My First Race Coming Soon -

Keep your hands always ready to use the STI brake lever whenever you go into a corner ! I made this mistake in my first criterium race and then I couldn't brake and ran into a corner. Flip over the handlebars and could have broke my back except for a hay bale.

philhudson said:

Hi

My fisrt Crit at Eastway is coming up soon. So what do I need to prepare, what needs to be in my tool kit, and what do I need to do before it?
Also any tips will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers Phil

I'm sure you know this, but I can't believe how many people do it half-assed or not at all: warm up!

My fisrt Crit at Eastway is coming up soon. So what do I need to prepare, what needs to be in my tool kit, and what do I need to do before it?
Also any tips will be greatly appreciated.

That's great! Biggest tip is to try and stay in the first 10 riders or so and keep pushing your way to stay there. Folks say if you're not moving up, you're moving back, but be careful to find a good, stable wheel and take good lines into the corners. You shouldn't have to brake at all if you can stay towards the front. But don't be on the front taking the wind and don't let anyone guilt you into doing it.

Usually there will be a moment in your first races when you don't think you can hang on anymore, if you can push past it, you'll do well.

chris
ne iowa

Cheers for the advice guys, all very useful!

Warm up. You might want to add interval. Just riding around the parking lot is not going to help much.

Stay up front. If you don't, you gonna end up losing lots of energy and might get dropped off.

Be aggressive. But don't be an ass.

Learn as much as possible.

You will find out how much you can push yourself through out the race. My first race was 40 min. crit. Even though I got dropped off, I managed to average 26mph (42Km/H). We constantly went over 30mph, which it was amazing. My HR averaged above 180: thought i was going to die. 😉

Good luck and enjoy!