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I'd advise against doing a race as your first experience of group riding, the key to bunch riding is being smooth and not over-reacting. Those things come with confidence and experience, you can get away with only having one but not missing both. First time someone stands up and their wheel comes back at you you'll probably brake and bring half the group down :p Club runs also usually don't involve shoulder contact and people leaning into you so they're easier and safer to get some experience with. My first road race I had people leaning into me from both sides just after the neutral start ended and it freaked me out a bit but I'd ridden with groups a lot before so knew not to panic and overreact.
If you do the race then be prepared for every to be sprinting up hills and after corners, if you don't/can't go full out at the same points then you'll get dropped and it's unlikely you'll get back on.
nausea and vomiting are quite normal and is screaming from every part of your body. Generally it never eases until you finish - then vomit 😯
eat a proper breakfast/lunch before the race(not right before)
When the scratch group comes past, be prepared to lift the pace around 5mph to hang on to the back of the bunch.
Ride in the top 20 and contribute to the working of the group, it makes it easier until you can learn how to 'glass crank' and hide 😉
Ride smoothly and don't kick through. If you can talk by the end then you haven't tried hard enough. Check out the circuit before hand so you know when and where people will attack. More often then not its about 50m from the crest of the climbs or just before twisty technical sections. Working your way up the bunch is often harder than attacking.
ABIDE BY THE RULES OF THE ROAD, not only will you stand a chance of being DQ'd there is the possibility that you'll endanger the other riders around you.
Where's the event and what circuit is it on?
[i]sportives are just over priced audaxes[/i]
Without the overbearing rules, musty smell and beards.
I was really worried about you fella...thought you were talking a big field event!...that would be like a first time MTBer kicking off on a black run!
Best advice would be try and do a club run or chaingang before hand..Let them know its your first clubride too!
as for the race itself..steady riding no dramatic braking or direction changes without checking first...and sit in the bunch..its easy to get carried away and charge off the front/ chase down breakaways....let somebody else do it for your first event...good luck!
Oh - and the day after, go for a ride on your own. You may find:
- your legs still feel like jelly and ache in places in they never did before
- you may well find yourself riding a bit faster than normal because the defintion of your 'maximum potential aerobic capacity' has moved on somewhat from what you though it was the day before, but......
- bimbling along on your own will feel incredibly slow in comparison to race pace!
[i]can anyone offer any tips bearing in mind I've never ridden on road in a goup before? [/i]
The learning curve will be VERY steep and you'll probably fall off (ie, be out the back of the race) it at some point within the first 20 minutes.
That's not meant to sound negative but to race well you need fitness, technique and experience. If you have technique and experience you can sometimes get away without quite so much of the fitness by hiding in the pack and knowing what's going on but, without technique and experience no amount of fitness will help and your first race will be a baptism by fire. Hang on in there for as long as you can be don't be surprised if you're shelled out within a few laps.
Gary m ...Audaxers seem to have learnt mistakes of their ways .... Certainly angus cc and angus bike chains audax organising contingent are pretty lax on rules. Had some of my best days out doing audaxs - im 24 not 64
As per james ....i am fit but due to lack of experiance im crap at road races .... Either i end up towing a fair bit and cant get off the front or i get stuck in the inside mid pack when it comes to the sprint
Hmm I have decades of experience and not the fitness, typical mid bunch finisher i.e saturday Leading group followed by me and two others working together followed by the last group.
You lads scared the poop outta me but I did go ahead and race. I asked the organiser could I drop to group 3 of 5 to get some experience chain-ganging at a lesser speed even thoughmy TT times were closer to group 4. It turned out this group was small (6 people) compared to the other groups (12) which was a good place to start. We took off quite fast and dropped one guy on the first lap (of 6) but the remaining 5 worked well together with everyone taking their turn at the front.
One of the guys in our group was particularly helpful and shouted instructions throughout. I was guilty of accelerating through when I got the the front at first but soon learnt to keep the pace steady.
We caught the 2 groups in front on lap 2 which had formed a large bunch (about 20) and we made a bit of a mess passing them. Instead of lifting the pace to get by we sort of drifted past and many of the bunch jumped into our group.
They were also spanning the full width of the road and I almost made a major mistake pulling out on the other side to pass when a car appeared on the horizon!
The bunch stayed with us for about a lap and a half and the group at the front was a bit disjointed with guys accelerating through and some rotating the opposite direction our group had agreed on (inside out).
We eventually broke free from most of the bunch after lifting the pace on a hill and by now we realised the 2 faster groups behind were struggling to catch (they had 3 and 6 minute handicaps on a 25 mile course).
4 or 5 of us worked away and on the final climb I was encouraged to attack which I did and managed to come home a few seconds ahead of the group.
I was pretty happy with the way things went, firstly getting used to riding in a chaingang in a small group then merging with a bigger group for a short period which I'll admit was a bit hairy at times. Accelerating out of the corners was fun but will be tough in a faster group. Attacking at the end is interesting - I went with a mile to go on a hill and literally crawled over the line. Had the group been faster I would have been passed easily.
Overall a very enjoyable experience I'll defo be back for more and hopefully get involved in some club rides beforehand to gain more experience riding in a bunch.
I would imagine riding in an open race would be very different though and can see how many on here suggested it is a bad idea.
Thanks for all the comments.
4 or 5 of us worked away and on the final climb I was encouraged to attack which I did and managed to come home a few seconds ahead of the group.
You won? Well done.
Well done - glad to hear it went well.
nice one, i was wondering whether you had done it.
Excellent marginwalker! I'm glad you enjoyed it. It's a whole different experience isn't it?
You'll be going back a group next time! The first time you end up in the scratch group is a fab (but painful) experience.
Scratch is a painful experiance ....took me a couple shots to get the pace ok in my head despite having itt times over the same course similar to the others in group
Here's a good link here for group riding etiquette < http://www.bedsroad.org/clubrides.php?showCat=2&Submit=Filter&mo=&yr=&ev=#4>
Super write-up MarginWalker. Great stuff..! 😀