...That's what i got on my racing licence tonight. Got 10th place in a 3/4 crit race at castle combe. I'm over the moon!
I've done around 5 of them now and never thought i had enough sprint. last 2 weeks i've had a 'don't give a sh*t attitude' (partly due to splitting with my GF) and sprinted to bridge gaps and made a lot more moves( essentially I'm a lot more confident)
Need 9 more points and i'll be 3rd cat 
Need 9 more points and i'll be 3rd cat
Aye. its just nice to know I can place in a 3/4 race when I've just started racing.
Nice one Tricky,get stuck in! I fancied the Castle Coombe series but its a bit far to go over the bridge after work. It's my first year road racing, managed to bag a 2nd back in April and got a 3rd tonight so I'm up.
I'd promised myself a new bike if I made 3rd, been hammering the commute all season.
Or............... just do what i did and phone them up and ask to start on a 3rd cat license. They'll ask why you think you should go up and then send you a nice spanky new license
scratch. Good work. What kind of races were those? road/crit? 4th's 3/4?s
I've entered a few 3/4 road races and found them okay. I entered a 2/3/4 and the pace was unreal
Nice work td! Castle Combe is great cos they also run coaching sessions there, helping new 4th Cats learn the ropes of bunch racing which is really positive, helps avoid crashes!
I got a whole 15 points on my licence last week - I actually WON a crit! Maybe I'll get my 2nd Cat licence back this year...
15 points! where was this? have you done much road racing as well?
how many points to get to 2nd then?
td: Regional A crit race so 15 points for the win.
I raced at Otley on Wednesday night, was hoping for some points from that but then someone rode into me on the penultimate lap and wrote my wheel off. 
That's put paid to any racing for a while, I don't have a spare wheel and I'd only just bought that set so now short on cash. 
Might try racing my SS road bike for a laugh...
Good luck with the rest of the Castle Combe series!
radoggair - i'm pretty sure that if you'd asked them for an elite licence they'd have given you one of those too.
I started in a 3 series crit race (Jif - Llandow) through March and then entered a few of road races through April/May.
The road races were part of a 3 race handicapped series giving the 4ths a bit of time to get away,
in previous races we'd been caught on the final lap by the 3/2nds but for some reason we managed to stay away this time
(I think a lot of the better 3/2nds were at a large race in Lincoln on the day) anyway managed to find a wheel on the sprint and bag a second.
I usually get as stuck in as possible at the front with the through and off, I'd rather batter myself throughout and see what's left for the
sprint than just sit at the back all day sucking a wheel, the 4ths has been a great learning curve but gets frustrating when there's 6 or 7 of you
at the front dragging the rest of them along for 50 miles, seems to take ages for the bunch to get organised on the front too......c'mon! it's the same every race!
Last nights crit was part of the Forza series in South Wales, low turn out in the 4ths but I'd felt I'd done the work early season and was happy to have an easy race to get me up in the end.
The Forza crits are run through July, I'll go back for a few 3rd Cat races before they end just to get an idea of what lays ahead next year....
Crazy-legs. I've been using the castle combe races as training really.. and entering as many road races as possible which is damn hard as the only one's i can find are 2/3/4
I usually get as stuck in as possible at the front with the through and off, I'd rather batter myself throughout and see what's left for the
sprint than just sit at the back all day sucking a wheel
This is exactly what i thought and it's starting to pay off. My 1st 3 races i was pretty nervous and did'nt think i had the fitness to hang with 3rd cats. I thought i'd save my energy till the end and try and stay in the main pack.
In the last 2 races i decided to go with as many breaks as possible and take charge at the front more (which has involved sprinting a hell of a lot more) What i found is my recovery started to improve and i could then sprint again. I think it comes down to confidence in your fitness and confidence to move through the pack.
wouldn't mind giving road racing a bash but don't think I've got the legs for it, well done though tricky!
Yeah, first few crits I was yoyo'ing off the back all over the place, I got into it a lot more with the road races, The longer distance suits me better and the through and off has brought the fitness up,
I felt sure the work on the front was getting me a lot fitter over the season.
Bit weary of making the step up now, the engines there but I need to sort my sprint out a lot, I also find the work your doing on the front, chaingang style stuff were your slightly increasing pace to stay
on a wheel hard to replicate on your tod when out training,
Joining a club that does a regular chaingang instead of the Sunday cafe and back would help....
I also find the work your doing on the front. chaingang style stuff were your slightly increasing pace to stay
on a wheel hard to replicate on your tod when out training
I think this is where MTBing comes in, especially singlespeed or 1x9 in a hilly area. It's almost impossible to plod on a proper MTB ride, I find I'm either trying very hard or trying to recover which is perfect RR or crit training.
radoggair - i'm pretty sure that if you'd asked them for an elite licence they'd have given you one of those too.Too true. And a license for being awesome?
Nice one TD. You are lucky, hardly any of the races up here have points so unless i travel to englandshire to race, i'll be a cat 4 forever 
I think this is where MTBing comes in, especially singlespeed or 1x9 in a hilly area. It's almost impossible to plod on a proper MTB ride, I find I'm either trying very hard or trying to recover which is perfect RR or crit training.
Nice one TD. You are lucky, hardly any of the races up here have points so unless i travel to englandshire to race, i'll be a cat 4 forever
no points? Well what's the 'point' in racing? or trying to get better if you can't move up through the categories?
Well done trickydisco I know exactly how you feel, having just picked up my first 4 points yesterday at Shrewsbury Circuit. It was a 4th Cat only race but to me, it felt harder than last weeks 3/4th Cat race at the same venue even though the average pace was 1MPH slower overall. Perhaps caused by the small field (10) yesterday meant that the race was basically a single pace line and eventual bunch sprint for the points. I could have just soft pedaled my way around the circuit for a couple of laps and stumbled across the line for 10th and a virtually free BC point, but wheres the fun in that!
Somebody has put a nice little video together of yesterdays race too
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYHS-I95AYk
Scratch, fancy Pembrey tomorrow evening? 2/3/4 handicapped 1 hour + 5 laps
Good work tricky
Great work tricky. Wish there were some races with only 10 riders in round here!
Wednesday evenings eelmoor race has 40 plus most weeks (sometimes 60). And Goodwood... that's another story. Raced there last month with a bunch of 100+ riders. Got spooked the 1st lap by the sheer numbers and went off the front for a bit to calm down
fettling, get yourself down to Hove Park if you want to points chase. Usually the 4ths have about 15 starters and the 2/3s about 25. However in the pissing rain a couple of weeks ago there were 7 and 11 respectively!
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