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Old 06-06-13, 05:57 PM
  #137  
carleton
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Now on the subject of what to do with those pesky lapped riders...

From the Slow Rider's POV:
- Ride in the sprinter's lane.
- DO NOT move up track to clear the way for riders approaching from the rear.
- Ride your race.
- You can get on the tail of a group of riders but you cannot intentionally slow down to provide aero benefit for some guy behind you to bring him back up. (I'll explain this later).
- You cannot go down a lap then take pulls on the front of a group of riders. (I'll explain this later).
- Safely overtake other slow riders.

From the Faster Rider's POV:
- Safely overtake the slower rider...even if it's 20 of you overtaking one guy, all 20 pass over the top safely.
- DO NOT yell at him to "MOVE OVER" and get out of your way.

Fromt he Race Director's POV:
- Pull slower riders if you feel that they will never be able to contest the race (i.e. "Get a second wind"). This is to eliminate this entire issue. You see this at even the Olympic level.
- If it's not an important race (i.e. local training races) maybe let the slower riders stay in for training. At the local level, usually no one gets pulled.



Now, about going down a lap then being "a good teammate".

Let's say that I'm not the best Points Race guy (we all know I'm the best, but for the sake of argument, let's say I'm not ). And my teammate informs me that he want's to lap the field mid-race. I'm not strong enough to go off the front with him, but I wait. When I see him 1/2 a lap away and the field is chasing him, I, being a good teammate, SLOW DOWN and drop off the back of the pack in order to BACK-IN to my teammate and provide him a draft to ease his pain and lead him up to the back for his +20. This is illegal.

Which brings me to the next point. Any lapped rider cannot take pulls on the front of any break-away group. If you want to be part of the break-away group, the customary thing for the lapped rider to do is to hang on the back (never taking a pull) and being the "gatekeeper" basically letting guys take their pull then you let them slide in in front of you.

This is great for getting a workout. Basically the guys are motorpacing you around. The hard part is dealing with the surges of backing off and getting back as you let people in. It's not a steady-state effort. But, it's a great workout.

Last edited by carleton; 06-06-13 at 06:09 PM.
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