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Criterium Skills and Sprinting
by Karen Brems
Criteriums are pretty much an exclusively American form of racing.
They can be rather frightening for beginning racers because of the
pack skills required. Once you get used to them though, they can be
a lot of fun because there is always something going on in the race.
Often you get spectators to cheer and usually some primes to sprint
for during the race. Criteriums are popular with people who have limited
training time because they don’t require the mileage base that road
racing does. They do require a lot of high intensity training though.
Criteriums are a good place to test race tactics. You can try making
attacks and going for the primes without too much fear of getting dropped
if you get tired. If you are comfortable in a pack, it is relatively
easy to sit in and recover. Practice your sprint by going for
primes. The first skill necessary for a good criterium is getting
a good starting position and getting clipped in when the gun goes
off. Practice clipping into your pedals without looking at them and
accelerating whenever you get stopped at a red light. You don’t want
to have to spend the first couple of laps trying to chase or move up.
Good cornering ability is essential for being successful in criteruims.
You should never have to brake in a corner if you follow the right
line. There is a flow to the pack through a corner and you should follow
it. Generally, corners are not a good place to move up. You may make
up at most one position, and you will probably make someone mad! The
best way to learn how to corner is to follow someone who is good.
This can be by doing the twilight training crits, group rides or doing
races that include higher categories. When going around a corner,
relax your upper body, bend your elbows, keep your hands on the drops
and have your outside pedal down with your weight on it. It is actually
much easier to ride near the front of a pack that at the back.
At the back, you will almost certainly have to brake in the corners
(because someone else did) and accelerate back out of them. This takes
a lot of energy and is known as the “yo-yo effect”. The front
of the pack goes a constant pace and the back strings out and comes back
just like a yo-yo.
The last essential criterium skill is sprinting. There are 3 important
things about sprinting: 1) position 2) position and 3) position. Unless
the course has a very unusually long start-finish straight, if you
are not in the top 3 out of the last corner, you will not win. Ever.
In many races, the race actually comes down to a race for the last
corner. You will not be able to improve your position by more than
one or two places after the last corner, even if you are the fastest
sprinter in the field. During the last few laps, do not be afraid
to be out in the wind a little if it keeps you in good position. The
basic rule for the last laps of a crit is to always have access to
the front in case someone decides to surge.
If you have several members of a team at a race, you can lead out
the best sprinter. The purpose of the leadout is to maximize the chances
of the best sprinter winning the race by keeping them in a good position
in the final laps without the sprinter having to expend a lot of energy.
For this to happen, the leadout must be FAST! Usually a leadout will
start with one or two laps to go, and it may take several leadout people
to keep the speed up: for example, the first person goes as hard as
they can for half a lap with 1 lap to go, then they pull off and the
next person goes as hard a they can for half a lap and finally the
sprinter goes at 200m. This is known as a “train” and you will see
it all the time in Pro races. You can also have a “sweeper” which is
a teammate who sits on the sprinter’s wheel and makes sure nobody else
is on it. If the sweeper stays on the sprinter’s wheel all the way
to the line, they can get 2nd or 3rd, thus maximizing the team placings.
The sweeper has to be aggressive about holding their position though
because everyone wants the wheel of a good sprinter.
The leadout must be fast enough to stifle any urges of other teams
to attack or swarm around the leader. Often you will see teammate from
team A leading out her sprinter for a lap at some relatively fast
pace, only to have team B swarm up the side with half a lap to go
some 2-4 mph faster. One of the best ways to learn how to sprint is
to be a leadout rider. This is because it will give you a mission to
get to the front at the end of a race. It is always easier to ride
AT the front than NEAR the front. It will also help you build
up your own speed.
Sprint workouts
Sprinting utilized a different energy delivery system than other
forms of racing. Your muscles use mainly creatine phosphate when sprinting.
This form of energy allows for very high power output, but it is gone
in 10-15 sec. To replenish creatine phosphate stores in your muscles
requires a relatively long time - 5 min. or so. This is why it is important
when doing sprint workouts to recover fully in between efforts. You
don’t want to train yourself to go slow. You should do your sprint
workout early in the week when you are freshest. Sprinting also requires
coordination and upper body strength and therefore must be practiced.
A good sprint workout consists of a thorough warm-up, maybe with
a few short, small-geared jumps and then 5-8 all-out sprints of 15-20
sec. with 5 min. or so between efforts. To work on pure speed, get
yourself rolling (say 18-20mph) and then sprint as hard as you can
in the gear that allows you to go the fastest. To work on strength
and acceleration, you can do “power sprints”. This is where you start
at very low speed (5 mph) in a big gear (53x13 or 53x14) and accelerate
as hard as you can for 15 sec. Sprinting requires a lot of strength
and a winter weight program can really benefit here. Track sprint specialists
hit the weight room year around. It is good to do sprint workouts
with a partner or a small group for extra motivation. You can also
look at max. speed on your cycling computer for each effort to gauge
progress.
Sprinting is a combination of leg speed and power. To work on leg
speed and coordination, try some of your sprints on a slight downhill
or with a tailwind. To work on power, do them uphill or into the wind.
A few tailwind or downhill sprints are a good way to “wake up your
legs” the day before a race or as part of your criterium warm-up. |
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