Specific Race Questions...

[SheFly]

While "teams" may be full (also sounds odd to me at the Cat 4 level), clubs should have room for you! If you can find a cycling club that has a presence at the races, associate yourself with them. They may also offer things like race clinics for new racers (our club does, for instance, and ANYONE can join the club and race with us).

Yes, all breaks will be chased down.

Repeat: don't be "on" the front, but being in the top 5 is a good place to be. In Cat 4 races (or higher, for that matter), once you are on the front doing the work, no one from another team is going to pull through to help you out - they want YOU to do all of the work (and yes, I unfortunately have learned this the hard way).

Enjoy and be safe. That means being predictable, and staying AWAY from the back of the pack. Will be fun to hear reports on how you are doing!

SheFly

[Eden]

While "teams" may be full (also sounds odd to me at the Cat 4 level), clubs should have room for you! If you can find a cycling club that has a presence at the races, associate yourself with them. They may also offer things like race clinics for new racers (our club does, for instance, and ANYONE can join the club and race with us).

Probably depends on your location. Up here in the PNW there are very few (like one) team that also has a purely recreational club component, at least that I know of. For the teams recruiting happens once a year in the fall and at that point the rosters close -some of it is about making sure riders are trained and safe, but a lot is also due to logistical things, like getting kits ordered. Most, well I should say all, of our teams are much smaller than yours, so having extra kits in many sizes available at any time of the year just isn't possible.

Every once in a while a rider comes along who is exceptional, one that we wouldn't want to slip away and they get invited on at in the middle of the season, but to my knowledge we've only made that exception once. At times we will recruit cross riders during the season - but that's kind of different, being much more of a solo sport, the numbers being small (generally only one or two) and it also means they will be with us for a winter training season before they represent us on the road.

[aicabsolut]

I get the kit order thing, but it's not exactly mid-season right now. If a club is large, there is probably someone willing to sell you a jersey at least if you miss the order. That's really all a cat 4 needs.

On the plus side, at least most races don't charge unattached fees for the lowest categories.

I should maybe clarify, in cat 4 races, it's not always that teams won't work together (or will chase each other down, though I have seen this happen several times). A lot of the time, fitness levels and individual strengths are all over the board on a cat 4 squad. So, say you're a good sprinter. What are the odds that, as a cat 4, you will have a good leadout on your team, even if you could convince that person that you deserve to be led out? It works out. You can find some allies in the field that have a similar style to yours, and you can work together sometimes. Particularly when the fields are so small...there's a bit more sharing the load going on.

[Eden]

I guess its just a different culture up here. You never see a team racer with just a jersey unless they are having issues with the chamois in their team shorts. On my team, we will certainly make an exception for someone dealing with saddle sores, but we do require at minimum that all team members buy 1 jersey and 1 pair of shorts and that they wear them to race in.

Recruiting is pretty organized. All of the teams that aren't invitation only recruit in September, close their rosters in October or even earlier and get kit orders in by Nov/early Dec, so that we have them for the first races at the end of February.

We have smallish teams, but a lot of them. I can think of about 10-12 that are co-ed, ours is all women, and there are 6 or 7 more at least that are all men. They range in size from 10 or so people to probably 100 or more for the biggest co-ed teams. Our cat 4 fields these days are big - 50 rider max fields have been filling up at many races. We even have a separate women's 3's field in a lot of races these days too because we have enough racers to merit it.

[aicabsolut]

Yeah, but just because a team might tell racers to wear the full kit doesn't mean you have to under USAC rules. Around here, clubs are ecstatic about getting new female racers.

[SheFly]

Eden - shows the regional differences in racing. In fact, sounds like I am living in the TOTALLY WRONG PART OF THE COUNTRY for women's racing!

In the Northeast, we are like aicabsolut - ecstatic to get new racers, and I am always recruiting...

Glad that you get the message about ON vs. AT the front of the race . Of course, that's easy for you to say NOW. Let me know how that plays out

SheFly

[smilingcat]

If there is a pre-race meeting, do listen carefully. Some people got into trouble because they didn't show up in the staging area before going into the start area. Instead, they showed up directly on the start line (and that was a MAJOR NO NO at one race)...

At TT, some people/team got into big trouble for setting up one of those 10x10 canopy and was warming up underneath... to riding up and down the course for warm up.

Enjoy your race and I'll just smile and watch all the racers suffer. I'm too old for this stuff anyway.

have fun...

[Eden]

Eden - shows the regional differences in racing. In fact, sounds like I am living in the TOTALLY WRONG PART OF THE COUNTRY for women's racing!

In the Northeast, we are like aicabsolut - ecstatic to get new racers, and I am always recruiting...

SheFly

I've never raced elsewhere (just up here in Washington and down in Oregon), but I have got the idea that we have a very large and very active women's field up here in the PNW (my team is all women, we have about 80 this year, most are active road racers, three quarters are cat 4s). It is an interesting experience to be in a field of 80+..... our 1,2,3 field at the Walla Walla stage race had that many last year. Thankfully this year we will have an entirely separate 3's - though it may not be too much smaller..... On the first day of registration there were already 30 or 40 women signed up.

It hasn't been that long though. Probably less than 10 years ago there weren't enough women to separate any of the fields. It used to be 1-4's all in the same races. Throw people in the deep end and they sort out quite quickly. The ones who stayed with it tended to be the strongest, and are often the women who still are winning today. Now there is almost always a separate 4's field, so it is easier to stick with it longer. It's a good thing. It means more participation. The people who are really strong can move up and those who need to develop don't end up dropped, alone and discouraged at every race. It's also meant our 3's field has had an opportunity to grow, which in turn will grow our 2's.

[BalaRoja]

Oops, forget to mention I moved & am no longer in Nor-Cal. So yeah, far less options here in the way of teams, etc. None for example have any clinics at all which is a darn shame because a bunch of the Nor-Cal teams have them regularly.

SheFly - yes ma'am :-) I promise to be close to, but not at the front. I've learned that the amount of energy you waste/spend being in the wind is astonishing! I'll post my results and it won't be too long since race day is < 30 days now.

Eden - all great points & from what I've read of some of your posts on this subject, you have been (or are still that is...) involved in organizing events so I know you speak from plenty of experience :-)

Aicabsolut - field sizes here are very small, at least compared to big metro areas & cycling hotspots. Here, there will be a distinct cat IV with their own placings, but they aren't picked separately. So everyone, IV's & P-1-2-3 & masters all get sent out together - and even then you might only have 20 total on the better days. My guess here is that it magnifies the fitness/skill variations when you have such small fields.

Thanks for all the information here. It is very exciting to finally get involved in races and compete with a great group of women.