First Race tomorrow :D
Discussion
okgo said:
Ponk said:
I've spent most of the evening reading your blog when I should be studying. It's a great read!
I've done a few crits this year with less than spectacular results. Just makes me want to come back harder next year and have a proper crack at racing.
Hope you don't mind but I've requested to follow you. Always good to compare training with someone faster.
I've done a few crits this year with less than spectacular results. Just makes me want to come back harder next year and have a proper crack at racing.
Hope you don't mind but I've requested to follow you. Always good to compare training with someone faster.
Edited by Ponk on Wednesday 20th August 23:17
No worries.
OP, if you can report back how you find the race that'd be great. Interested in starting some racing myself even though I'm pretty confident I'm not really at the required standard just yet. Good goal to work towards though.
TheLemming said:
I'll let everyone know how I get on 
There's a few of my clubmates there tonight so I'll not be alone and it will definitely help given I've spent hundreds of hours riding with some of them.
There's no better way to get faster than go racing.There's a few of my clubmates there tonight so I'll not be alone and it will definitely help given I've spent hundreds of hours riding with some of them.
I did five weeks of a E/1/2/3/4 weekly series and got dropped repeatedly. I'm a hell of a lot faster now than I was at the start. Still, a way to go yet.
I was going to race the MK 4th cat race tonight but had to put my sensible head on and study instead.
Good luck!
So not quite as planned.
Lap 1 Everyone tears off and the average reads 26mph
Lap 2 Pace doesn't slack off
Lap 3 Drifted out wide to the right on the back straight, which ends with a right hander into an uphill section. This meant I had to drop speed and take the corner as a left then a right.
At this point I'm rapidly heading out the back of the pack - the last couple of stragglers head past me trying to hang on. I go into a sprint to catch the pack up the hill, almost make it and then my lungs explode.
Couldn't speak for about 5 minutes lol if my headrate monitor were working it would have been showing the kind of figures you'd expect from amphetamine dosed hamsters.
I suspect I'd have made another couple of laps if I hadn't misjudged the corner and lost speed but the dropping would have likely happened anyway as I was high threshold throughout.
Frustratingly the pace slowed after about lap 6 until the last couple.
My legs are fine, my lungs aren't. Honestly as much as I've said to everyone I'd be happy not to drop, I expected to be able to circulate in the pack and try for a bit of a sprint at the end.
Next year I'll be back in after another winter of training....
Lap 1 Everyone tears off and the average reads 26mph
Lap 2 Pace doesn't slack off
Lap 3 Drifted out wide to the right on the back straight, which ends with a right hander into an uphill section. This meant I had to drop speed and take the corner as a left then a right.
At this point I'm rapidly heading out the back of the pack - the last couple of stragglers head past me trying to hang on. I go into a sprint to catch the pack up the hill, almost make it and then my lungs explode.
Couldn't speak for about 5 minutes lol if my headrate monitor were working it would have been showing the kind of figures you'd expect from amphetamine dosed hamsters.
I suspect I'd have made another couple of laps if I hadn't misjudged the corner and lost speed but the dropping would have likely happened anyway as I was high threshold throughout.
Frustratingly the pace slowed after about lap 6 until the last couple.
My legs are fine, my lungs aren't. Honestly as much as I've said to everyone I'd be happy not to drop, I expected to be able to circulate in the pack and try for a bit of a sprint at the end.
Next year I'll be back in after another winter of training....
all good fun though isn't it...
when it comes to handling - i personally found the race training that i (try to) get to on a Wednesday helps massively with confidence cornering, and riding in a bunch - as long as you can do those and stay in the front half of the bunch as a result it all becomes much easier!
when it comes to handling - i personally found the race training that i (try to) get to on a Wednesday helps massively with confidence cornering, and riding in a bunch - as long as you can do those and stay in the front half of the bunch as a result it all becomes much easier!
Rolls said:
all good fun though isn't it...
when it comes to handling - i personally found the race training that i (try to) get to on a Wednesday helps massively with confidence cornering, and riding in a bunch - as long as you can do those and stay in the front half of the bunch as a result it all becomes much easier!
It was fun when it comes to handling - i personally found the race training that i (try to) get to on a Wednesday helps massively with confidence cornering, and riding in a bunch - as long as you can do those and stay in the front half of the bunch as a result it all becomes much easier!
With hindsight though I'm not quite there yet. Frustratingly close but honestly not quite there.
Next season
I don't know, there's something to be said for just going at it again. If you get dropped, you get dropped! Who cares! You'll push yourself harder on those laps where you're hanging on that you'll ever manage in training There are also few places on the road where you can corner like you have to in a race to get the practice in.
I keep going back to Crystal Palace despite having never finished a race there and it requiring the polar opposite of my power profile
There are also few places on the road where you can corner like you have to in a race to get the practice in.I keep going back to Crystal Palace despite having never finished a race there and it requiring the polar opposite of my power profile
Well done for getting out there and pushing yourself. You will only learn from this and you have more of an idea of how quick you have to be to be in a race and that will spur on your training.
I'm doing something similar, have joined a club, applied for race licence and am about to go throwing myself and my bike round cyclocross courses. I suspect it will be utterly humiliating to start with but I hope it will be fun, well as fun as thrashing my body to the limits for 45mins (for us aged fellows), likely falling off and taking a bath in mud can be.
#oldeoughtoknowbetter,youngenoughnottocare
I'm doing something similar, have joined a club, applied for race licence and am about to go throwing myself and my bike round cyclocross courses. I suspect it will be utterly humiliating to start with but I hope it will be fun, well as fun as thrashing my body to the limits for 45mins (for us aged fellows), likely falling off and taking a bath in mud can be.
#oldeoughtoknowbetter,youngenoughnottocare
Edited by CVP on Friday 22 August 12:04
TheLemming said:
So not quite as planned.
Lap 1 Everyone tears off and the average reads 26mph
Lap 2 Pace doesn't slack off
Lap 3 Drifted out wide to the right on the back straight, which ends with a right hander into an uphill section. This meant I had to drop speed and take the corner as a left then a right.
At this point I'm rapidly heading out the back of the pack - the last couple of stragglers head past me trying to hang on. I go into a sprint to catch the pack up the hill, almost make it and then my lungs explode.
Couldn't speak for about 5 minutes lol if my headrate monitor were working it would have been showing the kind of figures you'd expect from amphetamine dosed hamsters.
I suspect I'd have made another couple of laps if I hadn't misjudged the corner and lost speed but the dropping would have likely happened anyway as I was high threshold throughout.
Frustratingly the pace slowed after about lap 6 until the last couple.
My legs are fine, my lungs aren't. Honestly as much as I've said to everyone I'd be happy not to drop, I expected to be able to circulate in the pack and try for a bit of a sprint at the end.
Next year I'll be back in after another winter of training....
Go back next week armed with the knowledge that the pace won't stay that high (it never does at 4th cat) and that you just have to stick with it until it settles. When the pace drops you'll soon recover.Lap 1 Everyone tears off and the average reads 26mph
Lap 2 Pace doesn't slack off
Lap 3 Drifted out wide to the right on the back straight, which ends with a right hander into an uphill section. This meant I had to drop speed and take the corner as a left then a right.
At this point I'm rapidly heading out the back of the pack - the last couple of stragglers head past me trying to hang on. I go into a sprint to catch the pack up the hill, almost make it and then my lungs explode.
Couldn't speak for about 5 minutes lol if my headrate monitor were working it would have been showing the kind of figures you'd expect from amphetamine dosed hamsters.
I suspect I'd have made another couple of laps if I hadn't misjudged the corner and lost speed but the dropping would have likely happened anyway as I was high threshold throughout.
Frustratingly the pace slowed after about lap 6 until the last couple.
My legs are fine, my lungs aren't. Honestly as much as I've said to everyone I'd be happy not to drop, I expected to be able to circulate in the pack and try for a bit of a sprint at the end.
Next year I'll be back in after another winter of training....
Well played anyway OP. So, you got dropped - noone expects to win their first race!
The good bit is that it wasn't even a straight dropping, you made a technical error (probably helped by it being first time in) that you know not to make again. Next time, your cornering will be better - and as you said if you'd got to lap 6, you'd have been fine then till the end.
Still chapeau for even trying, most of us haven't.
The good bit is that it wasn't even a straight dropping, you made a technical error (probably helped by it being first time in) that you know not to make again. Next time, your cornering will be better - and as you said if you'd got to lap 6, you'd have been fine then till the end.
Still chapeau for even trying, most of us haven't.
Rocksteadyeddie said:
okgo said:
To be fair 25-26mph sounds about right for the avg of a 4th cat crit on a flat circuit like the Bowl..
Be surprised if it was that quick to the end. Most times the E12 race was 28-30mph average up there. We'd lap the 3/4s maybe 3 times in an hour. TheLemming said:
Rocksteadyeddie said:
okgo said:
To be fair 25-26mph sounds about right for the avg of a 4th cat crit on a flat circuit like the Bowl..
Be surprised if it was that quick to the end. Most times the E12 race was 28-30mph average up there. We'd lap the 3/4s maybe 3 times in an hour. I'm very glad to hear MK bowl is still used, I used to race there late 80's - 90's. Had my only massed start win there. It was all cats together then, hour + 5 laps. There was an end of season bash at the MK Point I once went to and got given about £30 prize money for my season's bowl efforts, the only lucre I ever won I think. Ah memory lane.
TheLemming said:
So not quite as planned.
my headrate monitor were working it would have been showing the kind of figures you'd expect from amphetamine dosed hamsters.
Genuine lol at the above! my headrate monitor were working it would have been showing the kind of figures you'd expect from amphetamine dosed hamsters.
fair play for even having a go at racing
I might have a go at cyclocross racing one day but I think at 33 and generally 90kg, I'm too fat and old for proper road racing.
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