Junior Road Racing
edward.wigmore
Posts: 66
Hello everyone, what I want to know is, what are peoples thoughts on the idea of a junior with no prior major results being able to break into the racing seen as a final year junior after intensive training a year prior, would he have much of a chance at being able to make something of it and what would his race calender have to look like?
Thanks
Ed
Thanks
Ed
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Comments
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edward.wigmore wrote:would he have much of a chance at being able to make something of it
there's only one way to find out.....0 -
That is true, i was just wondering on what people feel his race calender would need to look like to get noticed/picked up ?0
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You might need to provide a bit more info for that. Unless you just want a random list of dates and races.....
Or you could just line him up in the next available 3/4/J and see for yourself. Unless he is out there winniing, nobody will see the fella anyway. So my advice is just get on with it.0 -
Sorry should have put it better, as in what races would i need to compete in to be able to gain recognition on a national scale if i was gaining top 10 finishes consistently, what would qualification procedure be to qualify for them, how much would i need to race ? I know british cycling has "Major Road Events" but whats the selection policy ? Should i add in xc racing too in preparation for road and to show versatility ?0
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Is it you we're talking about..?
Have you actually ridden a road race yet..?0 -
Yeah talking about me, and no i haven't done some xc races a while back but then got taken on for xc running and spent last year doing that on national level... but wouldn't really be able to afford race bike till end of summer only got a bike atm just about good enough for training on
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Go to any races that will have you in your area. If you place or win consistently, you'll be noticed (don't worry about your bike not being up to snuff - for Cat 4 races it really won't matter). If you've done running on a national level you must surely be in touch with some coaches or someone who can point you toward the right club to join and where to go from there.
Start with the British Cycling Website and look at the road calendar for events you can enter. Talk to the guys you see there. Any racing club will be glad to snap up a promising junior.
But above all, good luck and keep going!0 -
I would say the race you would need to be doing to get picked up would be the National Junior series, they are a high standard but as you have been running at a high standard with the correct training i see no reason you couldn't cope with them. Who are you wanting to get picked up by? With only a relatively short amount of time compared to others you may be best off aiming at time trials as they are 100% about how strong you are and not tactical like road races which take time to pick up, but you would need to still do road races to show your not a one trick pony.
Here is a list of the National time trials, i would say as a junior all you would need to do is 10 mile, 25mile and national circuit. Podium in all of those and you should be able to find a team the following year
http://cyclingtimetrials.co.uk/Competit ... fault.aspx
Here is the junior road series
http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/zuvvi/ ... verall.pdf
You will have to be doing other races to these but i think those are the two places where you need to be getting good results, winning 3,4,j races all season but getting nowhere in the big junior races won't help you stand out.0 -
Thanks for all the advice, i think want im going to be doing is obvisously riding as much as i can without overdoing it, but spend summer building up high level of endurance and also some build work focusing on limiters, whilst also doing plenty of chain gangs club runs so getting pack experience and then also find some 4th cat races and time trials probably focus on 10s ? Then commence an annual plan starting in the september cross training will be the running with also some xc mtb races show a bit of diversity in my ability, and then continue through the year hopefully racing in as much as the junior series as possible as well as time trials and local races.0
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I wouldn't wait until next year - just find a local event and enter it. You might do well, but if you don't at least it will give you an idea of what you need to focus on to improve...0
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Yeah i said, over summer start doing some local 4th cat circuits and 10s
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Train hard during the summer, work on your speed, while still maintiaing the base you have built from running. Do some cat 4 races, 10s and Hill Climbs. Get a feel for your strengths and weaknesses. Train hard on your weaknesses, your strengths will take care of themselves overtime. If you do well during the summer in the races etc you entered i would enter some winter racing serieson the weekends and train during the week. If not get back to training, over the winter work on whatever it was that was holding you back.T o be honest, being able to do MTBing won't really make much of a difference, it would just broaden the chances of you being spotted. If you were to be spotted by a road team, they wouldn't care too much about the MTBing but more about the cross. This all depends on your current levels of fitness. If you cannot participate in a cat4 race by the end of the year, your chances are very small, as many of the better junior/youth riders will race E/1/2/3 races. and have CAT 2/3 licences.
Train hard, join a club, do chaingangs, and some base training rides.
Buy a turbo for winter
BTW im in the same boat as you but I'm a Youth A rider, next year will be my first proper year racing. Other the summer I'm going to build a base and during winter work on speed. This is all advice i've learnt/gained/been told.
Try and do a RSR/ regional school of racing,Although the purpose of these is to improve your racing skills, the chances of you being spotted in a practice race are very high. You also get to ride with the best junior riders, see what your up against.0 -
I'd get out there and race as soon as you can, start with 4th cat and get an idea of what is required to survive a race. To give you an idea a lot of 2nd year juniors are 1st or 2nd Category riders, so the bar is pretty high. As has already been said to get noticed you need to be doing the Junior National Series (as many of them as possible). If you can compete and get results in that series you will get noticed!!0
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how much training are the junior national series riders doing a week? obviously its going to differ, but roughly? school must get in the way and stuff?0
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Those I know train between 10-16 hrs a week during term time. They will generally do more in the holidays.
Making it as a junior isn't your only chance. I know a couple of guys who took up cycling in their late teens. They never did anything as juniors but have kept improving while at uni, one is now an elite cat the other a 1st cat and are both looking to sign for teams next year.0 -
I meant to ask that how does cycling tend to fit into university, whilst i really love cycling even if i became good enough i would still like to have a university degree behind me for something to fall back on, but that time at uni how does cycling and teams fit into that....?0
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depends alot on what course you do, my mate was a pretty good junior won the national 10, won chris boardman trophey and a junior race in belgium, has now started a uni to become a dentist and is finding it hard to make the time to train, but then some courses have very little work leaving plenty of time for training0
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Uni and training seems to fit in nicely for my mate. Two long rides at the weekend, then for uni he has one late start a week and one early finish where he gets out for two more 3 hr rides. Couple of short turbo sessions for speed in the evenings and that's a solid weeks training.
He's doing an engineering degree so its pretty full on and he'll often be working till 11pm in the evening. For him its the sacrifice he's prepared to make. He seems to be able to find more time to train than I do with a 9-5 job and a young family.0 -
I'm the last one to sprinkle rain on someones 'training' parade but why would a Junior need to ride 150 miles in one go? that sounds a bit excessive. Are there any junior races that last 100miles?nakita222 wrote:
Train hard, join a club, do chaingangs, and some base training rides. Work you ride length up to 150miles. This should be a distance you can do at around 18mph.0 -
Toks wrote:
I'm the last one to sprinkle rain on someones 'training' parade but why would a Junior need to ride 150 miles in one go? that sounds a bit excessive. Are there any junior races that last 100miles?nakita222 wrote:
Train hard, join a club, do chaingangs, and some base training rides. Work you ride length up to 150miles. This should be a distance you can do at around 18mph.0 -
Wouldn't it be really frustrating if you found out you could build a good 'base' by riding a tad quicker and for half the time
Wouldn't it be a tad frustrating if your found out that some people are just naturally fitter than others so even if you rode double the mileage of your gifted competitors you'd still get beat.
Wouldn't it be a tad frustrating if you found that having a really low heart rate didn't necessarily mean you'd have a bigger engine
You're a young guy and I bet some middle aged bloke or blokes is filling your head with lots of old myths. Get up to date and start training scientifically. Thanks
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Fair enough Toks. You seem to know alot more than me. It's just what I've been told you should do.0
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Back when racing was split up differently and juniors raced in 3/J races mainly I saw several riders turn up and start winning regularly on the local scene so it is possible although I think the category split now means that juniors are lumped in with mainly senior riders so may be harder.
I would focus on just riding the road if you are serious about 'making it'. You are obviously a good all round athlete so this may not suit your other plans but I think if you spread yourself too much you are likely to end up being quite good at a few things rather than very good at one thing.
As for Uni and riding they seem to work well - I did a race on Sunday where two Birmingham Uni lads broke away pretty much from the gun on a windy day and held on to take the first two places with no club support behind :shock:
Oh, and I wouldn't ride 150 miles at 18mph, I don't know anyone at junior level who trained like that including several clubmates who were regulars at GB junior level and who went on to win senior national titles / race at top European level. In fact I doubt even the top pros do that sort of ride. Quality over quantity.0 -
Pross wrote:
As for Uni and riding they seem to work well - I did a race on Sunday where two Birmingham Uni lads broke away pretty much from the gun on a windy day and held on to take the first two places with no club support behind :shock:
Oh, and I wouldn't ride 150 miles at 18mph, I don't know anyone at junior level who trained like that including several clubmates who were regulars at GB junior level and who went on to win senior national titles / race at top European level. In fact I doubt even the top pros do that sort of ride. Quality over quantity.
Exactly, its rediculous unless you want a premature knee operation! .I thought you had omitted "a week"
The 21 year old who won the Lincoln GP, arguably the top pro 1 day race in the country and is at the sharp end of the Tour Series events is at Leeds Met Uni and only averages about 10 hrs per week training. Admittedly he's very talented, but many riders do not do the sort of mileage being quoted in this thread.. Endura's Ian Wilkinson who is in his 30s and a top domestic based pro averaged 17 hrs a week over Winter and less in the Summer racing period.0 -
I would be interested in finding out of the Lincoln gp winner has only ever trained for 10 hrs a week or if that is just for this year while he finishes off his degree. I noticed on the bc website that he has junior and senior wins back in 2006 so although young and very gifted he has competed at a very high level for a number of years now.
Wilko's hours surprised me but in the article he does states he also does gym work on top of the 17 hours a week, as well as doing training camps with high volume.
I am not saying mega hours is the only way to go and there is huge benefit in training smart but with the OP in mind can you reach the top level of our sport only training 10 hours a week.0 -
he may only be doing ten hours at the moment but he must have done much more than tat leading up to now which is a very busy time in the race calendar with about 6/7 hours of racing a week, with prems and tour series0
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.Richj wrote:I would be interested in finding out of the Lincoln gp winner has only ever trained for 10 hrs a week or if that is just for this year while he finishes off his degree. I noticed on the bc website that he has junior and senior wins back in 2006 so although young and very gifted he has competed at a very high level for a number of years now.
He has never averaged over 10 hrs per week in any of the last 3 years when at Uni and certainly didn't before he went there. He was however, in the British Schools team at under 12 and has ridden World Champs. at both cyclocross and MTB, He was also one of the country's top youth triathletes.
Although uncoached he has access to some top ex pro's who no doubt told him to do what works for him. Maybe he is exceptional.
The point I am seeking to make is that there is a lot of "willy waving" that goes on about mileage volume as if big loads are essential, when they are not. I am not sure what the OP means by breaking in and making it, but trying to move to some of the training levels suggested in his first year is in MHO more likely to lead to injury than aid his development. You can't rush these things.0 -
He has never averaged over 10 hrs per week in any of the last 3 years when at Uni and certainly didn't before he went there. He was however, in the British Schools team at under 12 and has ridden World Champs. at both cyclocross and MTB, He was also one of the country's top youth triathletes.
Although uncoached he has access to some top ex pro's who no doubt told him to do what works for him. Maybe he is exceptional.
The point I am seeking to make is that there is a lot of "willy waving" that goes on about mileage volume as if big loads are essential, when they are not. I am not sure what the OP means by breaking in and making it, but trying to move to some of the training levels suggested in his first year is in MHO more likely to lead to injury than aid his development. You can't rush these things.[/quote]
I haven't suggested the OP should do anything in his first year!!
I have told him what training my mate at Uni does and how he fits it in, if my friend is doing too much and risking injury maybe he should back off a bit. In terms of "willy waving" I did say he does 10-16hours, not that its 16 hours every week and I explained how he fits those 16 hours in.
On a positive note thanks for answering my question about ST's training hours. It is good to hear that you don't have to do long hours to reach the top. (and I really mean that). He is an exceptional talent and I do enjoy watching him race.0 -
It wasn't your post I was questioning Rich0
