Hey everyone, new to this section of the forums as I just had my first race on Tuesday. It was a Cat. 5 crit here in NYC, held on an old airfield (wide open, flat, fairly easy corners, super windy, and horrible concrete that hasn't been updated in decades). Suffice to say it was a lot of fun (I was still buzzin a bit the next day, and was up early that morning), but now I have a bunch of questions.
First a quick summary: my primary goal was just to try and avoid finishing dead last (aside from those with mechanical issues), and then my secondary goal, if things were going well, was simply not to get dropped. I'm happy to say that I managed to achieve both goals, finishing 10th out of 26th finishers, and 8 seconds off the leader. I was right on the tail end of the lead group until the very last jump, which was a little sooner than I expected and it caught me out a little.
Also, I decided to do the race on my 1990 Basso PR, updated with a 10 speed Campagnolo Veloce/Centaur group. It's the bike I feel most comfortable on at the moment, so I figured that was best for the first race. In any case, despite its age it's still way more capable than I am. (For those that are curious, nobody gave me any looks or even commented, aside from one guy I came across riding in the street on the way to the race. Also, despite being comfortable with downtube shifters on some of my other old bikes, I would NOT have wanted to be reaching down to shift during the race).
So I guess most of my questions revolve around the draft. There were times in the race when I found myself unexpectedly moving toward the front, despite not trying to or making any particular effort to do so. Was it just coincidence? I realize this was a cat 5 race, so nobody should have much experience (although quite a few guys looked like they have been to some rodeos before), and maybe they just did realize certain things?
The course is essentially just four long straights connected by right hand turns, and the wind was coming almost directly from behind on the start/finish straight. One one of the other straights, where the wind was coming from the side (outside), I found that being on the inside of the pack was really comfortable (see pic). I was barely pushing, and when I did I was moving up past everyone. I guessed it was because of the side wind putting me in the most sheltered spot, even if nobody was directly in front of me?But why didn't anyone else try this? I was only in that spot the first time because I wanted a little clear road in front of me, to see the pavement and relax a little from the close-quarters drafting. But you would have thought the other guys would see me sliding up and try it as well, but none did for the entire race.
Another thing was the start finish straight (tail wind), where just about every lap I found myself alone on the outside and moving up toward the front with relative ease. Was this because the wind wasn't dead exactly behind us, but slightly from the side I was on? Was this because I was less "aero" than the others, and therefor getting more help from the wind? The culmination of this strange (to me) phenomenon was on the penultimate lap, when I was just chugging along and suddenly found that I was passing everyone with a lot of momentum. Each previous time I had stopped pedaling completely and slotted back in at the tail, but this time I said 'WTF' and went to the front... and immediately started turning in the wrong place (these are wide former airstrips, and all the turns look the same from a distance). A few people thankfully yelled something, and to my surprise when I gently swerved back toward the group, I was still in the front. That made me think it would be fun to lead into the real turn 1, which I did, at which point the headwind was really strong. So I let up and figured there was no need to burn energy since I would be caught anyway, and my only surprise then was that it took them longer than I expected to catch me, when I was alone and barely pushing at all.
So were guys just playing cat and mouse to setup for the last lap, allowing me to just ride by? I heard one guy complaining that he thought that was the finish, but I didn't see anyone sprinting out of the saddle and the group didn't pull away even for a little bit.
I guess it can be summed up as: why does it seem so (relatively) easy at times? Is it because we are cat 5 scrubs? Strange effects of side winds?
Below are a couple of pics. One to show that inside spot I was talking about (wind was more or less coming from the opposite side of the group), and the other to show my setup. I'd appreciate any and all feedback about my riding position, equipment... (yes, I realize I'm wearing a skater style helmet and $3 Home Depot glasses, but I honestly don't see how that was much of an aero penalty, and I just feel like that helmet is a little more secure (I'm used to full faced motorcycle helmets) and they didn't hold the Russians back in American Flyers):
