First you must understand that the last lap is completely different from all other laps in the race. The last lap is anarchy and chaos compared to the nice and orderly previous laps during the criterium.  I will lay out a few strategies that you can use to win.  These strategies are mainly appropriate for categories 5, 4, and 3 races.  In higher level races, team tactics are much more of a factor.

I was reviewing the video from the Master 123 race while I am stuck in a German hotel with no English TV…not even CNN. It was clear to me that I was following a strategy early in the race….conserve energy. I started in the back contrary to my normal advice, but I know this course and it wide open. It only took one hill on the second lap for me to move to the front. Not all races are so easy to move up. Once I was in the front, I stayed on wheels, and no matter what did I take lead pulls. If the wheel in front of me was moving up or a guy was coming around me to move up, I would hitch a ride. I was trying to limit my match burning so that I would ready for the attack that mattered. When I was up front, I was avoiding the accordion in the back. It was hard enough staying up front. If you watch the second lap, I catch a ride with a Blue rider. The third lap, I sit on the Black rider. At this point in the race, there was no need for me to take up the pace making. As you see, there are always other racers who will come around at some point. They guy in Black I am sure wanted to have some come around, but I am sure that he was just spinning along. You can see that he was also following wheels when people came around him. He really cranked up the cadence to close a gap. Sitting in like this might cause you to fall a few places but that is okay as long as you are up front and conserving energy. If you are front, the you are in a position to take a wheel that is moving fast or attacking. On the fourth lap or so I caught on to the guy in the White and Green. On the fifth lap the White and Green guy attacked up the hill hard and I could not grab his wheel. Luckily, the guy in Red and Black took his wheel and I was able to take his wheel. Besides being stuck in Germany waiting for my flight (dam volcano), I have a crappy wireless connection, so I am done trying to follow and analyze the race because my connection keeps getting broken!

Ride Hard,

Steve

I have been getting a lot of questions about doing a crit for the first time.  Here has been my answer:

Criterium racing can be expensive but it can also be very hard on your ego!  First you tell all of your friends and family that you are “bike” racer or that you are going to do your first race.  You spent 1,000+ for your bike (obviously most racers spent a lot more than this just for a pair of wheels), got your Lycra, helmet, shoes, and your newly minted USAC license.  Then you ride your bike a lot, and even shave your legs!  You think you are fast because you can hang with the local club rides.  You hear about some race next Sunday, so you plan doing the race (another $25+).  Now you have put your money and time on the line.  Your girl/wife is going to be there to take pictures and to see why you have been “wasting” all of your time with this new girl friend of yours.  What should you do? 

To begin with, your first crit might be a serious eye opener and help you rest your understanding of abilities.  Most people barely finish their first crit and many people are shelled in first few laps.  Crit racing is challenging.  You need to understand that getting good a criterium racing will take sometime.  

For your first crit, Your goal needs to be to FINISH.  If you get shelled in your first crit, your ego will be hurt greatly!  

Assuming that your first criterium is next Sunday week, you can’t do much more training that will help you in the race, but you can do too much training which can serious undermine your ability to finish.  During the week, you should do some sprinting to help you tune up your sprinting (but only on two days).  You will be sprinting out of few corners to stay on the wheels. This should a light volume week so don’t hammer the miles this week.  You should skip the group rides if they are just a hammer fest.   Don’t go for a long ride on Friday or Saturday, but get out for some short intervals to keep the body working and loose.     

 Now you need to read a few my previous post: 

• Your First Criterium 
• How to Make a Criterium Easy 
• Accordion Effect 
• Moving up in a Criterium Pack 
•  Corning 1 and Corning 2 

Remember:  Finish

Steve 

criteriumcoaching.com 

The Break is Established, How do you win?

First of all this is not a team time trial because you are trying to achieve  two objectives:  Stay away and win.  Obviously, the problem is that the other guys might or might not have the same objectives.  Once the break has established itself, you need to start thinking about how do you win.  You need to get the group to work hard enough to stay away, but you need to save energy to win the race.  The key here is that you should not be working more than the other guys.  In fact you need to figure out how to work less.  The other problem is that not everyone is trying to win with this break.  You might have someone  from a sprinter’s team who is just monitoring the breaks and trying to disrupt the breaks.  You might have a few guys who are just hanging on and really excited just to be the in the break.  If the break is out of sight from the pack:  now you need to think about how you are going to win.  You now have a lot to think about, but hopefully you are not full of lactic acid. 

• What do you know about the other riders?  Are their sprinters or is someone clearly the strongest?
• Are there teams with more than one rider?
• Is someone faking it and sitting off the back?
• Are you the weakest?  Can you finish?
• How can you start to recover and save energy?

If there are two or more riders from one team, they will most likely start attacking the breakaway once there are only a few laps left.  The non-attacking rider will sit in the break while his teammate attacks.  The other break riders must chase him down.  If they chase, the non-attacking rider will counter act as soon as they catch his teammate.  This can go on for awhile, and will wear down the break.  You must be aware of this tactic, and the only way to counter it is to burn as little energy possible, i.e. let the other guys chase the hardest.

Is there someone sitting on or should you start sit on?  If you are getting tired or need to start conserving, then you need to start missing a turn or two.  Use the drinking water excuse or a let a gap open up on a corner when you are last in line so that guy falling back takes your spot.

If you are weak sprinter and the state sprint champion is in the break, you need to think about how do you drop him or how do you get away from the break.  A top sprinter is a challenge for a break because everyone will know that they can’t beat him in a sprint.   You need to make sure that you start talking to the other riders in the break so that you get a few other riders to start to attack him or working to drop him like the two riders from the same team tactic.  As the finish gets closer, riders will start attacking.  If you are the strongest rider in the break, then the attacks will come from the back just after you have pulled.  Likewise, you should attack the strongest rider/sprinter just after he has taken a pull and the next rider is in front of him.  This will give you the advantage of him being tired and slightly blocked.

Do you lap or not?  If the break as been working well and the pack as giving up, the break will reach a point were the break can see the back of the pack.  This will create a little situation in the break.  A few guys will use this as a point to attack so that they might be able to seal up a win.  If he is able to attack the break and only lap the field and the other break riders do not lap, then he wins.  Most of the time, the situation that is created is that a one or two guys gets dropped as a few guys attack.  These guys were just hanging on and the attacking is just too much.  They guys that matter will lap the field.  Once the pack is lapped, the lead riders need to find their teammates so that they can help them with the sprint.  The teammates can escort them to the front and help ensure they beat their compatriots in the break.

No matter what the cat and mouse games will start during the last few laps.  This basically will come down to a long sprint.  A few guys will attack early and a few will know how to time their sprint.

Next Post:  Sprinting

Win,

Steve

Your in a break, now what?

 Okay, you are now in a break and the break has a small gap, now what?  

 You have one task to do when you get into a break:  THINK.

• Is the break building a gap fast enough?  Is the pack chasing?
• How many guys are in the break? 
• Who is in the break?  Are they strong?
• Which teams are in the break?  Is this the right make up?
• Is the break working together?
• Do you work or not?

It is very hard to think if you are deep in lactic acid and ready to crack!  If you started the break, then you need to pull off and get the other guys working so that you can evaluate the situation.  If the break is starting to work, then you need to yell at everyone that you guys have a gap and they need to work together.  Many times guys just don’t know what is going on.  They will be physically on the edge, and they most guys in this state will listen to simple commands.  You need to be the leader.  The first few pulls are critical for the break to solidify a gap.  It is easy for a small gap to build from one pull/attack, but unless the break keeps the effort up, the pack will quickly organize to pull the break back.  If the gap is growing quickly, the pack will be less motivated to” just” close the gap.  The break needs to get far enough away that bridging or pulling in the break is a serious effort and much more than one person can do.  The break needs to have a few guys that are going all out for the a few laps in order to get enough distance from the pack.  If a break can get a straightaway or out of sight from the pack, the pack will quickly slow it chase.  

First, you need to evaluate your break away partners.  How many guys?  Who are the guys?  Which teams, and how many from each team?  Is everyone working?   If the break is more like a split in the field with too many guys, it will not work.  Breaks with 4-8 guys tend to work the best.  This is small enough that everyone will work together and not too big to stay organized around the corners.  If the group is too big it falls apart in the corners because the guys who are just looking for a free ride can find ways to sit in.  You need to look at who is in the break.  If they are the top riders from the right teams are represented, then you know that their team will be working to help slow the chase, then you have “chosen” the right break.  If there are no top teams represented in the break, the top teams will be working to chase the break.  However, this is not always the case.  At a minimum you need to have strong riders in the break who are working to keep the break pace high.

Second,  Are you making time on the pack or is the pack chasing?  Can you hold on to the pace?,  How many laps to the finish?   The riders in the break need to be working on the edge of their fitness, but at some point this can either cause riders to drop out of the break or start to skip turns.  As riders start to tire out, the break can start to fall apart.  Guys can only go above the LT zone for so long before they crack.  If only a few guys are working at there are more than one hanger, then the strong guys will most likely stop working.  You must be a cheer leader in a break.  When guys are on the edge, you must tell everyone to keep everyone working and taking pulls.  Early into a break, you need everyone to work on the edge.  It is better that you get a marginal guys to crack himself now rather than having him hanging on at the back.

Finally, you need to evaluate quickly if you should burn your matches with this break.  Is this the break that you are willing to lay it on the line for, i.e. is this the right time in the race and the right break.  You need to make sure that you don’t just start hammering at the front of a break only to have the pack chase the break down because the right team was not in the break or the riders were not strong enough.  If the make up of the break is good, then you should lay it on the line to make it work.

If your plan was to get into a break, and you are in one, it is really exciting, but again you must think strategically.  I love getting in breaks and my strategy is typically to get into few breaks during a crit. It is your job to get into the right break and help the break make it. 

Next Post:  How to win?

Ride Hard,

Steve

Do you attack?

First you need to have a race strategy.  If your race strategy is to win by sprinting at the end, then don’t attempt a breakaway.  In fact you will want to sit in as much as possible and have your teammates chase down all of the breaks.  If you want to be in a break as a strategy to win, then you need to prepare yourself  mentally for this.  You have to start think about when you will attack, how you are going to attack, what you are going to do if you don’t make the break, and what is your relative fitness level.  

When you make a decision to attack you need to be 100% committed to it…be in it to win it.  This means that you are willing to not finish the race to make the attack work…you must be willing to blow up.  Attacks don’t work if you only half heartily attack or give up at the first bit of pain.  Attacking is hard, and this is why you need to mentally prepare for this type of effort.  At this point, you either have trained right or not, but you will find out.  You train hard so that you can handle the suffering involved with attacking. 

How do you attack?

If you want a break it works better to have some people with you.  Solo attacks are a waste of effort.  You need to attack such that you get some other riders to help make a break.

Double Attack

I sometimes will use the double attack when I don’t want to do a solo effort.  I will attack hard from about 10 positions back so that anyone that is interested will see me and have time react.  The first attack is hard enough to get some separation.  Once I get a few people who are looking to be active, then I lay down a hard effort for about a lap.  At this point, I am suffering and the others need to help out.  Most of the time, they are willing, but you might need to “encourage” them to help with the elbow wave  or yelling. 

Roll Off

If you are already at the front, you can roll off the front in a sneaky non-obvious attack.  This usually works if you accelerate while seated before a corner and take the corner hard.  Then ramp up the speed hard out of the corner while still seated.  This tends to work well when the pace has been high. 

Noisy Attack

Start further back, and sprint up the side of the pack.  You need to do some acting here so that it is obvious that you are attacking.   You will get some people on your wheel.  Then you go hard for a lap, and then look for your “friends” to help.

Bridging

If a break has formed and the team mixture is right, then you need decide if you can make up to the break.  The problem in this situation is that you might bring the whole field up.  You need to create separation fast and go into solo attack mode.

When do you attack?

For sure you need to wait for second half of the race.  The early breaks are brought back by nervous racers and teams protecting their sprinters.  The energy level in the pack needs to be reduced.   You need to conserve your energy for the attack.  It is usually best to plan your attack so that you have gained a separation as the pack heads into a headwind or challenging set of corners.  You need sometime for the break to gain distance from the pack.  The more the distance and the quicker it is reached:  the slower the pack will be to react.  If the pack as been going hard for awhile, then you should attack.  This pack will use the opportunity to slow down if a break is forming if the pace has been hard.   Also, the riders that will join you will have some fitness.  Primes a forced speeding up of the pack with a defined slow down, so you can you the finish of the Prime sprint to start a breakaway.  Counter attacking a break that was just caught works well.  The field is looking  for a rest so there will be a hesitation as the break is caught so attack.  Sometimes, it will work to attack the pack when it is going slow, but most of the time there are too many fresh guys and the whole pack just speeds up and you get nowhere.  There sometimes will be a hesitation in the pack with 2-3 laps to go.  If you have not attacked yet, this is a great time to go.  This is just far enough away that the lead-out trains are getting organized for their sprints so they are not ready yet.  Rolling off of the front is great for this.

You are in a break, now what?

Next post!

I wanted to further illustrate the accordion effect in a pack and why you should not ride in the back.  For this example, I will assume that this is a CAT 4 pack which might average 25 mph per lap, and the corners are rather tight and technical, i.e. not a sweeping corner. Below you can see the rider in RED entering the corner and the BLUE rider is at the back of the pack.  The distance between the RED and BLUE guy is rather small right now as all of the riders are now going the same speed.  The RED guy is using some power right now but is below his LT, and the BLUE guys is coasting at zero power output. 

As the rider in RED makes it out of the corner and continues  going down the straightaway, he holds his 25 mph speed.   His power output is holding steady and he is staying aerobic.  The rider in BLUE is now slowing and maybe even breaking (remember this is a Cat 4 pack).  The riders in front of BLUE stopped pedaling  so they slowed down.  The BLUE guy as zero power output right now.  They pack is starting to stretch as gaps open up as the riders go through the corner .  The RED guy is moving away from the BLUE guy.

Below, the pack is now stretched completely out.  Everyone except the front riders are working to close gaps in the field.  This means they are pushing their power output above their LT.  The distance from the RED and BLUE rider is at the max.  The BLUE rider is going to have to go much faster and use a lot of power as he accelerates to close the gaps.

The pack is now squeezed back together, and everyone is going 25 again, but the whole process will start over now.  The distance from the RED and BLUE rider is now much closer.  The BLUE rider is now back at zero power output but his just sprinted for 15 seconds.  He was out of the saddle sprinting and pushing his power output to 2 times his LT, and his heart rate is now starting to peak towards his max.  He will have a few seconds to recover and then he will do it again.  Meanwhile the RED guy is now resting in second position, and his power output is still below his LT and his heart rate is staying aerobic.

After about 60 minutes of doing this the guy in RED who stayed in the front will now be able to lay down a serious attack or sprint for the finish.  The BLUE guy will have no idea what happened in the race and will be completely worn out from all of the sprinting.

Criterium Rule #1:  Start on the front row at the start

Criterium Rule #2:  Stay in the top 25% of the pack

Criterium Rule #3:  If you are not in the top 25%, move your ass up!

Here is the reason for the rules.  First, the race does not happen in the back, so if you want to be in the race you need to be up where the action is happening.  If you are up front, you can attack, bridge a break, know who is in the break, but most importantly you will be taking it easy. 

Why easy?  The accordion effect is less up front so you will use less energy and save your matches for when you need to or want to attack.  The top 25% of the pack does not slow down much for the corner and goes through the corner much faster.  While the people in the other 75% are slowing down and sprinting out of every corner just to stay up.  The drafting effect of the pack is minimized by the accordion effect. 

Here is how this happens.  As the pack enters a corner it slows which compresses the pack.  The first few riders have the best line through the corner and are able to take the corner at full speed.  Each of the following riders have less of view of the corner, and as such, they let up on the pedals which slows them down slightly.  The next few riders will try going around the coasting riders which makes the pack wider as it tries to go through the corner.  Obviously the first few riders went through the corner one or two wide and took the best line.  The riders going through the pack three or four wide will be much slower.  As you go to the back of the pack, you will find riders having to brake before they enter the corner.  This accordion effect is worse on tight corners or greater than 90 degree corners.  Then as the front riders leave the corner, they accelerate away causing the pack to expand again.  If you ride on the back of the pack, you will be spending your time practicing your sprinting for 60 minutes, if you last that long.  By the time that the rear rider starts braking for the corner the lead rider will have already reached their top speed way up the road.  The result is that the rear riders have to accelerate at a higher speed than the lead riders.  Let me say this in a different way, the front riders are doing the same laps times as the rear riders, but they are doing the laps while holding a more constant speed.  The riders at the rear are sprinting to a much higher speed out of each corner but their speed is going up and down at each corner. 

The riders in the back of the pack are the definition of pack fill.  They don’t know what is happening in the race.  They are struggling just to stay on the wheel in the front of them.  Basically, they are paying the prize money for the riders who are actually racing up front. 

Ride Fast,

Steve

Let’s face it, there is only one winner in a criterium but there might be 50+ other racers in the race.  Everyone dropped 25-40 bucks to race so that the top 10 can get the prize money.  In addition, you dropped 1,000 to 3,000+ for your bike, 50+ for your annual license, 200+ for your team kit, 100+ for helmet, 100+ for your shoes, etc…. Not to mention all of the time that you spent training.  This is an expensive sport just to get into the pack, but most racers just end up as pack fill.  Pack fill is racing with out an objective.  Your objective can be to win or some other specific plan.  Every race must have a specific objective for your season plan and for your long-term plan.  If you have just started racing, then you might just want to focus on improving your ability to hold your position and moving up in a pack.  Or maybe you want to focus on pedaling though corners.  Or maybe you want to focus on doing one fully committed attack.  Or maybe you want to try to win the sprint.  Just because you did not win the race does not mean that you were pack fill; however, you were pack fill if you did not achieve your objective for the race. 

Race Fast,

Steve