I have posted my personal observations along with some power meter data analysis based on my latest racing experiences on the well respected "Wattage" forum, so here's the transcript:
I thought I might post it in a different thread, but I think it fits in here, so here's my 2 cents, some observations from my "euro" point of view:
Preface: I am somewhat "good" rider at national level, 66 kg 179 cm, at about 5 W/kg FTP right now - just to clarify that I am a "euro size" rider.
I am out here in Southern California for a good 5 weeks of training/ racing, with only 2 more weeks left. I have done almost all of the local races I could get in to, in the past 8 days alone 4 races. Due to my foreign license and the chaos among USCF race commisaires, I had the privilege to race all categories, from 1 to 4.
The first thing that came up on this topic, larger riders vs. small riders on flats and crits, I think is indeed something we can analyze on and on. On one particular training ride with my team this year, we were doing race simulation efforts, rotations on flats with a huge tailwind. All the others were bigger riders and even though I was definitely a lot fitter than them, they could keep up with me at all on climbs, in this situation, I was struggling. I felt like I am the
weak link and the season is coming, at eurotour races, etc., some 50-60 km/h intervals in crosswinds for a couple of minutes is not uncommon and you have to stay on the wheel in front of you, so I said, argh, I have gained a somewhat nice treshold power and still, I have problems here..
Now back to the observations regarding domestic US (SoCal) racing with some supporting data:
With my 1200 watts sprint, I have no any chance in a field sprint even in cat4... I have realized it quite fast, so I started racing aggressively, always in a break, from one break to another, chasing, etc... This resulted in quite high average wattages: first race, local crit, quite amateur cat4 field, sitting in the field, bad tactics, 255 W NP, something like my 3 hour tempo training ride - got 2nd once in a prime, 17th in final..so basically nothing, but it was a horribly
dangerous field, I would better not crash (there was a crash indeed).Another local crit, cat 4 field, similar to the one above but smaller, tuesday nights crit - attacking all the time and in breakaway, 340 W NP for 10 minutes, 300 W NP for an hour, including 2 "neutralizations" when the whole field has to slow down completely.. Quite a mess, but anyway, no any success, no matter what, the field somewhat always catches the breakaway..
Next up is a cat 4 downtown crit, a field of 120 riders, in breakaway 3 times, first one lasted some 6 laps, peak 10 min at 340 W NP, entire race 45 mins 315 W NP. The following day, 2 races back to back, first one is cat 3-4, riders that look somewhat better than the simple cat4 and they do ride better as well - no hesitation, after a couple of laps in breakaway again, lasted 4 laps, got 2nd in a prime only.. peak 10 mins at 330 W NP, complete race 45 mins 298 W NP. 20th in final sprint, peak 1250 W... 2 hours later, 30+ 1/2/3 -s, a field that looked quite good - now this was something, what I needed. Tough riding, nice cornering, windings, yet again there was one crash during winding tactics. I had no idea how fast this is gonna be - well it was fast - starting from 45 km/h going close to 48 near the end, no any tailwind on the course.
It turned out that I felt great - I was on Thurlow Roger's wheel for the most of the time :) - as I saw him provoking breaks all the time... A couple laps later I was in a breakaway and again, then back in peloton, rest up a bit, quite dynamic racing, I enjoyed it a lot - still, it only yielded 268 W NP for an hour, 44.3 km/h average..
Riders looked quite intimidating, huge, muscle bound, biceps popping out of skinsuits...I even had some sort of "minority feeling"... Fortunately it felt good that I could be in the party - but at sprint, no any chance... Considering my usual terrible moves in the final laps, I tried to move up quite good, and I finished around 20th in the field sprint - that equals nothing - but cash was 10 deep :)
Bottom line: there is only one race that has climbs, one day before my trip back home. Hope to score on that one...
I thought I might post it in a different thread, but I think it fits in here, so here's my 2 cents, some observations from my "euro" point of view:
Preface: I am somewhat "good" rider at national level, 66 kg 179 cm, at about 5 W/kg FTP right now - just to clarify that I am a "euro size" rider.
I am out here in Southern California for a good 5 weeks of training/ racing, with only 2 more weeks left. I have done almost all of the local races I could get in to, in the past 8 days alone 4 races. Due to my foreign license and the chaos among USCF race commisaires, I had the privilege to race all categories, from 1 to 4.
The first thing that came up on this topic, larger riders vs. small riders on flats and crits, I think is indeed something we can analyze on and on. On one particular training ride with my team this year, we were doing race simulation efforts, rotations on flats with a huge tailwind. All the others were bigger riders and even though I was definitely a lot fitter than them, they could keep up with me at all on climbs, in this situation, I was struggling. I felt like I am the
weak link and the season is coming, at eurotour races, etc., some 50-60 km/h intervals in crosswinds for a couple of minutes is not uncommon and you have to stay on the wheel in front of you, so I said, argh, I have gained a somewhat nice treshold power and still, I have problems here..
Now back to the observations regarding domestic US (SoCal) racing with some supporting data:
With my 1200 watts sprint, I have no any chance in a field sprint even in cat4... I have realized it quite fast, so I started racing aggressively, always in a break, from one break to another, chasing, etc... This resulted in quite high average wattages: first race, local crit, quite amateur cat4 field, sitting in the field, bad tactics, 255 W NP, something like my 3 hour tempo training ride - got 2nd once in a prime, 17th in final..so basically nothing, but it was a horribly
dangerous field, I would better not crash (there was a crash indeed).Another local crit, cat 4 field, similar to the one above but smaller, tuesday nights crit - attacking all the time and in breakaway, 340 W NP for 10 minutes, 300 W NP for an hour, including 2 "neutralizations" when the whole field has to slow down completely.. Quite a mess, but anyway, no any success, no matter what, the field somewhat always catches the breakaway..
Next up is a cat 4 downtown crit, a field of 120 riders, in breakaway 3 times, first one lasted some 6 laps, peak 10 min at 340 W NP, entire race 45 mins 315 W NP. The following day, 2 races back to back, first one is cat 3-4, riders that look somewhat better than the simple cat4 and they do ride better as well - no hesitation, after a couple of laps in breakaway again, lasted 4 laps, got 2nd in a prime only.. peak 10 mins at 330 W NP, complete race 45 mins 298 W NP. 20th in final sprint, peak 1250 W... 2 hours later, 30+ 1/2/3 -s, a field that looked quite good - now this was something, what I needed. Tough riding, nice cornering, windings, yet again there was one crash during winding tactics. I had no idea how fast this is gonna be - well it was fast - starting from 45 km/h going close to 48 near the end, no any tailwind on the course.
It turned out that I felt great - I was on Thurlow Roger's wheel for the most of the time :) - as I saw him provoking breaks all the time... A couple laps later I was in a breakaway and again, then back in peloton, rest up a bit, quite dynamic racing, I enjoyed it a lot - still, it only yielded 268 W NP for an hour, 44.3 km/h average..
Riders looked quite intimidating, huge, muscle bound, biceps popping out of skinsuits...I even had some sort of "minority feeling"... Fortunately it felt good that I could be in the party - but at sprint, no any chance... Considering my usual terrible moves in the final laps, I tried to move up quite good, and I finished around 20th in the field sprint - that equals nothing - but cash was 10 deep :)
Bottom line: there is only one race that has climbs, one day before my trip back home. Hope to score on that one...
