Mellow Velo

PRO Team Weekend – Race tips from the pros

Posted on 11. Mar, 2010 by KFullerF4 in Road, Thoughts

Erica shows off her muscle

Being embedded with a cycling team allowed me to gather interesting information, snap photos and draft some of the fastest women in the business. But I also had the opportunity to seek advice and find inspiration for my own racing season, which starts this Sunday at the University Oaks Criterium in San Antonio.

By Friday afternoon, I felt comfortable enough to ask some of my most burning (and obvious) questions. With my first road race only one week away, what advice could the pros give me? Erica Allar, who was sitting next to me on a couch at Specialized headquarters at the time, enthusiastically shared some of her favorite tactics:

1. Don’t listen to the guys. If they yell at you, yell back.
2. Take your turns on the inside. If there is a crash, it will go toward the outside and you will be more likely to avoid it.
3. Try to keep your handlebars in front of the person next to you. They will unintentionally grant you the right of way.
4. Stay in front and go hard. The first five and last five laps are the hardest. If you can hang on for those, you will survive.
5. Men don’t like it when you pass them and will want to chase you down.

I then made the classic rookie journalist blunder and asked Erica, who I knew to be a track star, a stupid question: “Do you love racing crits?”

“I was the U23 national criterium champion in 2006 and 2007,” she said. “But don’t worry. You’ll have fun.”

Open mouth; insert foot; go back home and do more homework.

When she raced for BMW Bianchi, Erica was the U25-women winner and best young rider of the 2009 USA Crits Series & Finals. I think I can trust her advice.

Erica shows off her “holla hands”

Follow my three-day stay at training camp with Team Vera Bradley Foundation HERE.

Tags: conversations, cycling tips, PRO cycling, Team Vera Bradley Foundation