Friday, March 20, 2009

Time to mix it up with the roadies

I'm going to go cut my teeth with racing the road bike tomorrow at the local criterium series. Think I'm all set, got my licence, timing chip, just put on the new cranks and wheels, and am sore as all get out from a North Suncrest, American Fork, South Suncrest ride this morning with Sam. My experience racing bikes on the road is limited to triathlon's, essentially a time trial where it's illegal to be within 3 bike lengths of anyone directly in front of you, which is exactly the opposite of riding in a pack. Couple of insecurities I've got about joining the weekly roady convention at RMR and learning the tactics of the trade:

1 - All of us newbies get thrown together in our own class - makes good sense in regards to capability level, but maybe doesn't make good sense for the same reason. Pack riding is probably going to be somewhat new to most of us. Sure, we go ride in packs with our buddies, but I'm anticipating racing in a pack will be a little different, and am also anticipating that racing in a pack where we're all trying to figure it out may be downright dangerous.

So here's my strategy: I'm not shaving my legs. Roadies have to be the most metro of all breeds of endurance athletes, and I'm thinking that if I show up with unshaved legs, those roadies will automatically recognize the hairly legged rider as a likely canditate to take out the whole pack with a crash - meaning a guy to stay clear the hell away from during the race - which will be exactly my objective, I want space from all the other cats figuring out this criterium racing alongside, ahem, away from me.

2 - I already know that if I'm feeling good towards the end, and try to make a move, that I'm likely to go to early and thereby not be feeling good or still on the throttle at the end. Just a tendency that I'm sure will resolve itself with experience.

3 - Those two are about it, but back to the pack of newbies trying to race thing which deserves another mention - I'm really curious to see how this goes.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

crank it man! watch out for the girls...word is they cause a lot of wrecks in the c flights. stay on the front and avoid everything!

good luck