Road Racing Year in Review (2023)

Road season felt good! I still think I have a lot to learn, but I feel like I made a ton of progress relative to last year.

Recap / Stats

Next year I swear I’ll keep this part shorter.

Season 1 (2021): Cat 5. Bad at racing, relatively strong. Did bad my first two races then the 3rd one was hard enough that we dropped most of the field trying to chase back a solo rider (who apparently dropped “down to 280W, sweet spot, when I realized yall weren’t going to catch me”; my FTP at the time was about 260W). Catted up to 4 and promptly got destroyed at the back of the field.

The first year that I tried racing Intelligentsia Cup, and I got rekt so hard I got pulled every single day.

Season 2 (2022): Really went ham racing crits this year, plus the classic Boulder Roubaix dirt road race. I was struggling to hang onto the cat 4 pack, but I was lasting longer than 2021 and placing in the top 50%. The highlight, other than Intelli, was Longmont Criterium (I think it was the SM state champs, too). I was hanging in the top 10 wheels, launching some attacks, it felt phenomenal, much better than the rest of the races stuck trying to survive the washing machine. Thing is… it was mostly because I was terrified of taking corners 3 wide with the rest of the field, so I’d half-attack and get away for a bit then the field would eventually catch me.

Intelligentsia Cup again, though. Absolute blast. Had been at sea level for about a week and the legs felt godlike. Could sprint over and over and over and still recover for the next time around. I placed really well the first day, 8th, lost some due to being super cautious in my first rainy crit the next day to finish 15th, and then got absolutely shellacked in the easier 4-corner crit.

Season 3 (2023): Fewer crits this year, both out of a dying road scene and just a busy life schedule that seemed to have more conflicts with racing. Still only did one road race (Fountain) which was absolutely obliterating due to huge crosswinds and a guttering peloton.

This season I didn’t really have issues surviving in the main pack until the end of a race, but I did struggle to finish well. The first few races, I would be there til the end and then have such dead legs that I’d slow roll across for one of the last spots in the pack.

One thing I and a couple of friends who helped analyze my GoPro footage noticed was that I was really bad at taking corners. I’d slow up way too much coming into them, costing me a lot of wasted energy sprinting back out of them to maintain my position. Frankly, I was scared of taking corners with other riders around, and it was costing me dearly. I would even notice it, too, but couldn’t get over my mental block enough to quit it, until I finally just said “fuck it” and tried railing corners like I wanted to. No crashes. Totally fine. And it really helped my fear by seeing that it was okay to do. (One tip a good racer gave me was to look out at the line you want, but also keep your peripheral vision on the riders around you so that you can adjust your line a bit to keep from hitting them if they veer at all; I found this worked really great and helped shut up that part of my brain screaming at me when I went through a corner fast.

I also learned from the previous year that I should be moving up more, trying to stay in those top 5-10 wheels to avoid the washing machine. It’s not always possible, but spotting those killer opportunities where the field stalls out and you can carry momentum all the way up is so helpful at making sure you’re there & ready at the end of a race.

Intelligentsia Cup, once again, was my main goal, especially with the state champs crit cancelled (& the state designation assigned to a different race I had a conflict with). I didnt have the same level of sea level adaption, only arriving a couple days before the first race, and I think I noticed it a bit. I also feel like the field this year was bigger - 44/75/70 vs last year’s 28/48/44 and more stacked. With no better legs than the year before, I didn’t do as well, losing the field on the last few laps of West Dundee and finishing 27th in Glen Ellyn. But then I had my corner “fuck it” moment and went way stronger at Winfield, finishing in the USAC upgrade points (11/70, barely).

Following Intelligentsia, I also managed to snag 9th at Littleton Twilight for a second USAC upgrade point.

Year	Avg Power (Avg)	Normalized Power (Avg)	Season Points (Avg 5 Best Points)
2021	234 W	279 W	499.96
2022	230 W (-4 W)	279 W (+0 W)	402.08 (-97.88)
2023	276 W (+46 W)	284 W (+5 W)	384.08 (-16.99)

Thoughts

So, honestly, huge improvement over last year!

From a numbers perspective (yes, numbers aren’t everything, optimize for using the least amount of energy, etc., but it’s still useful especially when there are fitter people out there):

Average power: Massive spike. Being able to put out 275W instead of 230W is a massive boon
Normalized power: Very very small spike! This is honestly really fascinating… I’m managing to keep the relative variablity index (normalized / average) a lot lower, meaning my power is a bit more consistent. I think this tracks with a lot less time stuck on the very back of the pack. A lot less time stuck in the washing machine where we’d brake into every corner & sprint back out.
Points: Progress progress progress! I don’t think these are perfect at describing overall improvements, but I do think they’re a good rough estimate. And these pair well with how I feel like I was racing - the races I feel most proud about are the ones where I got hella points (more than last year).

I remember the first race of the season, I normalized 297W, and I was like, no fucking way. The power meter has to be broken. I changed the battery and calibrated it half a dozen times over the next week until another crit. And wham averaged 299W.

Overall, I feel like this year, I was a lot stronger in terms of repeatability, being able to do those hard efforts out of every corner (mostly bc too far back / bad cornering skills, but still) and it paid off by always being in the lead pack by end of the race.

Still have a lot to work on in terms of preserving energy / legs so that I can be more competitive at the end of a race. I’m definitely getting better at cornering and that’s helpful, but I also need to work on better reading the field: finding the right moments to carry speed & move up a bunch. Especially towards the end of the race, I need to be able to find the right wheels to get up to / stay in the top 5-10 wheels going into the final few laps when things really take off.

I also… don’t think I’ve got that impressive of a sprint. When I first started cycling, I had a powerlifter background (not a good one, but college was mostly spent doing big lifts), so I was able to hit 1200W out the gate, with no endurance to allow me to use it. I feel like that’s not gone up at all (which is fine!) and the highest I’ve managed to actually hit in a race is like 8-900W.

I think it’s a bit premature to try and peg myself as a specific type of rider (breakaway, sprinter, etc.) but I do think that if I want to be winning field sprints, I would probably need to actually break 1k watts and have the right position to use it. Like, Intelligentsia Day 3 (Winfield), I was 8th wheel or so out of the final corner & managed to hang onto that place, but I didn’t have any better legs to actually pick off anyone either.

Regardless, I feel like the last month or so of racing everything really started to click, and it’s a little sad that it was the end of the season.

Next season goals, besides better fitness / FTP obviously, are probably mostly working on prioritizing rest during the race & finding the right opportunities to move up easily and maybe put in some break attempts, and then figure out how to handle the last few laps so that I can put myself into better positions come final sprint time.