DUDE. 21st in stage 1 to 3rd GC. Well DONE.
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That was a beast of a ride in the TT. Saw your story on IG. Nice work!
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Flying! Nice work
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@rmhoff yea i managed to save that one😅 thank you! @RJones07 that was my best TT yet, happier with the performance than the result on that one!
There is also a Alen as a DNF in the masters 35+ stage 3 group as well
Sorry for the delay but it’s been a busy weekend.
So the first stage, I decided to lign up in the back give it 1 lap to get acquainted with everything. I expected a fast start but the rubber banding was ridiculous in the back and I realized that being in the back was a mistake. Every time there was an uphill, I would fall behind a little and when they were coasting the downhills, I would catch up. This continued for 7-8 miles until there was a longer uphill. Then I let a gap develop and even 400+W for a few minutes, the peleton was moving away and I couldn’t latch back on. I was in pursuit and I saw couple minutes later 2 more people drop off the back so I caught up to them to see if we could work together. They were cooked and I was doing all the work but no matter. I didn’t care. We got to a point where there was an arrow pointing a turn to the right. We went for a while and the other 2 guys slowly dropped. I went for about 10 miles before I realized that the area doesn’t look familiar and there should have not been a right turn until going back to town from the lollipop loop. I kept riding to look for some directions since I didn’t have my phone until I remember that my computer has maps. I eventually found out I was about 30 miles north of the town. Found some roads to bike back. 50 miles in I was wobbly and lightheaded so I pulled to the side knowing I was dehydrated and low sugar. After a few minutes a minivan stopped gave me a bottle of water which I took with 2 GU’s and immediately felt better and biked back to town. I went to the registration and asked to be downgraded if possible. They did to masters 35+ cat 4/5.
Got myself rehydrated and salted up and ready for TT. Earlier in the week as I was getting my bikes ready, I noticed the charging pins on the junctionA box of di2 rusted and eroded. Ordered it from Amazon and installed it. I checked that it was working. Ligned up for the TT and noticed the front derailleur wasn’t moving and it was on the small chainring. So I did the entire TT on 34/11 cross chained doing 130 rpm and coasting the downhills.
Went home, came back the next day, ligned up for the m35+ race. It’s a 1 mile neutral zone to race start cording to the announcement. Neutral zone my foot. It was full gas from start and I got dropped faster than the 3/4’s did. I thought I would be tired after the day before but I actually felt strong. Decided to make a hard effort out of the day. Worked with a couple guys for a while again. Did 2 hrs at 220 until I started cramping. I was out of water after 1 hr and both days were 85 and full sun. Slow rolled it back in with the cramp. Not sure why it says DNF. Don’t care anyways.
Went home, hydrating along the way, played some tennis with wife and did 90 min of aerobic ride on the trainer.
Well that’s that. It was a good weekend of dehydrated cycling and you guys can make fun of me now. I’m not sure I’ll do this again. Don’t have any desire to pay so I can ride solo and dehydrated. But I did find the country roads to be very nice and the folks super nice. Thank you lady in minivan! I think I’ll do some outdoor cycling once the Houston summer goes away.
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I’m sure others will give you the “I told ya” speech, so I’ll avoid it…but to let one bad weekend of racing turn you off it completely is pretty silly.
You made rookie mistakes, which is what we all do / did. You learn from those mistakes and apply them to future races and do better. It is all part of the process…
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What is the mistake I made today? I ligned up in the middle and the old guys 4/5’s dropped me in 1 mile. I can’t go any lower. I may not be seasoned but I am not that unfit that masters 4/5 should drop me so quickly. Maybe a lot of sandbaggers who knows.
I hope this comes across as I intend it.
The first race/day sounds like a birth of fire. I live in the UK so I don’t know a whole lot about racing in those temperatures. How many bottles did you go with in the end? Being dehydrated like that can’t be much fun at all.
I can certainly find one positive for you. You got punched in the face pretty hard on that first day. You got back up and went back the next day. A fair few riders wouldn’t. The physical and mental toll from Saturday was probably still with you on Sunday so rolling up to the start line is a win.
For the record, I’ve been spat out the back in UK Cat 4, 3 & 2 races. It’s just one of those things. Racing solo isn’t much fun, I agree. I’d really encourage you to give racing another shot. Start in the 35+ Cat 4/5 with fresher legs and who knows what might happen 
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Massive Kudos to you for getting up an going again on day two, that takes alot of mental strength after a super hard ride the day before. Some of the Cat 4/5 guys are alot quicker that people give them credit for and train anything up to 15hrs per week, so don’t worry about it. Chill for a bit, look for another race and go again 
.
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I don’t think people will laugh at you. You had an opinion, you were a little bit alone against everybody, you were proven wrong and are coming back here to say “I was wrong you were right”. Very rare on the internet, so kudos for that.
Right now, you are thinking of giving up in the heat of the moment. Give yourself a few days and some soul rides and summarize what you learned. I see you learned exactly the same things as me with my first race:
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the “hobby” categories are definitely not full of old unfit grandpas
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you are a warrior. Ego crushed, you ask for downgrade and get back in saddle. Very valuable.
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riding at the back is difficult. But the problem is, everybody wants to be at the front. That is why the pack riding skills are so important, and something to learn race after race (I am still learning)
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you cramped : hydratation might be an issue, but I also cramped in the first races. I am not cramping anymore and I haven’t change a thing in my hydratation. For me it was combination of stress and anxiety and pushing watts I was not used to (see next point)
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if it is raced the same way as in France in the lower categories, the first 20mn are raced full gas. Like really really full gas. A lot of 400w+ intervals during 40s to 1mn. Are you training for that? Experience has shown me that I get dropped on those intervals, only thing missing is maybe 10s more at those watts. Then I see the pack ride away slowly. If I take a look at my training from last year, I see a lot of intervals at 120% FTP for 2-3-4mns. But nothing at 200% FTP for 30s to 1mn FTP. You are probably as fit as you pretend, but you are lacking the very specific fitness to sustain those 20mn madness. After these 20mn, the pace slows down. The small hills and “hard” part of the course are ridden at 120% FTP. I would be perfectly fine here. In fact, when looking at Strava flyby, the small group I find myself in after getting dropped is maybe 45s behind and matching the pace of the peloton. So this year I will be working on those 400w+ shorter intervals. I need maybe 10s more time in the intervals and 1 or 2 matches more. Probably the same for you
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The 4/5 masters was easy to ride in if you could ride in the peloton. Little bit surgy but never hard enough for long enough to really split the field up.
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First off, as others have said already nice job both on keeping going and giving it your best and on coming back here to give an update!
Could be a bunch of things, which is really where the original point came in about the importance of gaining experience at the lower levels before moving up. Positioning is the obvious one on Day 1, but you already know that. Day 2? Might be something as simple as a better warm up or being mentally more prepared for a fast start from the gun. Sounds like you were mentally prepared for a nice easy mile, hence got caught cold and dropped before you had a chance to get going. The fact that you were still able to ride 2 hours at a respectable 220W (despite fatigue from the day before and lack of hydration) and then go home play tennis and do a 90 minute trainer session suggests you had plenty left in the tank.
If you’d done more racing you’d know that a neutralised start often doesn’t wok out that way! In my experience the only time it’s actually neutralised is if there’s a race car sat on the front and a DQ for anybody who gets in front of it. Even then you’re relying on the race having a skilled and experienced driver who can drive at an appropriate pace that is slow enough to keep the bunch together but fast and steady enough that people aren’t bunching and braking and getting stressed so that accidents are even more likely when you do start. If “neutralised” is simply a statement of intent from the race organisers with no enforcement in place, then it typically has the opposite effect which is what you found - it provides an opportunity for cannier racers to gun it from the start and catch half the field napping. In the 35+ category this is even more likely! Masters and vets racers know every trick in the book for maximising the damage they can do with their efforts.
Other thing to maybe look at is the type of fitness you’ve got. Sounds like you’ve got a great aerobic base (I can’t imagine doing the 3 races in 2 days that you did and then wanting to do a trainer ride when I got home, I’d be on the sofa with my feet up and my eyes closed for most of the rest of the day…). But maybe need to work more on your top end and repeatability. Since as you’ve found out, races aren’t steady efforts. The ability to do repeated short, hard efforts is more important than the ability to do long steady efforts. I know plenty of triathletes or TTers with high FTPs who have turned up to road races, got dropped early because they can’t handle the accelerations, then ridden the rest of the race solo or in a small group and ended up with higher average power than most or all of the people in the front pack.
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Good work getting stuck in over the weekend. First time racing was a real eye opener for me. A lot of people don’t realise how much skill and race craft is involved in road racing and crits. Too often it gets distilled down to a formula online.
I got dropped in my first hilly crit but over the years I’ve learned how to be efficient and use my strengths to do the most damage possible and make my way through the categories.
My wife is a triathlete with an FTP that would put her in cat 3 by the flawed Coggan tables. But she’s just learning how to race on the road and in the two crits she’s done so far she was dropped early. She’s learning the positioning and accelerations needed to navigate the race. No doubt once she learns the skills and specific fitness she’ll be doing her thing off the front.
If you enjoyed any part of the race or the atmosphere around the weekend then I’d encourage you to keep at it. It’s a hard sport and you lose more than you win but it can be incredibly rewarding and you can keep doing it forever.
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First, people are trying to help you, so continuing to dismiss what we are saying (especially after what many of us predicted was accurate) is a little frustrating.
@cartsman has already detailed a lot of the mistakes you made, but it isn’t about whether you made any mistakes just yesterday. It was a culmination of multiple mistakes. You overestimated your ability / underestimated the pack, you raced the wrong category, you didn’t know the course on Day 1, you didn’t have a good nutrition / hydration plan (and repeated the same mistake the second day) you didn’t check to make sure your battery was charged before a race, you assumed a neutral start would be easy, etc.
Racing bikes is hard…and not just physically. Knowing what to expect when, proper positioning in the pack, dealing with fast starts before the inevitable slow down (and it does slow down), etc. All these things are learned experiences that you then apply to your next race…and you’ll still make mistakes then, but they’ll be different ones ( or even the same ones and you’ll say “right, I knew better than that”)
Schitt, my first official crit I got blown out the back so fast, my head was spinning. And this was after a couple of months of regular training crits where I was riding with the bunch no problem. Took me most of my first year before I could finish a crit decently until I realized I wasn’t warming up enough. I’d get blown, get lapped (if they didn’t pull me) and then be able to hang no problem. Finally the light bulb went off and I understood what I needed to do.
Like I said, people are trying to help…so my suggestion would be to let the ego down, listen to those who have literally decades of experience and learn. Your numbers indicate that you can do it physically, you just have to learn how.
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That sounds like me. I’ll see what I can do. I have an Ironman coming up in 2 months. I’ll work on the high end stuff for fall
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- I changed category
- I followed the arrow that was on the course. There were 2 other people with me that saw the same arrow. After complaining to them, the 2nd day, they had people flagging which direction to go.
- I charged the battery after replacing junction box. Not sure what the problem is there.
- well I see on tv all the the time and everyone in the pros are soft pedaling the neutral start. Why do they even call it that if people will race it? Despite of that once I realized it, I adjusted but somehow everyone there is superhuman.
Most of the advice came unsolicited which is fine. I know everyone means well and it’s done out of love and I appreciate it. But to my original question, the race people didn’t care at all about anything regarding the usac license or rules. I didn’t change my category from novice. I tried and each time the website would go weird on me and I got frustrated with. The registration process didn’t even ask me for my license. They didn’t even care that my TT bike is not UCI legal.
Not sure what ego issue you see. I came here, I thought you guys deserved to know what happened since so many invested their time. I sucked but it was a good biking weekend. It was not time efficient however since I could do without the time away from my family for a solo ride.
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It should be standard practice to roll around on the bike and run through the gears before any event. You failed to try a shift to the front derailleur before going to the start. That was a mistake.
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Same for trying anything similar to what you expect to do in the event, whatever it is. Things like shifting, braking, even some hard efforts to make sure the bike is operating as needed and intended.
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Failing to “test” the bike to at least the minimum of functions leaves you open for issues, just like you experienced. Lesson for learning right there.
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My first experiences with a ‘neutral start’ were exactly the same, both in a long mixed gravel / mtb ride & a road race. It was threshold+ for me, and I know my watt/kg was comparable to some guys around me so certainly was for them also, not what I expected and in both cases made me readjust quickly.
The “mistakes” you made, all seem like ones you would correct on your own with some additional racing experience. I think everyone has their own perspective but what I did was use a lot of races to just try different things - start at the back like you did, sucked; push to get into the front group and hang as long as I could; try and ride my own race, etc.
I feel like… by doing these things, you learn a lot about racing and not only that, but your fitness and where you might need to improve or how you can conserve better.
Nice work
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Anybody who races bikes has had similar experiences. Getting a total beatdown is just part of the learning process.
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