You’ll have fun with even a 2watt/kg. Cross is the best for this .go hard till you pop, then enjoy the handups. The lower category races by me routinely have people stopping for beer breaks on course. The whole race is a party if you want it to be…dont worry about fitness.
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Not sure what “your version of cross” is like, but the good thing about cross is that there’s much more to it then where you finish. Making it through the course, nailing a tricky corner, stuff like that is rewarding in itself. Even at pro level, most riders get dropped and then make it round the course in small groups. Don’t worry about having to race against much fitter riders. The only exception I think is if your local race us strict at enforcing the 80% rule, and the fast riders in it mean that you get pulled after 2 laps. That might not be so much fun, especially if its a long way to get there.
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Sorry that should have been crits… Autocorrect changed it. It’s a 3km lap and between 11 and 15 laps depending on the week. It is luckily not that far… I may check it out.
OHhhh. Yea crits are a totally different story lol. Entirely possible to get shelled out the back in the first 500 meters. Crits are not ever ‘fun’ imo lol. Challenging, chance for fulfillment.::but definitely not the traditional definition of fun.
Ah was wondering why you posted about cross in a crit thread! To be honest it depends on the crit - in my local one the same thing happens, there is such a mix of fitness/ability/age that it breaks up very quickly. Everybody is happy to let everybody else keep riding though, so often there are then just people with similar ability racing each other. (And get lapped multiple times by the fast riders).
Just don’t overthink criteriums to the point you don’t try . Consider yourself lucky to have one so close. The faster fitter more experienced riders the better. It may hurt. Your ego might get bruised but, you’ll probably learn quite a bit. Reading forums about crit racing is like learning to drive by reading a book. Some good info but, you have to experience it to truly learn.
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Yeah it’s more about being able to at least stay in a pack for more then a lap. I don’t get my ego bruised by that rode with some local team last week and for the uphills my threshold was still their talking pace 
. Will go if time allows next Tuesday. Maybe I ride there then I get 2 times an hour z2. In even if I only manage to hold on for a few minutes
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There is no secret - more practice.
Having said that, is there a practice crit in your area? Typically these are weekday or weeknight ‘races’ with an established route and duration but informal. The advantage is that you can practice. Try different lines, attack, blow up, take a lap (or more) off and rejoin the pack. Often the mix of rider fitness is huge but the upside is you can follow cat1/2 level riders with hundreds of hours of crit racing under their belt through corners. Typically, there is no shame in getting dropped and rejoining… as long as you don’t then sprint for the win.
My first one tomorrow, it is what it is. See what I can learn and how much pain I can tolerate 
Yo! Plenty of good advice here, but I wanted to throw in my 2¢ too.
I’m normally not much of a group ride kinda person, but I think group rides can be a great way to just get comfortable being in a bunch. Getting used to riding as closely as you possibly can to others helps a lot.
In addition to getting used to being near other riders, get used to making contact with them. It will happen in a race, so it’s good to know what it feels like in a low-pressure environment. Bump drills are key for this skill – you can even do these wearing sneakers and street clothes out on a field of grass so the consequences of crashing/falling over are much lower.
Your equipment choices can make a big difference as well. I’m a big fan of running wide tires (28s are what I’m on at the moment) at low pressures. I’m usually between 140-150lbs and I run ~60psi in the front and ~70psi in the rear. If the course is technical or wet, I’ll run even lower – down to 50psi in the front and 60psi in the rear. Wide tires at low pressures give you a ton of grip, which is key to being confident when you’re cornering.
In terms of the act of cornering itself, always look where you want to go and the bike will follow! Vision is super important. Always look ahead and scan for hazards. Keeping your eyes up the road will help slow things down as you’ll be able to read ahead of you and react to what’s going on with plenty of time.
You’ll also want to get as low as possible through the corners. I race crits almost exclusively in the drops – I’ll only be on the hoods if I’m off the front and trying to get in the bent elbows/hands on the hoods aero position:
Otherwise, I’ll stay in the drops as it’s much more stable. Keeping your hands in the drops also helps prevent other riders from hooking their bars with yours in close quarters. I find it much easier to recover from instability in the drops compared to the hoods.
In addition to staying low, keep all your weight on the outside pedal – even PUSH your weight through it. Bikes are light, and riders weigh much more, so push that weight through the bike, through the tires, and into the ground for maximum grip. Push some pressure through your inside hand as well to get some weight on the front tire.
Moving around the group takes a lot of time and practice. In a crit (or a group in general), people aren’t going to just let you move up. You have to take the initiative. If you see a gap that you can safely move into, take it. If you don’t, someone else will. Focus on taking one spot at a time, and eventually, you’ll work your way up to the front without eating much wind. If your bars are ahead of the riders around you, you control them. If someone else has their bars in front of you, they control you.
One of my favorite cycling quotes is from Mark Cavendish:
There’s no emotion. I just see the gap and, instinctively, go for it. You concentrate just on yourself. I can’t wallow in anything, can’t worry about what others are doing.
You have to stifle your emotions while you’re racing a crit – focus on yourself, protect your own front wheel, and don’t worry about others. They have to do the same thing as you, and you kinda just have to trust that they’ll ride predictably as well.
Anyway, I’m rambling on a bit at this point… TLDR: do bumping drills, run fat tires at low pressures, and race as many crits as you possibly can and you’ll start to get the hang of it! Feel free to ask me any other questions, I love talking about racing!
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Thanks. I’ll see how much of this I can remember in the morning lol!
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I’m sure target fixation has already come up somewhere in this thread. My point of focus is typically the wheels of the person 3-4 riders ahead (about as far as I can see) in my column. Like it or not at that’s the line I have at that point. For everything else I’m trusting my peripheral vision for the riders next to me and my memory (and the judgement of ppl in front of me) for road features.
I got annihilated 
is what it is, got a long way to go but at least I can only improve. I knew I’d be towards the back but I didn’t know how hard it’d be or the high (for me) standard.
Try again soon with some training and TTs in between.
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Very common result for most of us in our first crit….don’t get too hung up on it. We’ve all been there.
Keep at it and you’ll see improvements relatively quickly!
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Thanks! 
Thanks. Some of these things I’m already more than on top of…I run 28mm tubeless, I’m super comfortable being bumped from years of fighting for position into corners in cross races.
I think the biggest things for me are prioritization of attention. Focus on entry/exit points, eyes ip the road rather than constantly on the rider in front of me.
I also think giving a bit more space between myself and the rider in front might be helpful, so I’m not really worried about modulating speed as well.
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Update!
I think at the very least I’ve gotten over my mental hangup with pavement cornering.
I hopped in the Cat 4 race at Intelligentsia over the weekend. Started towards the back, finished mid pack. Bridged up some big gaps, and would have finished towards the front I think, but I missed a big split in the field with 2 laps to go, and by the time I saw the gap, they were 100 yard up the road. Almost caught them going through 2 corners at one end of the course, but when they got back into the straightaway and 30mph it was not happening.
Was a lot of fun, rather than terrifying. I’ve just decided to treat crits like CX on asphalt, and force myself to trust my tires. IMO, I went from cornering being a significant weakness to a relative strength. Before I definitely would have lost ground in the corners, and used fitness on the 29-30mph straights to make up ground. This time as everyone was slowing up going into corners…I was looking for lines to carry more speed past people there. The field would slow down to like 20mph entering corners…in a couple laps of recon, I was comfortable pedaling through at 25 mph, and coasting through at 27-28 with an empty road.
But man…that acceleration from 20mph to 30mph twice a lap into the straightaways was painful during the race lol.
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Nice work – Intelli is no joke! 
Finding that trust in your tires is huge! It sounds like you did a great job focusing on carrying your speed and momentum through the more technical sections, which, IMO, is even more important than fitness when it comes to crit racing.
Great progress! 
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