Ygduf

if you're unable to move up ever during a race outside the first 20 seconds, I don't think you're likely to win anyway. I got spit off sooner at Cat's Hill because I undervalued the start, but I was getting spit out eventually either way.

globecanvas

Tulsa Tough Friday. 8 turns in 90 seconds. Clip in or die.

grolby

Given how road is going for you, I think passing on 'cross training for now is the right call. I don't know if you plan on doing any CX races between now and Jamestown, but if you do, that would probably be enough to at least get your body reminded of the different demands. I did my first 'cross season in 2012 as just something fun to do while riding mostly easy miles to prep for road, and that worked out fine. Admittedly that was in Tennessee, which is just a totally different environment from New England as far as cyclocross is concerned, but still - I had fun and it was some additional training between the races and mid-week practices.

Personally, it's looking like I'm going to hit the first 8 weeks of the 'cross season pretty hard. Probably 4 or 5 races - plus Mayor's Cup - and then Holy Week when I will be doing ANOTHER 5 races, then probably two more weekends after that at which point I will probably back off to focus on being able to actually train for road season next year. I will probably do a few more races, but I'll be more selective. The intensity of cyclocross is pretty much impossible to balance with base training because you just can't do lots of hours when you're racing hard twice a week plus a mid-week practice. But you can do it more casually and still have a blast without interfering with your training for the road season. And fun makes all the hard training and the boring trainer hours a lot more bearable.

grolby

Usually the start doesn't matter, but because of that the races where it does matter can really catch you off guard if you don't know to be ready for it. Around here, the Beanpot/X-Pot/whatever crit on the Tufts campus is one of the surprising ones where the start matters and if you are at the back and don't know what's coming, you're totally screwed. It's a fast start, runs downhill and then turns uphill and always explodes on lap 1. I took the line back in 2008 figuring it didn't matter that I was lining up at the back. It did, and I paid.

gsteinb

Maybe. But, pretty sure I'd have won Wilmington that year, particularly since I won it the next year and crushed the field sprint that year.

dz_nuzz

Haha, this. I remember thinking "The start will be important" and I thought I was ready for the race to the start line......but the green machine already had their trainers set-up practically ON THE LINE . Needless to say, I spent the first half of the race moving up from the back of the field and we got lapped at that point.

grolby

Seriously that effing race. You can think you're ready for it, and it's still just so much worse than you think it's going to be. It is kinda your worst nightmare of a race, man - crit with a ridiculous start .

echappist

Maybe in your case, but this isn't applicable to all situations. Chasing at the back (meaning you actually are moving up) due to botched clip in takes about as much energy as sitting at the front, taking turns drilling it. Difference being that at the back, you are almost doing a solo effort as those around you are of no help as you otherwise won't be moving up. By the time you do find people who can help, you've used up a good amount of power latching on and the front group is most likely getting ever further away.

For the course that gsteinb was mentioning, i was literally the last person at the beginning of the race as i botched my clip in 5-6 times and managed to move up 35 positions in 15 minutes or so. Now people lambast power numbers people post on strava due to calibration, etc, but the my output during the first 15 min or so was comparable to many from the front group, and i'm sure there were probably at least 10 more who could have hang on had they had a better starting position, but bad starting position dictates that they would have to close so many gaps on their own, and they can do that only so many times before getting spit out.

Due to this, i've come to appreciate just how important it is to show up very early to hard crits (either due to technical features or hills) so that i can have time to warm up and make all the necessary preparations.

wens

I mean, you could move up in the Friday Tulsa tough race if you were willing to drive bomb every corner unapologetically

mike868y

oh i'll definitely still be racing cross. did it pretty casually last year and plan on doing the same this year. haven't checked the schedule, but silk city, orchard cross, plymouth, canton, MAYBE providence, hanover, minuteman, etc. are all race I want to hit. i got some top 10s and a few top 5s in the 4s last year so I'd like a podium or two and a win wouldn't hurt...at which point i'd probably upgrade. but i'll probably mostly stick to saturday races so I can train on sunday.

grolby

Canton isn't happening unless someone is pulling off a miracle. But that's the word on the street. MHS doesn't want the race now that the groundskeeper who was the promoter contact has retired. It's a shame, that was an awful course, but it was right in my backyard. But Community is putting on a race at Myles Standish, and it's at Charge Pond. Hopefully I'll be helping out with course layout. It's going to be awesome. Put it on the list.

Ygduf

It must suck to line up early to these races, ride on the front for 30 minutes then lose because you took a bad line and one person got around you.

globecanvas

What's your point? I'm not quite following.

You can always move up if you burn enough gas. Some races cost a lot more gas than others to move up. In those races, if you line up at the back or miss your clip in, you're starting in the red.

grolby

You know, I'm just going to say I agree with you. Yeah, that must suck.

mike868y

yeah i did about a third of a lap there last year, slipped out on the pavement (knobbies + wet pavement = death), got road rash and called it a day. like i said, i haven't checked the schedule yet, but after the mayors cup weekend i'd imagine most saturdays until sometime in december will be filled with cross racing.

echappist

and what does this have to do with races in which starting position matters significantly?

in case you need a refresher: consensus is if you have a bad starting position (viz tail end) in a selective race that's hard to move up, you will have a very hard chance of doing well

If you are riding on the front for 30 min, then obviously you didn't have a bad starting position in a selective race. You are arguing against the antecedent, not the actual statement.

Ygduf

I don't even know. It's just a weird juxtaposition in this forum of always-be-drafting and then impossible-to-move-up crits. I understand them each in their own context, but combined they make no sense.

I'm not arguing anything, only relating my n=1 that I've never been involved in a race where I didn't, at some point, have to advance my position in the middle of the race from "pretty far back" to "try and win position". How I got to the back, missing a clip-in, someone cutting my line, caught behind a crash, w/e.

The two races I got dropped in were because the terrain and features were so antithetical to my strengths that the margin of error was less than zero as the error I'd made was registering and lining up.

gsteinb

fudgy some races and courses do indeed unfold in some manner in which you haven't seen. I'm telling you of a first hand experience of a technical and narrow downtown crit where I started far back enough that in the 5-10 laps it took me to make it to the front the winning break went and was established. It happens.

globecanvas

To be honest, until this year I would have agreed with you. People would talk about how hard it was to move up in a race that I was in (like Johnny Cake for example), and I would think, hmm people must really suck at moving up.

At Tulsa, though, there was a constant stream of guys getting whipped senseless and falling off the back, and it was hard to move through it. It's one thing to lose position, it's really different to be stuck behind 50 guys who are blowing up one after another.

Once I was actually in the pack it was a whole different race but it took 15-20 minutes to get up there. I was at the front of the race by the bell, so my n=1 is that lining up at the back was very costly but not fatal.

grolby

I think Fudgy's just never been at a technical crit where guys were dropping East Coast watts.

(Snark aside, it's understandable that you'd not have encountered a situation before where starting position matters, cause it's rare, but what's so hard about believing what people tell you?)

Ygduf

Δ Δ

Nothing about it is hard to believe, I just hadn't seen any that made it easy to believe.

TheKillerPenguin

Rockleigh tonight. I wonder if I can catch air off the speed bump.

echappist

double-speak at its finest

grolby

I wasn't really talking about how hard or easy the particular situation is for you to believe. I'm talking about listening to and absorbing what other people tell you without actually having to check it against your own experience to decide if it's true or not.

wens

I've done a few crits that seemed more like cx races than a typical road event. Races where it's basically lined out single file on a short course with lots of turns where you just go around guys blowing up until a big gap opens when a few consecutive guys blow that the break is gone. The same conditions mean that you can really only have a few guys chase at a time without just getting in each others way, so... Typically that small group stays away, and it can be pretty easy to make the move if you're near the front and nearly impossible if you're more than twenty guys back. So it ends up being a situation where the sprint really is at the beginning of the race, not the end.