Criteriums

[Tuckervill]

Hey, crit racers. I have a question for you. My cycling club is hosting the Arkansas State Road Race this year and they have decided to have a criterium, as well. We went out and checked out a route, and we think we found a good one. It's about a mile in length, with inside and outside corners. But I'm just curious how the most experienced racers might find our course.

What would be an ideal criterium course to you?

Thanks!
Karen

[Eden]

It's hard to say without seeing the actual layout of the streets - where the corners are is as important as how many and which direction.

A mile is a bit long for a crit course - we just had one last weekend that was 1.1 miles and it was probably the longest course I've seen. The result of that is not necessarily bad - fewer riders had to be pulled because it was pretty difficult to get lapped, but it felt less like a crit than a very short circuit race. It also meant way fewer laps - so less for spectators to see and fewer laps to hand out primes - the 4 women were getting them what felt like constantly because they were only going to be doing 8 or so laps in the time alloted. In general crit courses, at least in this region, are two to three city blocks long and one to two wide, depending on the length of a city block in that area.

A few pointers for first time crit organizers:

Get all the cars out well ahead of time. We have a crit that is almost always delayed because there are still cars parked on the course and they haven't make arrangements to get them towed in enough time.

Check the road surface and mark bad potholes - grates etc with florescent paint.

Have a source of lots of hay bales - make sure anything dangerous is padded, especially around corners.

[SheFly]

I agree with Eden that 1 mile sounds a bit on the long side for a crit. Last week, I did a race that was a 1.2 mile loop, and they used road race rules.

Are there hills on the circuit? That could also make a difference, especially in the difficulty level. And also agree with Eden's recommendations - especially the hay bales. I've seen lots of people need them, and had a teammate injured when a sign post didn't have them, and she ran into it.

Good luck with the race! Sounds fun.

SheFly

[Tuckervill]

The course is flat...not pancake flat, but there are no obvious hills. The neighborhood is one of those where the roads and streetlights were put in, but the developer couldn't sell any lots, and probably went bankrupt. We'd have to mow it.

The subdivision has an outer loop shaped like a rectangle, except one end has a long dog leg in it before it makes that final corner. This would be the best part of the course, where all the action would happen, in my opinion. The dog leg is long, so it wouldn't be immediate turns one after the other. The outer rectangle is bisected by a small-h shaped set of streets. This could be used to shorten the course, I think. That would probably make it about 3/4 of a mile, depending on how they wind through there.

Luckily, the pavement is still brand spankin' new, and aside from beer bottles thrown out, it's all good. No houses, so there won't be any cars. If we didn't use the entire outer rectangle for the course, than one end of the 'hood near the entrance could be used for parking, if we mowed the lots down. There happens to be about 20 of the big round hay bales sitting in the middle of the the neighborhood. Those are two big for guarding a sign, but we could use them around corners or something.

Thanks for your input!

Karen

[Tuckervill]

Well, it kinda looks like this drawing. All the streets are deadends except for the one that bisects the outer rectangle (the bottom side) and the short little line on the left, which are both entrances.

Karen

[sundial]

Are you going to crit race? :)

[smilingcat]

??? +1 about the distance.

Not too crazy about the three dog leg sections. Like the long straight way on the top of the drawing. When you come to the end of the straight away, is the turn really tight? or the streets really narrow? Someone is bound to go into the corner "hot" and crash. Sometimes peloton gets caught up in it. Make sure the ending corner for the long straight away has lot of straw bale and "balloon" like crash barriers. It seems every year crash 4/5 men's crit have a serious crash at Manhattan Beach Grand Prix here in So Cal. A long straight away with 50 foot climb, followed by sharp right hand turn and immediate right turn again for 180 degree turn. The first corner someone goes in too hot. goes over the curve, riders following (inexperienced rider will hit the brake) and big-ol pile up. Not pretty. Last year someone broke their arm. year before that someone broke some other bone... :(

Oh where are you planning to put the staging area/start/finish... I like to see them about 100yards from the last turn.

Let us know how it goes. BTW, I don't race LOL :p

[Tuckervill]

Uh, NO I'm not racing!

The turns are not tight, and there is a pretty good straightaway in between them all. I imagine the start/finish would be on the long straightaway at the top of the drawing. The streets are nice and wide, probably 2-1/2 lanes.

I watch the Joe Martin Stage Race Criterium once in a while, in Fayetteville, and it has HILLS--in fact, it's an uphill finish, and there are quite a few crashes on one or two of the corners. There's a huge, long descent on Dickson Street, and this is where most of the wrecks happen. Our course is much wider and flatter than that course.

I think it will be a good course.

Karen

[Eden]

Sounds like a great course for a crit - new pavement, wide roads. Cut the distance a bit and it sounds perfect. I'd suggest putting the start/finish in the middle of one of the long straights. Makes it a less dangerous sprint.

[aicabsolut]

Yeah, sounds pretty good. A lot of crits have at least one hill in them, but obviously, it depends on terrain. I find that safer flat crits involve some turns, especially chicanes. This helps to string things out a bit, and if you have nice wide lanes, then that helps, too. It's flat, wide open, and fast all the time (i.e. minimal slowing for turns) that can have some nasty crashes because people start doing stupid stuff, like thinking they have the entire road in a slight turn when in reality they are 6 wide and riding mid-pack. This isn't just because I favor technical courses :D.

[sundial]

There's a huge, long descent on Dickson Street, and this is where most of the wrecks happen.

I remember as a student at UA when Fayetteville got about 12 inches of snow. Students were running outside with cafeteria trays and using them as a sled whilst they flew down Dickson St.

[Tuckervill]

Ha! yeah, they were going down the other end of Dickson. I didn't know you were a student at UofA. :)

Karen

[sundial]

I don't mention it often cuz I'm Texas A&M at heart. ;)

[Andrea]

Every crit has its own personality. Some of them are made difficult by the terrain, all are made difficult by the racers.

A "dangerous" spot is just part of crit racing that makes it crit racing. If you took out pavement cracks, holes, lids, and narrow downhill, off-camber turns, that'd be like taking roots and rocks off of a mountain bike course... or taking the Hautecam out of The Tour :D

[Julibird]

There's a dogleg/s-curve section in a local training crit that comes before a straightaway and a 90 degree turn. I've seen three things typically happen: either there's a lot of jockeying around at this place as people try to get into a better position, or the bunch sort of slows down and a lull happens before a surge to get to the next corner, or someone uses this spot to attack in the last lap to tire out people before the field sprint.

Your course looks similar. It looks fun.

Do they have the whole road?

[Tuckervill]

Yep, the whole road. :)

I haven't heard if the powers that be have approved the course yet, but we'll see.

Karen