Originally Posted by
carleton
I think we are saying the same thing.
As dijos progresses from CAT 4 to 3, 2, and possibly 1, the ability gap gets smaller and smaller as the riders become more evenly matched because as you wisely state, "a certain level of fitness & speed is the price of admission to any particular level."
We've all seen the new CAT 3/4/5 rider who is simply really strong either by virtue of coming from another cycling discipline or from another sport just walk all over the field until (s)he makes it to about CAT2 and starts to face others with similar strength. Then they lose a lot before they begin to win even just a little.
I guess the bigger takeaway from my post is that learning tactics by "watching tape" is valuable at all levels of racing. And if you are the fast CAT 3/4/5 racer that's eating up your field, you will have to learn good tactics to get to the next level.
I think we're sort of saying the same thing, but I might claim tactics can make up bigger speed/power gaps.
With people coming over from the road it's always a mixed bag. When I thought I was a terminal 3 a few decades ago at Blaine, some cat 2 roadies showed up and could barely hang on in races where I was comfortable. It's enough of a different sport that that happens. Other times people in upper road cats can ride circles around people, and then minor road pros like Joe Parkin would show up (he had family in the area) and pull around the motorcycle from 40 mph like it was nothing.
Originally Posted by
carleton
I'm obviously doing something very wrong in my flying 200m, but I haven't figured it out. So, yeah, I'm similar to the guy in your story.
We should have a race day where the most points go to the biggest difference in flying 200 time vs 200 m race time... I always finish the 200 and start looking for the pack because I'm so used to points racing.
Originally Posted by
queerpunk
Sometimes, having good tactics is enough to beat faster riders. Sometimes it's not. The difference is that more speed can make up a bigger tactical hole than "more tactics" can make up a bigger speed hole. I've beaten some faster riders... and I've also hit my head against the wall racing for 6th place against MUCH faster riders.
I mostly agree with this, but it seems like there are always a few stupid strong riders floating around who are also so tactically bad that you can still make up the difference.
Originally Posted by
carleton
I think my fast twitch % is really high. This doesn't make me special, it just is what it is. This sucks in terms of general cycling. I can't ride road, crits, mtb, cx, long commutes, group rides, etc... The longest I've ever run in my life without stopping was the 1-mile run in high school physical education class (and I was in peak youthful fitness as a baseball and tennis player).
My girlfriend has really high fast twitch - she beat everybody in her skate club (male or female) on the fast-twitch tests when she was inline skating, and develops muscle just from thinking about lifting. So what's her favorite type of riding? "Super-six" randonees that are 600 km deathmarches with 10km of climbing. Maybe you're even more extreme - but I always thought high fast-twitch types could develop a reasonable amount of slow twitch, but if you're a high slow-twitch type your 10 s power and 10 hour power are the same and there's nothing you can do about it.