Rob's Unsettling Guide to Road, Criterium and Track Racing...Or From E Grade to B Grade in however long it takes. Maybe even A grade...

An Unsettling and Disturbing Guide to Road, Criterium and Track Racing in Australia

Bike racing is like running, swimming, golf or any other sport. In fact it’s just like anything in life. Put the time and effort in and you’ll get better at it. It’s a simple equation, really, limited more by your own motivation or commitment than by any theoretical potential you may or may not possess. If you are looking for easy fitness and a sport that won’t take up much of your time, stop now - it doesn’t exist.

Multiple Australian and World Point Score medalist Gary Sutton was once reported to have replied to the question, What’s the secret to success in bike racing?, with the statement: Ride lots. Eddy Merckx is reported to have said the same. Let's face it, if you want to be good at something you practise it, over and over...

Simplistic, but not a bad thought - and don’t put it off, thinking that you won’t do well, or that you don’t have the time. This is a multi-level, multi-discipline sport with a niche for everyone. As the cliche goes, you won’t know if you don’t try.

OK, maybe some sports are easier on the body, are less risky, or consume less time. But we’ve settled here on something that does involve injuries (guaranteed), risk (a given) and a commitment of some sort. Hey, you can choose not to train and be happy racing in a lower grade, but don’t come to me after you’ve died from a mid-race heart attack and then ask my advice. You get out what you put in.

Bike racing is hard. It's a demanding sport that will suck hours out of your day and draw the sweat from your skin, whilst demanding top aerobic fitness, great lower body strength, quick wits and excellent hand-eye coordination. You need tactical nous, swift reflexes and a will to win. It ain’t easy. And that’s just C-grade.

On the starting line.

This is not intended to be a coaching manual for cyclists. However it may be thought of as a guide, a prompt, a pointer in the right direction. It may save you some time, it may send you straight to the nearest accredited coach. It may just be an interesting read. You will be the judge of that, and of what you do next…

Let's get tough right at the starting line. You should set yourself some achievable goals, first-up. To do that you need to know enough about the sport of cycling that you can make a reasonable call on what type and level of racing interests you.

Let’s face a few facts: the higher the grade or level of racing, the more commitment you need to give. The training is time-consuming, punctures happen all the time and falls hurt. More likely than not you will be 'dropped' in your first race, and many times thereafter; in fact you won't even get close to winning a race for months, if at all, and as soon as you do start winning you'll get put up to the next grade. So you can then get dropped all over again.

Of course you can be philosophical about all of this pain and heartache and just focus on the positives: you'll get fitter, build self-esteem and meet like-minded souls. Furthermore, bike racing justifies the purchase of a really good, lightweight road bike replete with all the bells and whistles, plus maybe a track bike, lots of spare wheels and endless copies of great cycling magazines. And it's better for you than watching television.

So why not, as they say, just do it.

In fact, why read about it. Get out there now and start riding!

Anyone still with me? Thought so. Part of the fun of any sport is having a good read, and bike racing is no exception. In fact there are countless books on the great riders, the great races, coaching manuals, magazines, touring guides, novels...you name it. There are videos and Internet Websites galore as well. And if you get two or more cyclists together at any one time then conversation - on cycling - will spontaneously occur. Guaranteed.

So why yet another string of sentences on the subject? Well, I have an angle here that hasn't yet been fully explored. This is a 'Realistic' Guide to Bicycle Racing in Australia, not a coaching manual or even a beginner's book. It doesn't glorify, nor does it diminish the experience or the effort. It's a collection of experiences, tips, anecdotes and suggestions that you may find helpful as you begin to race your bike. It may provide an insight that gets you up a grade, or it may help you plan and manipulate a race to suit your strengths. Maybe it will ring some bells for you, or maybe not.

Reading this will not provide any sort of guaranteed pathway to competitive success at the next Olympics. It's also not suggesting that you will reach B Grade in your local club competition, or even that you will progress any further than E Grade. I can't guarantee that you will finish even one race. However I am hoping that you will enjoy the read, and I'm attempting to share some hard earned knowledge that worked in a basic sense for me. So let's get started.

Oops, nearly forgot the bike.

It's self evident that you need a bicycle. The question is, which one? The red ones are quicker, by the way.

There are 5 main forms of bike racing in Australia, namely BMX, Mountain Bike, Road, Criterium and Track racing. There’s a sixth that I know of: you can also play football (read soccer) on a specially designed fixed wheel bike, but getting a team together may be difficult in this country!

As you can tell by the title of this essay, we are dealing with road, criterium and track here.

Road racing usually means, ahem, riding on a road, as against riding on a track. These races are out and back or point to point. So you are either going somewhere or nowhere or back to where you started. If you string several consecutive races together and add up overall times you get a stage race.

Distances vary according to grade, but road races are usually longer than a criterium, and sharp corners are the exception. So comfort matters more than outright handling, unless you have some technical high-speed mountain descents to consider. Hills are to be expected, so you need to be trained for some climbing and have the gearing to suit the course. Usually you will have 53 and 39 teeth chainrings, although 52/42 is common as well. At the rear you may have an 11 or 12 tooth sprocket as your "big" gear, and a ‘granny gear’ of 21-23 teeth to get you home after being dropped on a climb. Plus all the other sizes in between. Expect to race 30 to 60km for most club-level races, 40 to 100km for open competitions. However you may race up to 230km in a big classic one-day race like the Grafton to Inverell.

Road handicaps and timetrial events are also held, with specialized timetrial bikes an option.

Criteriums can be held on roads or closed tracks (not velodromes) and are typically shorter and faster than road races. Hills are unlikely but possible, corners are to be expected and excellent bike handling is needed. The bike will not be as comfortable but will handle with aplomb; the bottom bracket may be higher than for a true road bike and the cranks shorter, so that pedaling through a corner is possible. Gearing will be like a standard road bike, except that you won’t need a granny gear. 18 or 19 teeth are all you need at the back.

Track or Velodrome racing involves a specialized bike: just one fixed gear (ie no freewheeling) and no brakes. Gearing from 47 to 53 teeth on the chainring, 14 to 16 teeth on the rear sprockets. A variety of events take place, from scratch races to handicaps, timetrials to pursuits. The racing is usually in the evening under lights and the tracks are short and banked, with the steepest banking reserved for the shortest tracks. These races are very fast and exceptional bike skills are needed.

Three bikes, then? Although not ideal, you can usually get away with the same bike for both road and criterium racing, but track racing requires a suitable, fixed wheel, ‘look mum, no-brakes’ bike. If you haven't got a clue, stop now and start looking in bike shops, reading magazines and asking around. Join a club, start learning. Get carried away…

A Loungechair on wheels…or something sporty?

If you want to push the point, in a nutshell you will be looking for a comfortable, easy-handling bike for road racing and a quick-handling, higher-clearance machine for criteriums. A blend of the two is a nice compromise, and how you arrive at that compromise will be trial and error – unless you instinctively know that you want an unstable, flighty, jumpy road rocket and will settle for nothing less. (I personally have never had more than 3 road bikes, all different in character, at any one time.)

Bikes, character? In some respects bikes are bikes – 2 wheels, cranks, chain, pedals, saddle et al. However there are the wanky looking carbon single piece frames, the conventional triangled tube effect and many variations in between. But that’s not really character, as I see it. It may be style, it may be substance…but not character!

Character is the way the bike handles, how it jumps, how it leans into a corner… Some bikes are built short and high in the bottom bracket, with steep frame angles to give you ‘jump’ out of corners, lifting the front wheel like a 500cc racing motorcycle; which is nice, if a little nervous. You don’t want that all of the time. You find yourself leaning forward, pushing that front wheel down (and thereby encouraging that back wheel to lift!). Sounds like a good criterium (‘crit’) bike to me!

Other, less steep frame angles give a more relaxed approach, where things happen slower and you can take your hands off the bars, get that energy bar out of your back pocket, change out of that rainjacket and write a note home to mum without finding yourself falling road-wards. Now that’s a road bike – it won’t embarrass you at a feeding station.

Even when you have the frame angles the way you want them, you can still tweak the bike by changing seat height, stem length and height, crank length, gearing… you name it. It will all have an effect of some sort, it’s just a matter of what effect you want.

Get some help, and do be careful, won’t you?

Firstly, whatever you do, get plenty of opinions, and be prepared to try different ideas. I know one 70 year old who is still adjusting his position after over 50 years of racing!

Secondly, when making changes, make only small adjustments, and each one in isolation, to give your body some time to adjust to that new position. By making big changes and then doing a long training ride I managed to injure my knees and put myself off the road for a few weeks. It's a painful lesson. Don't be tempted.

Sizing things up, or getting framed

You will get the hang of what you need, bike-wise, by looking around and comparing. Feel some bikes, pick them up, sit on as many as you can, do some test rides, and, if you are lucky, buy one that fits you. Then ride it and get that immediate urge to change a few things. For which my advice is, don’t be rash. If you haven’t had a lot of experience on a lightweight high performance bike before it will feel odd. Flighty. Maybe uncomfortable. Too quick in the steering. Too…uncompromising? Just strange. You may not think so after a few hundred kilometres in the saddle, however.

I won’t attempt to give you bike set-up advice beyond my own experience, so here are some measurements that have worked for me.

I’m about 169cm tall, and for riders around that height I’d suggest frame sizes between 53 and 55cm. Remember, smaller frames are lighter and stiffer, but if too small will compromise balance and comfort. And you will risk damage to components as well as yourself!

Handlebars, for frames between 51 and 55cm should be about 38 or 39cm wide, but shouldn’t cramp you or spread your arms too widely. Shoulders vary in width, but generally speaking arms should comfortably fall onto the drops without any serious effort. You shouldn’t feel ‘splayed’ when you tuck down into the drops of the handlebars.

Your own dimensions are vital, but I lean towards stem extensions of about 9 or 10cm. You used to be able to buy goosenecks that allowed variation, and some modern examples exist, but are less common.

Cranks are usually about 170cm, however you may prefer the leverage of a longer crank, especially for road racing or timetrialling. Riders taller than myself tend towards longer cranks, and lengths from 172.5 up to 180cm are options; but you will find that you lose the suppleness of your spin and may tend towards grovelling in a big gear. Nothing worse, really. There are formulas to determine the supposed optimum, but trial and error is OK too, as long as you don't go to extremes and injure yourself.

Shorter cranks are suited to track bikes and criteriums, where touching a pedal on the banking or in a corner is not a good idea. I was once racing on a street circuit where we were sharing the road with the local Sunday morning traffic. I broke away from the bunch up a short, short rise and put a bit of distance into them. So when I arrived at the next left-turn I was alone, without the benefit of a big, highly visible bunch. Ahead of me was a car about to turn right across my path.

Many times have I been in this situation – will that car give way, or won’t it? Well, it did, but not before I was distracted enough to turn into the corner a bit late, sharpening the bend. I was riding my road bike, a Colnago, rather than my regular criterium bike and I completely forgot about the longer cranks and lower bottom bracket.

In an instant, at bottom dead centre of the left-hand crank rotation, my pedal struck the road and levered my rear wheel into the air. The bike went up and sideways in one motion, before settling. I didn’t come off but I lost time getting my balance back and found myself heading for the median strip. Rather than turn harder to the left and try to miss it, I went over it, or tried to, anyway.

When I landed I was flat on my back, the bike was up the road and I had (luckily) somersaulted a post and a small bush, to end up facing from whence I had come. The bike was in one piece, just a few scratches and nothing broken. No damage to the rider, just stunned embarrassment.

Wheely interesting stuff

Wheels come in many types these days, with designs varying from the standard spoked style, the aero rim, the carbon fibre bladed ‘spoke’, the carbon or kevlar disc or a combination of these materials and designs. You should consider strength, lightness and susceptibility to crosswinds, and again fit the choice to your intended use.

Timetriallers may find the poor crosswind performance of a disc wheel acceptable given the excellent stiffness and power delivery of a disc wheel. Road racers may prefer a compromise, or simply stay with the proven spoked wheel.

Rims come in two basic designs, singles or high pressures. A ‘single’ or ‘tubular’ style, where the tyres are all sewn into one piece and the tyre is glued into place is a traditional high performance racing setup, for road or track; whilst the ‘high pressure’ beaded tyre, like a conventional car tyre, has come to dominate in recent times.

Singles rims are very light yet inherently strong, but the u-shaped high pressure rim has improved in strength and weight, whilst offering the easier repair and convenience of a modular design. Singles are probably still preferred at an elite level, but you need to contemplate the added initial expense, the need to carry complete spare tyres with you rather than just spare tubes, and the risks involved in rolling a poorly glued single off the rim.

Yes, I’ve seen it done. Once in a criterium held on Sydney’s scenic Mrs Macquarie’s Rd, where the almost-180 degree bottom corner is taken quite fast, and the poorly-glued tyre came straight off. Another time a fall on the track caused a front wheel to twist hard right in a instant. In the first case the rider got away with just bruises; in the second example, despite the tyre not causing the fall, the rider received a suspension from racing, courtesy of the Cycling Federation. Such is life.

Even if you aren’t racing, even a simple puncture whilst training will result in a spare single being slipped on, and it won’t be glued on quite like the one you just punctured…

Spokes are still used in the standard wheel and offer a good compromise between cost and performance. If you are light enough you could consider using fewer spokes. The 36-spoke wheel is strong and will withstand potholes and kerbs better than a 32, 28 or a 24 spoke wheel. If the roads you race and train on are fairly smooth and acne-free, and if you are 70kgs or less, 32 spoke wheels are fine. Even 28 is OK, but will require more frequent truing of the wheel.

Track wheels can have fewer spokes because the velodrome is usually pretty bump-free. Also, a track rim will be lighter because it is unlikely to encounter a pothole or a kerb.

You can mix and match wheels, of course, with different types of rim front and rear (stronger at the rear, because more of your weight and all of your power go through that wheel).

Because the wheels rotate, they generate both a gyroscopic effect and a forward (or backward, as the case may be) momentum that keeps the whole show on the road. Heavy wheels may not exactly assist you in moving off from rest, or in climbing a hill, but they will be very stable and, as the weight is concentrated at the rim, will tend to assist in conserving your momentum. Or so I like to tell myself!

You may deduce from the preceding paragraph two things; one, that light wheels are a good idea when climbing hills or accelerating and two, that I will go to great lengths to justify my use of (relatively) heavy wheels. Correct on both counts.

My lightest wheels (24 spoke singles) go out of true or even break spokes after just two or three hundred kays. I proved this by road racing my 24 spokers on rough country NSW roads one weekend and snapping spokes the very next time I went training. Why I went training on them I don’t know, but I’m glad they didn’t let go during a race!

24 spoke wheels are too flexy to use on my regular criterium circuit, as well. They feel like mush when cornered at speed. But they are nice to look at and are invaluable as spares to my 32-spoke high pressures!

Spoked wheels are fun. They are an intellectual challenge, like chess. It starts with the number of spokes you want, the type of spoke (round, flat, double-butted?) and the type of rim. Then, how to build it? Radial spoking – no crossing spokes at all – look cool and are stiff, making good front wheels for lighter riders. Or one cross, as a compromise? Crossing four is not as stiff as 3-cross but will last longer. No matter what style, they all need to be kept straight and true, whilst also being round. They have to be stiff, so that power is delivered with effect, whilst compliant enough that spokes don’t break. Maybe those carbon-bladed wheels are worth the price after all!

If you go with spokes, buy yourself a spoke key so that you can make those minor adjustments yourself. And carry it with you, so that you can take a minor bend out of your rim when the inevitable happens and you break a spoke.

Hubs are cool too. Did I mention that you need to choose hubs? Yep, sealed bearings or normal cup and ball bearings. Lightweight or robust. Small flange (the ends, where the spoke holes are) for less weight, less cost and more comfort, or large flange for stiffness. Track hubs are usually large flange.

Rims? Don’t get me started…