You have a roadster, you took your first trainings, byt you haven’t taken part in a race yet. Then one day you will want to feel like a real pro, speeding in the peleton. Perhaps you have already thought about this but you don’t know how to start. Before you line up on the start, you should know and learn a few things that will allow you to finish your first road race in good style, safely and end up on high place.

Setting the goal

If your first start is ahead, the best goal to set is just to finish the race. At the first sight it may seem trivial, but if you take it seriously, it can be the smartest thing you can do.

At this stage you don’t have to care about professional equipment and complicated training. Focusing on the basis, you will build a great starting point for further seasons.

If finishing the race is the goal per se, you will challenge yourself and minimalize stress before the race. You will not have to care about battle for start position or during the race. You will be able to concentrate on many important factors that may improve your chance to cross the finish line in one piece and have a great fun while racing.

Finding the right race

What is the right race for you ? First, it’s about the distance. Be honest and tell how many kilometers you can ride with high intensity. 20, 30 or maybe 50 ? Don’t be reckless with the distance. It’s better to choose shorter race and make a great performance rather than take a long distance and bomb in the middle, watching all overtaking you.

Another issue is a size of the race. Focus on small events or choose these with age division or ‘wave’ start. In this way you reduce the risk of collapsing or stress. Big, even a-few-hundred-people starts are very dangerous, especially before a peleton divides into groups.

How to finish your first road race well and safely ?

You can be super strong but if you don’t know how to ride your roadster safely,, you expose yourself and others to collapse. What should you already know then ?

Riding in a group. It;s good to be familiar with riding in a group. You must be used to possibilities of riding elbow-to-elbow or hand-to-thigh with other riders. The key in such situations is not to react nervously as it almost every time ends with a crash.

How to practise ? Ride in pairs on an empty road. Try to be close to each other, remaining feeling comfortable at the same time. Ride closer and further apart, as longer time shoulder to shoulder can be stressful, especially in the beginning. As the progress comes and your confidence increases, try to limit the distance from each other and from time to time slightly make your arms come in contact. Remember that even if you get fully familiar with such situations, you never know who rides next to you in the race and if this person has similar abilities. Be careful!

Ride in line. There’s nothing worse than sudden trajectory changes of your bike. A cyclist riding behind you, close to your back wheel can be cut off when you start to do it. Ride in line is something you must master.

How to practise ? It’s important to be relaxed and let your bike ride. To practise you can use lines on the road, paving stones layout etc. Try to keep the line as long as possible and don’t get discouraged if at first it is only a few seconds. If you are systematic and apply these rules to every training, you will see progress and be able to keep the line long kilometres !

Hold the handlebars with one hand. You should ride in this way without any effort. This ability will be helpful if you want to grab a water bottle. It’s good to learn how to insert and remove it constantly observing the way. It also comes in handy when you hold your mate’s arm while looking back.

How to practise ? If one-hand riding is problematic, start exercising on a low-traffic road or parking at a low speed. Remember, the higher speed, the easier it is to keep balance. But don’t exaggerate ! At first, remove one hand from the handlebars and hold it with fingertips. Later, when you gain some confidence, try to keep your hand away for a few seconds. When progress comes, extend the time. You will feel how your body works to keep the balance.

Looking over your shoulder. The moment you want to see what is going on behind you will come sooner or later. It will come in handy to be able to look over keeping the line. If you go to side while looking over your shoulder, it means you must work on this element.

How to practise ? Ask your friend to take a training with you on a low-traffic road. Stay close to his wheel for a few or several minutes. Being close try not to brake and instead manipulate your speed by accelerating and reducing power. If you do this in proper way, even with slight speed fluctuations of your friend you will manage to adapt your speed smoothly without using brakes.

Braking in group. It may seem to be against your intuition but the less you can use the brake in peleton, the better. Thanks to this ability smoothness of the entire group will improve and the ride itself will become safier. If you start to overuse your brakes, every person riding behind you will be pushed to brake harder and such domino effect may lead to a crash.

How to practise ? Ask your friend to take a training with you on a low-traffic road. Stay close to his wheel for a few or several minutes. Being close try not to brake and instead manipulate your speed by accelerating and reducing power. If you do this in proper way, even with slight speed fluctuations of your friend you will manage to adapt your speed smoothly without using brakes.

Emergency braking. Ability of fast and confident braking may save your race. If you are a newcomer, perhaps your bike will stop faster than your abilities allow. Imagine that speed of 30-40 km/h let you gain a few or several metres and it doesn’t matter if you use disc or rim brakes. None of them will worki f You fail.

How to practise ? Set the place in the training area where you will start braking. Start with low speed (15-20 km/h) and gradually increase. Check how far it takes you to stop and try to shorten this distance. It can be a great fun to exercise it with your friends. If one of them is a pro level, you will easily find out how much effort you must put to master this ability. Remember about using both front and back brake. Try not to block your wheels, especially back one as the centre of gravity will move to front.

If you have reached here, congratulations ! You already know what abilities you should master to race wisely. If some of them are difficult for you, it means you need to work on it. Focus on your weak points and soon you will improve the way you control your bike.