minute.
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Thanks! I haven’t been committed enough to travel to CT for a race yet. A 2 hour drive is about the limit I was willing to drive this year, because of the early start times for the 4/5 fields. The cyclocross reddit page opened my eyes to the amount of travel racers are willing to drive for a race, so maybe I’ll venture down to CT next year.
I’ll be at nationals spectating though!
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