Signed up for my first crit - race strategy? (RESULTS ARE AT POST #57)

This may be true for the course you were on today, but certainly isn’t for all crits. This’ll vary depending on where you live, but around me there are un-selective crits where you can hang in the bunch as long as you’re reasonably fit, and there are hyper-selective crits - usually shaped like a rectangle where the long side is a hill, so every lap has a 30-60 second climb. In crits like these, especially in 5 and 4/5 fields, 2/3 of the field usually gets dropped in the first half of the race. Maybe these are rare around you, or maybe not. Either way it sounds like you might find them more interesting, so give the course profile a look - that could be a factor in determining whether a race is worth signing up for or not.

Congrats on finishing and avoiding the crash!

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Great race report! Sounds like you did really well, and you should be happy with the result. Even though you say you felt snappier early in the week, sounds like it wasn’t your legs that let you down but bad luck. If you hadn’t had to burn some matches chasing back on after the late crash the result may have been different. Well done😊

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I live in Chicago. Hills are definitely rare :slight_smile: This was a very flat race.

@AndyGajda Thanks for the good words!!

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Our auburn crit video is an example of this. Half the 3/4 of the field was dropped on the second lap.

And even in races where everyone is still in the group that doesn’t mean that everyone is fresh. The stronger rides can position themselves for the sprint a lot better or jump early.

Congrats on completing your first official crit, AND congrats on the two practice crits earlier in the week! That was definitely lucky you managed to stay upright… I would have been pretty sketched out by that happening right in front of me. Those two practice crits likely took a bit of snap out of your legs as they were probably pretty different from your normal Tuesday workout.

I would withhold judgement about crits until you’ve done a few more. I think that lower-cat crits are typically devoid of any strategy, but you are correct in that most crits are tactical rather than selective. I have teammates who hate crits that don’t have any hills–they don’t like how everyone tends to stay bunched together. Crits with hills definitely separate out the group. Crits are like road races, intensified.

Really glad you did it, enjoyed it, stayed upright, and finished!

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@dhellman Thanks the note! It was fun to prep, fun to race and fun to report back to the group :metal:

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Thanks for sharing! I did my first 3 crits this year, and the first two were hard but everyone seemed to have good skills. The 3rd crit was sketchy, maybe 6 in a field of 35 that couldn’t ride a straight line - and I’m completely serious! Yikes.

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First race. Finished. No crashing. I’d call it a win. Well done m8.

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Hee hee… that’s the fun part of the sport… picking on Triathletes :stuck_out_tongue:

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Didn’t crash. Finished. Learned some stuff. I’d say kudos.
But, crits aren’t for everyone. Ive found it’s hard to race these every weekend while also racing xc marathon at a high level. I basically just do my crit and then go spin for 2-3 hours after. There are days where I don’t have it as well, couldn’t muster a sprint to save my life, or just diddle daddled in the field for a shit mid-pack finish. Crits can be the most frustrating thing as well. But, I love them.

I’ll add my 2 cents here because I was out at this race too, and it was my first crit ever as well. I also raced the Cat 4/5 race that started about 35 minutes after the Cat 5 ended, so that was my second.

Definitely agree that people were taking terrible lines through the hairpin turn, and that ended up being really my only saving grace. At 2.7 W/kg with FTP of 206, I think I’m underpowered compared to most of the field still. I was barely hanging on for most of the race and spent most of the race divebombing to the front half of the field in turns and then slipping back steadily in the straights. With 3 laps to go I was able to cross the start/finish line in the front half of the pack, but after that the field just steadily rode away from me and I basically finished off the back of the pack by maybe 20 seconds when it was all said and done. Score sheet says 19th out of 26 for me.

In the Cat 4/5 race the field rolled away from me within 2 laps, and then I spent the rest of the race not really working with 3 or so guys who were also riding about my pace, until we lost enough ground on the field that the race organizer pulled us out with a few laps to go. I earned a second USAC point though, score sheet put me at 44th out of 55 for this race so I survived a little longer than some!

So I definitely had a little different experience from the OP. I just didn’t have the fitness to really race the race.

For people like me, I’d be curious about what tactics and strategies I should be using if my goal for now is just to not get dropped?

  • I know I need to hide from the wind. This was my main focus for the race. But from the back of the pack, this meant that I had to burn matches sometimes just to stay attached and get up on someone’s wheel before the headwind section. If that happened and I made the turn with the pack, they would then accelerate in the tailwind section and I was already out of gas though.
  • I was trying to experiment with different lines through corners. Divebombing inside the pack would help my gain back positions, but then I’d need to also up the watts for a little bit to get back up to speed. Sweeping around the outside would keep me from having to sprint up to speed, but wouldn’t gain me as many places so I’d have to up the watts on the following section to hang in my place rather than “sag” back through the group
  • Once off the back, ideally I’d try to work together with the other people around me to get back up to the pack. But most of those guys are back there with me for a reason, they don’t have it on that day, so they aren’t going to be much help. Ideally I would look for a strong rider who maybe had a flat or an issue and work with them to get back up to the pack I guess
  • Any other tips or strategies I should be using to not get dropped? Am I burning my matches in the right places or should I be thinking about something else?
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FWIW this year I’ve done my first 3 races ever (crits), and my rule of thumb from Wed night worlds is 270W FTP to keep up with the fast guys on flat/windy courses. Less ftp if you are small and/or slippery, for example a couple years ago a local cat2 had an ftp in low 200s when we were doing solo training rides within an hour of each other on same route. He was routinely 50W less for roughly the same time on Strava routes. I’ve got an endurance bike (Trek Domane), and no skinsuit, with my current setup there is likely a lot of aero gains to be gained by switching to a more aggressive geometry to allow for more aero position, and racing in a skinsuit (I’ve got a road aero helmet).

In my thought process, absolute power or power-to-aero ratio is one item to consider. The other is being able to hang on wheels of stronger riders - the ability to repeatably go well above threshold.

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My 0.02, I’d focus more on the outside line and keeping speed up. Repeated re-acceleration will sap you more than maintaining smoother, if uncomfortable, power. Of course if you just can’t put out the power required, there’s no much you can do, but focus on keeping your speed high, stay off the brakes, and keep the accelerations as controlled as you can.

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Hey – sorry I missed you out there!

My 2c on your FTP vs. this race in particular is that yesterday’s crit was probably a poor indicator of what tactics will work for you at 2.7w/kg and 207 FTP. The headwind coming off the lake through the finishing stretch was brutal, and no matter how I tried to tuck in, I found I couldn’t find a ton of shelter - not sure if you found it the same.

I have around a ~305 FTP and am ~3.85w/kg as a reference – and I had to keep the power up through that section regardless of how I was tucked in – some laps were better than others, but overall I think a lower-ish FTP would be much more of a limiter in that race specifically due to that shitty wind. I was (probably) one of the guys dishing on the backstretch, downwind section just because it felt like such a relief to get some momentum.

I think if you found a race where it was less windy and tucking in afforded you more shelter, it might be more instructive as how to proceed.

Just my thoughts, and - as noted - my experience is incredibly limited :wink:

Flat courses - it is all about watts-per-CdA and absolute power. Really nothing to do with W/kg.

As a triathlete first and a bike racer second, I have an aero road helmet and also an aero trisuit. Yesterday was 40 and windy though so the short sleeves weren’t an option, but I should be able to use that later in the season. Also as a triathlete, I have a great TT/tri bike, but my crit bike is something I picked up for $100 on craigslist. I think it’s from the 80’s before aero was invented or something…7 speed cannondale with downtube shifters. So that doesn’t help. I’m used to riding the TT bike so I can ride really low in the drops though, which I’m sure is helpful. I’d of course love another fast bike, but obviously my fitness is my limiter here, and if it wasn’t I might still like the challenge of beating people while riding a beater bike.

Yeah, right out of the hairpin there was nowhere to hide from the wind. If you could stay left and behind one or two people up the whole start/finish straight, though, I could actually pretty well coast through the pack at that point. I only had one lap where I was pinned out to the right of the pack rather than to the left, and that was brutal.

The hard part was staying attached coming out of the hairpin for me, since I was always at the back of the pack already by that time.

we have a lot of (brutal) wind where I live in CA, and for me it takes an ftp of at least 250 but really more like 270W ftp and the ability to repeatably go 300-500W hang onto wheels of guys with ftps in the 300s. Again, smaller/slippery people need less power, but raw power can be a limiter in these races.

Its been two years since I’ve had 275W ftp, and here is an example of % time in zones from a Wed night worlds ride:

Wind that night was 17mph WSW with gusts up to 30, and I was holding wheels of guys with 350W ftps that night. Now that my knee issues are resolved, I’m looking to raise ftp and ability to do longer vo2max intervals, in hopes of getting back to where I was 2 years ago because that’s what it will take to be competitive in local road races and crits.

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oh yeah, that’s probably another big part of my problem, is that I haven’t really trained for VO2max work at all. I’ve basically just done Sweet Spot Base since last fall when I started structured training, and since my focus is primarily triathlon I have been focusing on long, steady intervals instead. So definitely have room for improvement there. I guess all the more reason to sweep my lines around the outside and avoid the high power spikes, and better to pedal at a consistent power output for now.

The second half of the Omnium is coming up on Saturday, here’s the course. Looks like I’ll want to try to avoid the big surges out of the corners here too as much as possible.

This is what I saw in my races, though with the figure-8 course you couldn’t realistically take the mid-to-outside line on every turn. Next year, I’ll just worry about that for the six right turns and just hammer off the two lefts. Overall, that’ll conserve energy and give me a chance to attack off the small ramps.

Excited for a few more crits and a couple of road races this year… with the goal of people not knowing I’m a triathlete in hiding. :laughing: