Maybe interested in racing?

Seattle-area racer ladies... well, it's happened. I'm starting to very tentatively get interested in joining a team, based on the good things I've heard from a number of racers I know. I'm not particularly competitive or dying to race, but I but what I'm looking for is the opportunity to get faster & stronger and have camaraderie with a group of women cyclists. I've kept well out of bike racing culture in the past, so I'm totally ignorant about how any of it works. Guess I'm just looking for some education on what it's like being on a team, commitments, requirements, where to start, that kind of thing.

Oh fudge I wrote up a whole ton of stuff then accidentally closed the window... Here goes again..

So, team recruitment around here is pretty much closed for the season. Here in Seattle we generally recruit in the September - November range. I know that some areas recruit year round but we have our reasons for keeping it this way here.

For one most of the teams around here usually don't have the money to have a lot of extra kits on hand and to race for a team you need a kit... We place one order per year, usually in Nov. so that we have our new kits in time for race season. The other reason is that if you recruit after race season is over you have time to get to know and train your new riders. Every new person is an unknown quantity as far as their experience in a group and their readiness to race. We take a lot of care to ride with our new people and we do a good number of clinics and training sessions to make sure that our newbies are going to be ready to race and safe when they get there. Taking a new person on in the middle of the year doesn't give you that opportunity and we never want to be the team that everyone whispers stay clear of those girls about....

That doesn't mean you can't try out racing this year if you want to, nor should you feel like you can't talk to women on teams. Most of the women in the racing community are very friendly and want to recruit. I would suggest talking to people *after* races rather than before though - most of us tend to be off in our own little world of nerves/warm up routine before a race and it may be hard to get or hold someone's attention.

I recall you've been doing some Cascade rides - have you done any actual pacelining? (I know some Cascade rides don't really allow it....) I mean drafting close and rotating right off the front in a continuous line, rather than having one person pull for a long time then go to the back? That I think really is the minimum for being able to try a pack race. I would also go gently if your experience in big groups is minimal. The women's 4 fields have been large at the beginning of the year recently - last year the maximum of 50 was met so many times that the USAC allowed the limit to be bumped up to 75 for this year. That's a big group of women to jump right into and it's not exactly like men's 5's where everyone is new. There's a fair number of veteran 4's who come back each year, so its a bit different.

If you want to get your toes wet I'd suggest TT's and Pacific Raceways, both of which are easy ways to give racing a try before jumping into a full scale road race.

TT season starts this Saturday! with another next Saturday. Since its just you and the road and the clock, with few rules to worry about and no pack to ride in, its an easy way to see if the racing bug catches you. Some TT's have a "retro" category for those who have no areo equipment, but be forewarned that its not split into CATs so there will likely be some 1's and 2's thrown into that mix... Not all 4's (especially the new ones) will be riding a lot of fancy areo stuff either though - most people don't buy it unless they've already been doing triathlons or have been racing for some time.

Pacific Raceways starts runs women's intro racing every other Tuesday starting at the end of March. It's a great low pressure place to learn to race and see if you enjoy the sport. It's generally broken up into total newbies and cat 4's and upper category women come down to ride along and coach. It's a very safe, controlled environment to learn to race and I highly recommend it. It's also a good place to meet some team women (one of our new 4's this year is a PR graduate from last year).

As far as team obligations go - each team is different. My team is a racing team. We recruit with the idea in mind that everyone who joins the team is interested in racing and will at very least try it. We don't have an absolute requirement to race to stay on the team, as we understand that sometimes life gets in the way, but we are a racing focused team as opposed to a club. We do have requirements - some of ours are at least two team task, working our team hosted race (no excuses for this one.... unless you have a birth, death, work commitment or some other real emergency you have to be there!), coming to at least two team rides per month in the winter (our team rides end when racing begins). We do require a minimum amount of racing to be eligible for race reimbursements. We are more strict than some teams and more lax than others.

Now that I've thrown a ton of information at you.... here's some places you can get a bit more.

Budu Racing runs the Pacific Raceways series http://www.buduracing.com/index.php

Our local racing association www.wsbaracing.com

Our national racing association www.usacycling.org

Feel free to ask any questions here in the forum or PM me.

If you want to get an insider view of a big race My team's race is on March 26th. I'll be driving the offical's (follow) car in the morning and lead car in the afternoon. I'd be willing to take you down and let you be a passenger, but you'd have to be willing to sacrifice your whole day unless you can drive yourself down and back.... I'll have to be there pretty ridiculously early (like leave here around 5:30, 6ish and probably won't be back in Seattle until late in the evening.

Eden, thanks for the comprehensive reply! :) I'm actually thinking of starting next season, since I know the season is already upon us. I think this season I'll start just watching some races to get a sense of what it's like -- and I may take you up on your offer of seeing your team's race from the inside.

I guess here's a question: What should I spend this season doing to be ready to join a team in the fall?

ETA: No, I've never ridden in a paceline. I know I don't have the handling skills, and on the Cascade rides I don't trust the other people enough anyway.

Doing the Cascade rides is a great way to keep and improve your fitness, even if you aren't getting a whole lot of true paceline experience in them. Keeping riding with them and working your way up through the groups would be a fine way to prepare to join a team in the fall.

If you really want to tailor what you are doing, keep in mind that beginning women's races aren't super long - generally 24 to 36 miles. Some long steady riding, is good for your fitness and good for base building, but it isn't the same as a shorter more strenuous ride. Where beginners usually fall behind are during surges and on hills, so practicing doing intervals and hill climbing on some of your rides is never a bad idea.


Don't forget to take breaks! Lots of beginners come in so gung-ho that they forget to take a rest every now and again. Racers usually take a month or so where they don't do any riding that isn't purely for fun because they feel like it - my October/November is generally like that, then I get back into getting slow, steady base miles come December.

While it certainly helps to come into fall with some group ride and some pacelining, but we get plenty of people who have neither, who do just fine. We have a number of people on the team who are coaches or otherwise just have a ton of experience and we will teach you pretty much everything you need (not all teams will do this though!) If you want a jump on it, Cycle U (http://www.cycleu.com/services/classes/roadClasses.html) does some classes - Road 101 goes over the basics and they have a few others that get into specifics like cornering and climbing.

As far as watching races goes, all of the races that happen close in to Seattle proper are criteriums - which is only one of the types of "road" racing (road races, criteriums, circuit races and time trials). They are probably the most fun to watch because the courses are short and there's always a lot of action going on to see. All of the others tend to happen a bit more out in the country - mainly because that's where there are roads that we can use that don't have a lot of traffic and a lot of hassle involved in closing them down (even if it is just a rolling enclosure). Road racing isn't really that much of a spectator sport anyway though - unless you are in a car or the race is big enough to have cameras following it, if you are just on the side of the road, its there and gone in an instant....

Races that are easy to watch - There are Thursday night training races at Seward park that will start up probably in March or April. They occur on the upper loop from (I think) 5:30 on. That will be mostly men - women can jump in with the guys if they want to, but there is no women only field. Throughout the year on weekend days there will be crits at Volunteer Park, Boat Street (in front of Recycled Cycles) in Ballard, in Woodinville, Fremont, Redmond and a few others. They are all listed on the WSBA web sites calendar.