mooska

I just moved from the edge of the Appalachian mountains to Columbus, OH. Been on a trainer off and on all winter, but it's finally looking nicer out and I have no idea how I'm going to train in this rather flat area. I'm used to going out on hour rides that goes through the hills. Any advice on how I should approach getting ready for my (hopefully)1st season of crit racing?

DRietz

Find a relatively closed course (four corners). Go out and do laps. Accelerate out of all the corners.

Encourage people to come out and join you. Boom, you now have a criterium on a flat course.

mooska

Will I be working on all my muscle sets by just doing laps? I always assumed climbing and getting out of the saddle was working on a different set.

DRietz

A set not typically used in criteriums. If you live in Ohio, and are racing in flat Ohio, and are only racing crits, it would be natural for me to assume that the above interval set would be an adequate workout.

Yay for comma splices.

caloso

One and five minute intervals. Check out the sticky at the top of the racing subforum.

Handelfan

Yeah, intervals can be done really well on flat terrain, because you can easily control your efforts.

carpediemracing 

I lived in an area for many years where it was flat enough that they bothered putting a sign up (the only one I remember for elevation) at 148 FEET. Most of my rides during that time probably had a similar amount of total vertical elevation every hour. Although I can't climb "real hills", it's not because of the terrain, it's because I can't climb. In crits, even those with a hill, I could hold my own.

As a (hopefully) first year racer, you may have fallen into the trap where "climbing hard" seems really important. It's not, at least not at the rate most non-racers consider climbing. The real challenge will be handling the overall speed. (I'm making the assumption here that you're not a high level triathlete/etc and that you don't average 25-28 mph on training rides.)

How I learned about that:
https://sprinterdellacasa.blogspot.co...ic-and-me.html

Fyi although I'm working off of a many year base of racing/training, I struggle right now to average 16 mph on a dead flat training ride. I almost never ride faster than about 18-19 mph avg on my own (maybe half a dozen times in the last 10 years) and many of my training rides are 14-15 mph avg. In races I typically add almost 10 mph to my average speed (25-27 mph) and I can hold my own in a crit.

The Road Racing sub forum is great for advice for both new racers as well as people who want to step up their cycling game a whole dimension. It's almost inconceivable what this next jump is, from "riding" to "racing", and it's a minor one in the world of cycling (going from entry level racing to domestic pros is another huge step, then domestics to international pros is probably the biggest one).