So you’re going to do your first bike race
So you’re going to do your first bike race. We’re going to walk you through some important aspects of preparation. This is specific to racing in Central Park, but elements are applicable to any road race.
The starting point: you gotta pack the night before the race. Think through everything, and I mean everything, you need from the moment you wake up to the moment you get back to your apartment, because the only way to get out of bed before 5am is to do it without thinking about it. Lay your kit out in advance, but there is more than that too.
There are four main parts of the morning you are going to want to think through:
1. Breakfast/leaving your house
Theoretically, the ideal time to fuel before a race is ~3 hours before. Once, I knew a guy who literally set his alarm for 2am, ate some oatmeal, went back to sleep, then got up two hours later to ride to his CRCA race. He was a cat 1 at bike racing, but not at CRCA racing. This is not the way.
The way is you eat the night before the race with an eye toward the race. Not a Michael Scott fettuccine alfredo kind of situation, but just make sure you eat a good dinner with plenty of carbs the night before. Then, you plan out your breakfast before you go to sleep. Ideally, you plan to eat something easy, with lots of carbs, that you’ve eaten before riding before. Race day is not the day to try new foods. I usually eat peanut butter and jelly on toast or oatmeal. Eat as much as you can keep down at 5am, but don’t worry too much if you can’t eat a ton.
You need a few things before you head out the door, ideally put in place the night before:
Your race bag
Your (well-charged) lights
Your timing chip ziptied to your fork (for club races where chips are distributed in advance), and
Your race numbers (again, for club races where numbers are distributed in advance)
The lights are pretty self explanatory. Races start at sunrise. The ride to the race will be in the dark. Make sure your lights are charged and on your bike.
For club races the timing chip and numbers should be set up however it says in the CRCA tech guide—which you should 100% read before racing. Don’t forget them, it will cost you money!!!
What to pack in your race bag
More food than you think you need (something for before, during, and after the race)
At least one extra water bottle, and
A vest, long sleeve jersey, or just an extra dry jersey.
On the last one: even though CRCA is starting well past the frigid spring weekends this year, it’s still easy to underestimate just how the cycle of massive sweating during the race and then extensive standing around and socializing after the race will affect your body. Even on warm days I sometimes find myself shivering after the race as my sweat-logged jersey cools in the morning air, and changing into something dry makes a difference.
2. Before the race
Riding to the race is your warmup. I guess there are people who do a lap to open their legs, but unless you live within a five minute ride of the park, that’s time you could be sleeping. You ride to the park, you immediately hit the reg table. MAKE SURE YOU GET THERE ON TIME. On time means ideally 25-30 mins before the race (for the June 5 race this is 5am!!). There will be a line. Especially the first race of the season, things will be confusing. You want to have time to navigate signing in, getting your number, find a place to put your stuff, use the bathroom, and find the right place to line up at the start line.
Listen, I’m the queen of rolling up with 10 minutes to spare, dropping my stuff and hitting the line, but I’ve been doing this a long time and I know the tricks to never stand in line (the answer is race in the women’s open field) and although it has never happened to me I HAVE seen people crying on the side because they showed up too late and they weren’t allowed to check in before the race started. The new timing chips are likely to get rid of some of these issues for club races, but definitely not for the first race. Plan for mayhem. GET THERE EARLY.
Now that we’ve established you have some time to spare after checking in, you head over to bag drop, which used to be up the hill from check in, but this year will be right on the other side of the boathouse parking lot. Yes, you just leave your stuff out in the open in New York City, probably under seven other people’s bags. I don’t know anyone who has ever had anything stolen but maybe don’t pack your whole wallet in your race bag, ya know? On the other hand, maybe don’t be the person racing with their phone in their pocket. Leave it in your bag, it’s gonna be fine.
Sometime between putting your stuff down and taking your bike to the line, try to eat a little more. A gel, half a clif bar—again, very important that you eat things you know agree with you when you ride. Me? I do not eat gels. I have wanted to vomit after eating a gel once or twice and I swore off them and my life is fine. Clif blocks are good. A lot of other people prefer gels. Experiment before a hard workout, though, and not the day of your first race. If you’re doing the clinic, it’s not long enough to need to eat so file this info away for the next race. However, whatever you eat, putting some sugar in your system is especially important in the longer mid-summer races.
Put another gel or bar or something in your pocket if your race is going to be longer than an hour. This doesn’t apply to the clinic, but does apply to any races you do after that. THINK ABOUT when you’re going to eat it. Pick a landmark—I like wherever the finish is, because you’ll see the lap counter and it will remind you to eat—and tell yourself you’re going to eat there on X lap (around lap 3 or 4 usually). Things might be too spicy in your race for it to happen exactly at that spot, but hopefully it triggers your memory. If you don’t think about eating BEFORE your body is telling you it needs to eat, it will be too late.
Use the bathroom. Go drop the kids off at the pool. Everyone else will also be there doing the same thing. Great place to make friends. Once you’ve made a friend, have them make sure that your numbers look right — you pinned them to the correct side of the jersey, you can read them, etc. (Wondering how to pin your numbers correctly? Click here.)
VERY IMPORTANT: Walk your bike before the race, and don’t put your bike on the grass or anywhere else you hear someone yelling at people not to put their bikes. When you ride up to the bathroom near the Rambles, which is where everyone will probably be milling about, you walk your bike, and you lean it against something that isn’t grass. It’s chaotic before the race, and so those simple rules become kind of hard to follow, but they’re important because the people who permit the Central Park races pay attention.
3. During the race
We finally got to the good part! This is not really a tutorial on how to race, so I actually don’t have much advice here (that’s what the clinic is for). Get on your bike, remember to clip in, have some fun!
The most important part of your first bike race is you should ride in a straight line. You do not need to move up across someone else’s wheel in the middle of the race. You just don’t. Do not swerve to avoid potholes, squirrels (sorry), or minor debris in the road. Just ride over it, it’s the safest way. If you really want to avoid the namesake of Horsesh*t Alley, make sure you’re on the outside of the group and don’t make any sudden movements. Just remember that every move you make in a pack affects the people around you. You should be moving up, moving around, but be aware of the space around you and try to be as smooth as possible. You know what feels worse than road rash? Being the cause of someone else’s road rash.
Anyway, once you’re riding in a straight line you should hang on tight to the group. Give it your all to stick on a wheel, especially the downhill before Harlem Hill, that’s where new people find themselves dropped the most. Quite frankly, road racing is group based. If you lose the group, it’s very unlikely you’ll ever catch them again, so if you’re falling off the back, don’t leave any energy in the tank: chase like that’s your race, because that IS your race. If you still end up getting dropped, look for others in the same position and work with them. It’s better to wait for someone who might be a bit behind you
4. After the race
Remember how you brought a clean and dry jersey? Congratulations to you! Put it on, it’s going to feel so good. Drink any liquids you have left. Immediately eat something, ideally something with a little bit of protein. Recovery and setting yourself up for the next race starts the minute you cross the finish line. Continue drinking water throughout the day.
If you’ve had fun at the race or the clinic, there’s a good chance that you’re going to stand around for a bit, or if you can’t because of Covid protocols, you’ll find yourself sitting outside a café with a bunch of people talking about the race. Make sure to pay attention to what your body is telling you, because it’s really easy to get carried away having fun with friends and try to stand up an hour later and find that you feel like you’re going to pass out and you don’t have the energy to ride home.
I’m going hard on this point, and eating generally throughout this post, because a lot of cyclists get into bikes because it burns calories. It might not be the only reason, but it’s one of them. A lot of us, of all genders, enjoy exercise in part because of a desire for fitness and for thinness. That’s really a whole other topic, but I think it’s important to briefly acknowledge here because if you want to have fun racing bikes you are going to learn how to eat for it. This isn’t going to the gym for 45 minutes. When you race bikes you inevitably end up going through your body’s glycogen reserves. You don’t notice because 5am is too early for most people to want a lot of breakfast. Your ride to the race is casual. Your race isn’t that long. You stand around a bit talking to new people. Then suddenly you try to get back on your bike to ride home and every glycogen reserve in your body is gone and you can’t think straight and you feel like you might just fall over and never get up. This is called bonking and it will happen to you eventually. Don’t let the time it happens to you be your first race! Plan to keep eating sugar throughout the morning (cyclists keep dentists in business).
Finally, just enjoy going fast, have fun, and ask questions. CRCA is a great community and we’re excited to welcome you to it!
Other helpful links
The Complete Guide to Racing in NYC (2019 edition)
The New Racer Clinic Info Session and Guide (2017 edition)
The 2021 CRCA New racer Clinic Info Session
