clearly no system is going to be perfect. i’d like to see a top class elite race, maybe i’ll enter an nps vets and watch the proper riders next year.

I’m sure its ben mentioned already, but road racing probably requires far more work above threshold than XC. You need to have the power to hang onto the bunch when it speeds up/make a break when the time is right. 4th cat races aren’t very long so you won’t a massive base isn’t really necessary.

This is the advice i got

For road racing you need to build a very efficient cardiovascular system rather like having a big engine so you don’t have to burn rich (burn too many sugars) during the first part of the race. It doesn’t matter how good you are during the race if you have nothing left at the end when the going gets tough and you need your turbo to kick
in. So you need to get your Aerobic base point as high as possible (zone 2 where you can utilize the most fat) and then have a threshold which is as high as possible and as close to your maximum as possible to get the best
effect (zone 4).

If your Aerobic base point can climb up to being closer to your threshold you stand the chance of being able to kick back into using fats during the easier sections of the race and therefore leave your turbo with
some energy in it for the later stages.

With the right training you should be able to get your Aerobic base point to increase and your Threshold. If you aerobic base point moves closer to your threshold you will be able to hold higher intensity training and racing for longer due to the usage of fats and greater oxygen transporting efficiency.

Pretty much agree with all the posts 😀 …..bottom line…. they both hurt 😀 … sometimes it hurts and your fast…. sometimes it hurts and your slow.

Lots of sound advice above.

My two best nuggets of wisdom for you are fairly basic if you want to get into road racing:

1) learn to be comfortable/confident in a fast-moving, tightly packed bunch. A lot of fit guys and time-triallers assume they can automatically road-race and cause a lot of crashes cos they can’t handle a bike in those circumstances. As such 4th Cat races are generally clumsy affairs (so don’t take a nice bike!)

2) As someone else mentioned above, you gotta have a ‘jump’. If you haven’t got one, you gotta get one. There’s a lot of pace fluctuation in road racing (certainly in the lower levels). Whenever the pack kicks off, you gotta go with them or it’s game over.

Only done a couple of XC races and they were more like time trials. TBH. Or a two-hour ‘Cross race. They soon evolved into individual riders just going as fast as they could.

I suggest *strongly* you come and have a go at a ‘Cross race 😉 There’s one at Ashton Court next Sunday. Email me for details.

worth bearing in mind, that racings not about going as fast as you can…. its about going faster than everyone else can.

The biggest difference, IMHO, is that the best rider usually wins an XC race, whilst the cleverest rider wins a road race.

Sorry, but that is a load of rubbish!

The best rider will win either race.

i’ve won a few road races. i wasn’t the best athlete in any of them, but it could be said i did the best ride. a decent turn of speed and the experience (and a bit of good luck) of how to make the most of it made up for average abilty.
i’m not very experienced at xc but know that its highly unlikely i could win one. i’m just not good enough.
so i think the comment above is badly worded but i know where its coming from

but your turn of speed and experience is part of your ability to win races. when you won, you were the best of the entrants on that day.

it’s a bit like a powerhouse TTer getting a kicking in an XC race and saying that the best guy didn’t win because the course was too technical.

i agree with you. theres a lot more to being the best rider than being the strongest at holding a high speed for 2 hours. sadly, riding to your strengths is seen by some riders as being sneaky or lazy (if your strength is sprinting). thats probably what was meant by “the cleverest rider wins a road race”. but for me being clever is part of being the best rider, and theres more opportunity to be clever in road races.

Cross race sounds awesome Chas. I just don’t have a cross bike and have no experience of riding a cross bike (let alone in a race)

If it’s this Sunday I might come along and take a look.

just don’t have a cross bike and have no experience of riding a cross bike (let alone in a race)

You are unlikely to need one – plenty of people (including me last year) ride MTBs. I know an rider who’d regularly thrash cross riders on his MTB. But then he is quite a handy road racer, too…..