I’m still pretty new to racing, and curious how you guys deal with a failed race move, and how to learn from it. Had a road race yesterday, cat 4/5, around 40 miles in length. I stayed with the main pack the whole race and around 1k to go the bunch slowed a bit so I attacked. I hit power PRs and hel…

You made the right move. Try it again, it may stick and you win.

I would agree that nobody cares how you finish in a cat 4/5 race. They also don’t care how anyone finishes a P123 or pretty much any race except for TdF, and even there, who finished 4th in 2017? (don’t Google it). Cycling is a niche sport, and even if it wasn’t, you’re not really doing it for exter…

This sounds like my first race. Went 2 miles out, got caught 200m from the line and came about 30th. Had much more fun than when I tried to be more conservative in the races after.

[image] CaptainThunderpants: How do you guys deal with this mentally? I’ll tell you how I deal with those types of memories: they bother the f**k out of me from the moment they happen until this very day. If you’re on a ride with me I’ll whine about it when we ride past the spot. Sometime…

Alot of comments here saying ‘nobody cares about winning’ xyz level racing. I try not to race based on what anyone cares/thinks. Unless your a pro, does any elses opinions matter to you? Learning to race for my own sense of reward, not others is very important for me. I care about winning my races, …

Well said. For some, 4/5 is “just passing through”, and for others, cat 3 or 4 might be the peak. Again, the level of difference in how much anyone cares about a USA Crit series win vs a 4/5 crit is pretty marginal. Do I think there’s a difference? Of course, but I’d be stoked with the 4/5 win (if t…

Doesn’t sound like a fail to me, I’d class a fail as not finishing or feeling you didn’t get it all out. Put it down as a learning experience (sounds like you put it all out but perhaps a little too early, perhaps you should have let others do some more work and put it all out in a later sprint). Co…

Win or learn. It comes with experience. The good news is, you know something now you didn’t know before. I’ve thrown a ton of attacks that didn’t work, but the fact that you were willing to do it shows you’ll progress as a racer. A lot of people just sit in line and wait for the sprint over and over…

I used to do this kind of thing and it never worked. I probably would have done better in field sprints, but I was always too timid. I suppose that I might regret some of the races where the move I made wasn’t worth trying, but not much.

[image] CaptainThunderpants: 1k to go the bunch slowed a bit so I attacked. I hit power PRs and held 648W for 1:10 but got caught with around 150m to go and finished 24th. I’d call it a good experiment! Look at how often the 1k attack works at the pro level - hardly ever!! Cat 4/5 can be to…

Regret of failed race move, how to learn and move on?

Racing

OreoCookie August 6, 2021, 5:44am 37

Very often at road races when you have a group finish, 1st and 24th are literally sometimes separated by only 3-5 seconds or so. For those races winning is mostly a function of positioning. If you are boxed into the field, you literally can’t make a move (at least not without endangering others).

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Regret of failed race move, how to learn and move on?

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Regret of failed race move, how to learn and move on?

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