You’re in a road race and you get popped. It happens. Someone turns the screw, you can’t cover a gap and suddenly you’re wondering where everyone went. We’ve all been there. (My first season, I was there a lot.)

It’s lonely off the back. You’re dejected, you’re tired and you still have 30 miles to ride without the benefit of a draft.

Suddenly a train of riders comes up your left. Wahoo! Free ride!

Do you hop on?

No, not if they’re not the same field as you. More than likely they’re a higher category or a masters field. Your day is done, but they’re still racing.

Why is it bad form to integrate?

First, it’s cheating. You’re getting help that you’re not entitled to. Chances are they’ll pull you up to the next straggler on the road, thus improving your placement. And if you take any pulls, you’re giving them help that they are not entitled to, which is grounds for relegation.

Second: Sorry, you’re just not welcome. It’s not that you’re not a nice guy or a strong rider, but for all they know your skills may still need some refining. The fast guys you caught on with don’t want their paceline interfered with by an inexperienced rider who can’t hang on to his own field. If you’re not an expert in echeloning, for example, a small mistake can bring everyone down.

Don’t take it personally. Just be patient and wait until you find riders with race numbers from the same series as you.

And then destroy them in the sprint.

“Hey, guys. The state championship road race is this weekend. How should I train for it?”

The knucklehead asking that question in 2005 was me. It’s a question that a different rookie will ask every year. The answer, of course, was and is: “You don’t, Sparky. The training for this week’s race was done six weeks ago.”

And it’s now, as the snow is falling and we’re all desperate to wear short-finger gloves again, that you need to start planning your training and racing for the year.  Random training isn’t training at all. What will your target races be? When will your rest weeks be? When will you make the transition from base and weights to intervals and sprints?

If you’re not familiar with periodization training, do some homework until you know your mesocycle from your unicycle. (Many people find Joe Friel’s “Cyclist’s Training Bible” a good primer.) Even though this season’s schedule isn’t fleshed out, you can consult the 2008 calendar and count on most races to be on similar weekends. And don’t forget to consult your families and significant others: Plan for vacations and other life events. (And don’t freak out if life throws a curve ball. Even the best plan needs to be flexible.)

The state championship road race will be Aug. 23. How will you be training for it?

This is an important tip considering all the fast, technical crits coming up. Cat 4’s and 5’s, bookmark this page and review it the night before Downers Grove.

As we corner, our bikes will lean into the turn. The faster we go, the more we lean.

Thus it’s important to to keep your inside pedal up, with your weight firm on the outside pedal, lest your inside pedal strike the ground as you lean. The faster you go, the more important this is.

At best, a pedal strike will give you the scare of your life. At worst, it will cause a catastrophic crash.

As you preview the course, be thinking about which corners you can safely pedal through. Keep in mind, however, that on the last lap or two of a criterium, everything will be 10 to 20 percent faster. You might be able to pedal through a given corner at 25 mph, but at 28 mph on the same corner you’ll be sent flying over a fire hydrant.

 

Crashes are an unfortunate inevitability, but they don’t have to end your race.

In the commotion following a crash, new riders are often so eager to chase back onto the pack that they forget their free lap. In criteriums, riders are entitled to take this free lap in the event of a crash or “tire puncture or other failure of an essential component.” If the course is a kilometer or shorter, riders are entitled to two free laps. (Note that these provisions expires in the final laps of a race.)

To claim your free lap, you must proceed to the wheel pit and check in with the official. Unless otherwise prohibited, you may take the quickest route to the wheel pit, including crossing or reversing the course. If there are neutral wheels or if you’ve left a spare of your own, you can change a wheel. You will then be inserted into the race in the group with whom you were riding when you exited the race.

What qualifies as a mishap? The USCF rulebook cites crashes and punctures, but precludes “malfunction due to mis-assembly or insufficient tightening of any component.” So, dropped chains, loose seats or rubbing brake pads do not qualify unless you find a particularly generous official in the wheel pit.

What happens if you come to a complete stop behind a crash but don’t go down yourself? Sorry, you didn’t crash. You’d better chase back on. (In such situations, the sly cyclist will gently flop to the ground, thereby “crashing.” But you didn’t read that here.)

There’s a lot of great racing in Indiana, but each year we hear of Chicago riders who after a four-hour drive arrive with barely enough time to register and slip into their chamois. So at the recommendation of Mike Kelly (South Chicago Wheelmen), here’s a reminder: Indiana is an hour ahead. Set your alarm clock accordingly.

And, no, Wisconsin does not run an hour behind during Superweek. It only seems that way.

There’s nothing more frustrating than dropping your chain at a pivotal moment of a race.  Being behind someone who’s dropped their chain at a pivotal moment is a close second, and I have experience with both.

Most chain drops are avoidable. They happen when you are climbing with full tension on the chain and attempt to switch to the small chainring. Your front derailleur will send your chain past the small ring, where it will come to rest on your bottom bracket, sad and useless.

Here’s the easy way to avoid this scenario: Shift to the small ring before you start climbing. The small-ring climbs around here shouldn’t catch us by surprise. Take the Baraboo climb, please: You’ll see it from a mile away. As you approach, go small ring, small cog while you’re still in the flat and there’s slack on the chain. Then as you start to climb, progress up your cogs as needed.

Just be on the lookout for the dude who didn’t read this tip. He’ll be the one dismounting his bike and swearing.

Like helmets, fire extinguishers and the number of a good defense attorney, an ICE number in the cell phone — In Case of Emergency — is something that everyone should have but hopefully never have to use. First responders and hospital personnel can use it to contact your immediate family should you be unable to provide information yourself.

Other smart things to carry on your training rides: Photo ID. Health insurance card. List of allergies. Credit card. CTA pass. $20. Some of these can be photocopied and kept in your cycling bag, or in a Ziploc bag you grab each time you leave the door. (I do not recommend running the $20 through the Xerox.)

What other precautions do people take?

Crashing is a fact of cycling but often can be avoided if you have good habits and good handling skills. It’s no coincidence that experienced cyclists tend to crash less than beginners. After years of racing they’ve developed instincts for avoiding danger.

One important habit is monitoring your front wheel so that it rarely overlaps the rear wheel ahead of you. If your wheels overlap and the other rider makes a sudden move

— to pull out of the paceline, to attack, to avoid a pothole —

your wheels will strike and it’s going to be you who pays the price.

That said, should the paceline slow, there’s no need to slam on the brakes in order to avoid the overlap. Rather than panic and cause trouble, coast and hold your line until you can get back behind that wheel.

Another good habit: Monitor your “outs.” At any given time, you need to know what you’d do should there be a crash ahead of you. Can you escape onto the shoulder? Is there a curb or a driveway you can ride onto? Are you completely boxed in? Then you might want to find another spot to be.

I’m not one to recommend gadgets or gear — your cycling budget is better spent on race fees, nutrition and flowers or beer for your significant other — but there’s one device that all cyclists need to consider: a heartrate monitor.

It’s a basic principle of training: In order to improve your fitness, you need to stress your body. But how do you know whether you’re stressing your body enough? You can go by how you feel

— “rate of perceived effort,” or RPE —

but a much more objective measurement is your heartrate. Cyclists are notorious liars, especially when it comes to how hard they’re working. Numbers, on the other hand ...

There’s plenty of literature on the Web for how to train with a monitor, and I’m not going to pretend to duplicate it here. Conventional wisdom, however, recommends a heartrate between 65 percent and 80 percent of your maximum during your endurance training, including those long “base” hours of winter. (This is just a general recommendation. Let’s not get started on lactate thresholds and VO2 maximums.)

But what, my more well-heeled and analytically minded readers are asking, about power? Power is great! Training by power has its detractors, but there’s no denying that it’s an even more precise way of quantifying your work. But power meters aren’t cheap (yet). For the beginning racer looking to save money and spend evenings doing things other than pore over wattage charts, a heartrate monitor should be the first major purchase after bike, helmet and chamois.

In the winter months it’s more important than ever to have a quality light system for when we train at night, and in this month’s Bike Traffic, Jim Freeman provides one more reason to light up: If it doesn’t save you from a crash, it can at least save you from becoming culpable. “If the cyclist does not have proper lighting they risk being blamed for the crash because of the cyclist’s lack of visibility.” Freeman reminds us that Illinois law requires all cyclists to have a light in front and either a reflector or light in back.

Tim Henry (Project 5) sends along this tip: When pinning your own number, start by pinning the center. “This helps because it allows me to lock the number into a desired spot and makes pinning the corners a afterthought. Pinning the center also aids in preventing my number from billowing in the wind when I am tucked low.”

This relates to the age-old cycling schism of number crumplers vs. non-crumplers. Some people think that wadding a number into a ball before pinning will make them more aerodynamic. These are the same people who will fling empty bottles at hapless spectators because they think 100 grams will make a difference in their sprint. I, however, side with the Wisconsin Cycling Association, which discourages crumpling because it makes numbers harder to read. No use winning the race if you’re going to be illegible to the race cameras.

(WCA cites an anti-crumple provision in the 2004 USCF rulebook, but I cannot find any such reference in the current edition.) Besides, crumpling is against the rules: “Numbers may not be folded, trimmed, crumpled or otherwise defaced.” (Thanks, Matt, for pointing us to the correct rule book.)

When you change a tube, position the tire so that its logo is on the right and directly over the valve. This lets you quickly find the valve when you’re in a hurry. And if you have a flat and decide to go all CSI, this helps you trace a puncture to a piece of glass or other defect in the tire.

So you’ve joined a team. Great! Now all you have to do is show up at races and together you’ll be an invincible band of brothers, right?

Not so fast, sparky. The most rewarding benefit of belonging to an amateur team, camaraderie, doesn’t happen overnight. You’re going to be “the new guy” for awhile, especially on larger teams with open memberships, and some teammates may wait until you’ve proven yourself as a responsible rider and capable athlete before they totally trust you on the road and consider you their friend and ally.

Here are some things you can do to facilitate a good team experience:

Join early: Our season doesn’t start until March and doesn’t peak until July, but don’t wait until then to join a team. Pre-season is the best time to get to know your team. More important, teams put in their uniform orders at the beginning of the year. You may be stuck racing in your Pearl Izumi if you join too late.

Go on the training rides: Most teams host their own group rides. Go. If people aren’t chatting you up, it’s not because they don’t like you. They just don’t know who you are yet. Introduce yourself. Compliment people on their bikes. Many a beautiful friendship has started with, “Is that Campy you’ve got goin’ on down there?”

Be social: If your team has social nights, go to them. If it doesn’t, propose one. The magic words are: “First pitcher’s on me.”

Go online: Online forums or mailing lists are a great way to get to know who’s who on your team, especially in the dark months when we’re not on the road as much as we’d like. Participate as much as you can without getting fired, even if it’s just a “Hey, I’m the new guy on the blue Orbea. Can’t wait to ride with you.”

Race: Duh. Race. Race lots. You’ll be surprised how well you’ll know someone once you’ve raced with them. Carpool if possible. Nothing bonds riders quite like a four-hour trip to a road race. And a teammate who entrusts his changing towel to you is a teammate who will trust you with anything.

Any other thoughts on getting integrated into your new team?

If nothing else, September’s alleged road rage incident and the ensuing fallout exposed how much drivers resent our presence on “their” roads.

But while it’s important to assert our rights and not be bullied or intimidated, we have to concede this point: There are times when we do a terrible job of sharing the road.

And frankly, I’m sick of being scared that I’ll pay violent consequences for someone else’s lack of courtesy. I’m tired of drivers laying on the horn because we’re spread out over the road. I hate being embarrassed for what my fellow riders are doing.

So let’s try to keep a few things in mind as we head out on our group rides:

Ride two abreast. It’s the safest way to ride, and it’s also the law. There are times when going wider is unavoidable

— pulling off of a double paceline, for example, or passing recreational riders —

but often we do it out of laziness or obvliousness. If there’s traffic, try to go single-file when overtaking other riders.

Ride tight. Work on becoming comfortable enough to ride mere inches from the riders around you. Ride close enough that you can converse without raising your voice. Riding tight not only minimizes the amount of the road you take up, but it will make you a better racer, too.

Don’t run the red if you don’t have to. Don’t be greedy. Your interval can wait. If it’s not necessary to go through the light, don’t. It only antagonizes drivers and gives credence to the myth that we have no respect for safety or the law. Drivers will notice when you wait patiently for that red light to turn, mostly because, to our discredit, it’s such a rare sight.

Don’t swarm cars at the light. So you get to a red light and there are already cars lined up at the intersection. If you’re by yourself, it might be fine to scoot through to the crosswalk. Not so when you’re in a group. Too often groups of us weave into the spaces between the cars. This is incredibly dangerous and serves only to piss drivers off, especially when we swarm on both sides. (It’s not going to get us anywhere any faster anyhow.)

Spread good karma. Don’t hesitate to say “sorry” or give a thankful wave when a car lets you go ahead of your turn. Give a happy “Good morning” to the driver waiting at the light with you. (Personally I’m a fan of saying “Bless you” when I hear a driver sneeze.) Each act of kindness reminds one more person that we are human beings and not targets or obstructions.

Teams are like families. Some are big, some are small. Some are pretty and happy, some are dysfunctional and in need of therapy.

No team is without its squabbles or black sheep, but all exist for the same purposes: to have fun riding together, to achieve common success

— a win for one being a win for all —

and to help riders achieve their individual goals.

Yet the role of the team can be one of the more puzzling aspects of our sport, especially for non-cyclists. We’ve all been to dinner parties where we’ve had to explain why there are teams in an individual-based sport. But while it’s easy to see how the professional domestiques and lieutenants slave away for their leaders, teams serve a much different function for new racers. In fact, I would argue that for beginning cyclists, tactics is one of the least important benefits of being on a team.

Why should a new bike racer join a team? It isn’t for everyone, but here’s how I would assess the benefits, both tangible and not, for new racers.

Networking: Fair or not, cyclists (and roadies in particular) have a reputation for being elitists. We do tend to be an insular, intimidating bunch, or at least we appear to be so from the outside. But for a new racer who still doesn’t shave his legs or count the grams of his bottle cage, joining a team is a great way to break through that barrier.

Once you join a team, you suddenly have a group to ride with, new friends to drink with and friendly faces to look for at races. You have a way to organize carpools and share travel costs. You have people with whom to exchange that all-important head nod on the path.

And shazam: You’re on the inside.

Aid and comfort: Many teams hire certified coaches to put on clinics and workshops. In addition, you’ll find no shortage of experienced experts on any given team. (I’m not the only know-it-all who enjoys giving free advice.) This makes training rides a great chance to ask any questions you have, and after each race you can huddle with your teammates to debrief over what just happened. Each one will have a different perspective, and many will have noticed things you did right or wrong.

Discounts: Most teams offer industry deals on everything from tubes and tires to bikes and wheels. In fact, buy a year’s worth of tires and a new helmet

— stuff you probably would have bought anyhow —

and you’ll find you’ve more than made up for your team dues.

Note, however, that pro deals should not be your primary reason for joining a team. It’s hard, thankless work to solicit and manage a team’s sponsorships, and your participation is expected in return. Nothing frustrates a team like the people who only show their heads at gear distribution, or whose only contribution is to ask when the next order is.

Tactics: When you’re unattached (without a team), it’s you against the world. When you’re on a team, you have allies. One versus fifty becomes five versus fifty. Your sum becomes greater than the individual parts.

Team tactics take myriad shapes: leadouts for sprinters, blocking for attackers, chasing down opponents. Good team tactics take years to hone, however, and in the beginning categories, the principal aspect of teamwork is to simply “do no harm.” The most common case is when a rider has taken the initiative to attack or get in a break. If his teammates are paying attention, they will not contribute to the chase. Sitting back at a time like that takes some patience and selflessness, and you should be cool with that. But master “do no harm” and you’ll go far with your team.

One teammate making a sacrifice for another is one of the most beautiful occasions of our sport, but this is often confusing for someone thinking about joining a team. Some people wonder whether they’ll be compelled to take on a domestique role when they’re new. Absolutely not.  In your first few years, your focus should be on learning and improving. Aside from not chasing down your own teammates, no team should be telling you how to race. Until you sign a pro contract, nobody should be ordering you to lead someone out or chase down a break.

That said, if you have a good relationship with your team,  you’ll end up wanting to sacrifice yourself for your stronger teammates if you find yourself in a position to do so. You’ll do this knowing that eventually you’ll be the strong one, and it will be everyone else’s turn to sacrifice for you. (You’ll also do this knowing that the winner buys lunch.)

And what are the trade-offs of joining a team?

Dues: They can run up to $100 and usually don’t include a uniform or any race fees. But for active members who take advantage of what a given team can offer, dues should work out to be a bargain.

Uniforms: Once you put down for a few jerseys, some shorts and a handful of accessories, your uniform order can hit hundreds of dollars. But most teams sell their uniforms at cost, and the larger teams can get better deals from vendors. At $50, a team jersey isn’t much more expensive than what you’d pay for a quality jersey anyhow.

The work: Teams don’t run themselves. Sponsors need to be nurtured, races have to be organized, uniforms need to be ordered, programs need to be funded, rides and clinics need to be planned ... and on and on. When you’re unattached, all you have to worry about is training and getting yourself to races. As a member of a team, you’ll at the very least be expected to volunteer throughout the year at your team’s functions, be they clinics or races, and eventually you’ll be paid the compliment of being asked to help lead the team.

Bad actors: One person’s actions reflect upon the entire squad. That works out great when you have teammates winning races or helping stranded riders fix flats. It’s less ideal when people wearing the same jersey as you are littering during races, riding irresponsibly or just being rude. When you join a team, you may eventually have to call out people on their behavior. (You may also have to accept people calling you out on your own.)

Tactics: Sometimes teamwork has a tactical cost. If your team makes up a large portion of a given race, the rest of the field will notice and will be quick to shut down any of your team’s moves. Thus it can sometimes be easier for an unattached rider to escape from a peloton’s clutches.

That intangible fit: When your bike doesn’t fit, it’s a trivial thing to adjust the seat or change your stem. But what if you join a team

—

and they turn out to be a bunch of jerks? Or Freds? Or just people you can’t seem to connect with? It happens. Which is why it’s a good idea to get acquainted with potential teammates and a team’s vibe before you join. Otherwise one could be in a very long year.

Obviously I’m a big advocate of joining a team, and I’m thrilled there are so many good ones to join around Chicago.

When I got into road racing, I could barely change a tire and didn’t know a cog from a sprocket from a hole in my head. I joined a team before I’d done a single race or even had a racing bike

—

and it worked out great. I made dozens of friends and thanks to their help, I went up a category each of my first two years.

Mileage varies, and I don’t discourage riding unattached until you decide the sport is definitely for you. But while you do so, talk up people you ride with and draw out their experiences, and use the CBR team directory as a starting point for find the team that’s best for you. Some teams are invitation-only, but most will be thrilled to have you.

A story in the Chicago Tribune this Sunday discusses the experience of finishing last. “You gotta figure if you finished last,” says Jeff Kao (XXX Racing-AthletiCo), “it can only get better.”

I love talking to new racers who have just finished last or gotten dropped: “Well, that sucked,” they’ll say, “but it was the most fun I’ve ever had. When do I get to do it again?”

Kao’s perspective is a good one for new racers. Never in the history of cycling has there been a race without a last-place finisher, and as you begin the sport, there’s a good chance that last place will be you.

If you’re not last, you may find yourself dropped and riding alone, especially if you’re thrown into 4/5’s races with fitter, more experienced athletes. Except for the rare prodigy, most new racers should expect this. You’re going to suck. Even extremely fit riders may get dropped until they figure a few things out.

And getting dropped can be humbling, if not humiliating, especially for those with marathon or triathlon backgrounds, where they received medals and adulation merely for finishing. (In cycling, only winners receive medals.)

But there’s good news: Cycling has a quick learning curve. All it takes is patience and commitment (and maybe a little bit of time and money).

An unscientific survey of my team found that only about 40 percent made it through their first five races without getting dropped. Having observed dozens of new racers make it through their first few seasons, here’s how I would characterize the growth of riders who train consistently, pay attention and don’t give up:

1-10 races: You get dropped or finish at the back of the pack. You say a prayer before every turn. You wonder what you’ve gotten yourself into.

5-15 races: Something clicks. You stop getting dropped. You start noticing things. You can predict things. You grab wheels. You attack.  (This is why I recommend new racers do at least 10 races their first season. If things haven’t “clicked” by the end of the first year, it will be hard to come back the second year or be motivated in the off-season, and you’re likely to lose whatever you’ve gained.)

10-20 races: You contest sprints. You come in the money a few times. You recognize other people and can spot who’s strong.

15-25 races: You’re consistently in the top 10 and win a race or two. People start recognizing you. Time to upgrade to the 3’s.

The progression is predictable and rewarding, both to experience and to watch happen in others. Naturally, mileage varies. Natural talent or youth will help some find success much sooner than others.

As for Jeff? Well, he broke his leg this spring, but I have no doubt that he’ll be a valuable source by the time the Trib decides to chronicle the experience of finishing first.

Two of the fastest, most technical criteriums of the season are coming in the form of Elk Grove and Downers Grove. Are you confident enough in your cornering yet? Can you make a turn at 30 mph without freaking out?

If not, practice now or risk eating hay later on. Spend time the next few weeks taking fast turns in a parking lot. Even as you make simple turns on your commute, visualize yourself in a race and imagine going fast, leaning and holding a steady line. Ride to the grocery store in your drops and pretend a national championship is on the line. Better yet, go take a few hundred corners at Matteson.

I don’t pretend to be the world’s best handler, so here are a couple of resources online, some more accessible than others:

• » David Sommerville: “As you speed around a corner, centrifugal force makes you want to fly out from the corner. In order to compensate, your center of gravity must lie inside the tire-road contact line.”
• » Jobst Brandt: “Cornering is the skill of anticipating the appropriate lean angle with respect to the ground before reaching the apex of the turn.” (I’d never thought of raising the pelvis to increase traction, but I noticed this morning I do this subconsciously.)
• » Steve Hansen: “You need to go wide to go fast. The diagram below illustrates the concept.”
• » Jim Langley: “Actually rotate your head slightly so you’re looking just to the inside of the line you want to follow around the bend, or in a tight turn, almost at the road’s edge or centerline.”

Some things I’ll add:

• » Don’t bomb the inside. Don’t use the corners to try to make up ground. Please. Pros and 1/2’s? Sure, they have the skills to pull this off. The rest of us don’t. Persist in crossing other people’s lines and you’re eventually going to cause a crash. As Rick Dearworth (XXX Racing-AthletiCo) put it to me while diagnosing the mayhem at Evanston: “The wheel you follow into the turn should be the wheel you follow out of it.”
• » This goes double for the U-turns at Elk Grove. Don’t get greedy. Focus on getting through each turn safely and smoothly, and hold steady to the wheel in front of you. Otherwise you’ll take the turn too fast and wide and run out of room, or take it too tight and have to scrub too much speed. Instead of trying to advance in the turns, then, you’re going to have to use the straightaways. Sorry.
• » There is little, if any, mechanical benefit in sticking out your inside knee. However, I found this a useful tool at Downers Grove last year. I focused on staying up front, where I could take the turns single-file (a huge advantage), and on each turn I let my inside knee hang out as a message to the riders behind me: “This is my personal space. Don’t even think about bombing this corner to get ahead of me.”

What other tips and secrets do people have?

This is why you hold your line after you finish your races.

The rider on the ground is Kevin Krakovsky (XXX Racing-AthletiCo). He has a broken collarbone because somebody finishing this week’s MGA Proving Grounds Road Race couldn’t be bothered to look before making a U-turn. He clipped Krakovsky’s bike and took him down at 25 mph.

Krakovsky’s season is done, and he now has untold doctor visits (and bills) to look forward to.

We’ve all been there. You’ve just completed a race, you’re physically drained and you left your brain somewhere around the 150-meter mark. All you can think about is getting to your car for some water and a protein bar.

From now on, think about this instead: “Ride straight. Ride straight. Ride straight.” Then, once you’ve cooled down, look behind you and turn around.

Can you grab and replace your water bottle without looking down and taking your eyes off the road?

Practice until you can.

With a lot of out-of-town racing coming up with Superweek, Michael Kelly (South Chicago Wheelmen) reminds me that this is a good time to hone your pre-race checklist. You don’t want to be three hours from home and realize you’ve forgotten your shoes. (Or the key to your roof rack, which I’ve seen happen more than once.)

Kelly sends along this pre- and post-race checklist from Smart Cycling of Glenview, which one could use as a starting point for coming up with one’s own checklist.

Here’s a spread of things I brought to a stage race last year. I always try to pack the night before, so that I have a chance in the morning to figure out what I’ve forgotten. Then as I leave the house I do a quick mental scan from head to toe

— Helmet! Sunglasses! Jersey!  Gloves! Bibs! Socks! Shoes! —

and try to remember packing each of these essentials.

Our Chicago newspapers may have shoddy coverage of cycling, but they’re still useful for something. Jeff Wat (XXX Racing-AthletiCo) reminded me of this after this week’s torrential rains, which no doubt caught many of us out on the path.

When you get home and your shoes are soaked inside and out, stick a sheet of newspaper in each one. The paper will absorb the water, leaving them bone dry by the next morning.

Don’t use too much, or the air won’t circulate. And I personally recommend a broadsheet. None of that tabloid nonsense.

With the road season two-thirds in the books, now is not the time to be joining a cycling team. However, this is an excellent time to think about joining a team.

Over the next few months I’ll have more to say about the trade-offs of being on a team. (Abstract: Many benefits, few costs.) The first step to having a good team experience, however, is finding the right one to join. Proximity is important, but more so is chemistry, so if you’re unattached, spend the rest of the summer doing your research.

Start now. Go on various team rides. Get a feel for the atmosphere and values. Is it a weekly hammerfest? Do older riders help the new guys? Are the rides too fast? Too slow?

Pay attention to the other teams in races. Which teams look like they’d be fun to compete with? Which teams display the level of sportsmanship that best matches your own? Do some teams put too much pressure on winning? Not enough pressure? If some teammates tend not to block for one another, are you cool with that? If teams are consistently sacrificing themselves for the good of others, are you cool with that, too?

Finally, talk to people. All it takes is one “Nice race” and you’ve made a new friend. Ask them how they like their team. See if they’ll be back next year.

Like any organization, cycling teams tend to be insular and intimidating to outsiders, but what strikes the outsider as elitism or standoffishness is often simply camaraderie and friendship (or even shyness). The sooner you get to know future teammates, the better, and the sooner you get on the inside yourself.

The largest teams in the Chicago area are XXX Racing-AthletiCo and Athletes by Design. Both are open to the public. The former tends to draw city riders, the latter from the suburbs. (Full disclosure: The Editor rides for XXX.) There are also many quality small teams with open memberships. North Branch Cycling, South Chicago Wheelmen and Spin Doctor Cyclewerks come to mind, but there are many others.

High on my to-do list is completing a directory of Chicago cycling teams. If you represent a team and haven’t done so already, feel free to comment here or e-mail me with relevant information, especially if you’re looking to recruit for 2008.

Chicago cyclists are lucky enough to be close proximity to two velodromes, three if you count Major Taylor in Indianapolis. The Washington Park Velodrome in Kenosha, Wis., holds races each Tuesday, and the Ed Rudolph Velodrome in Northbrook holds on Thursday and Fridays.

The benefits for roadies are many. Racing the track can be a great way to work on sprinting, often with multiple opportunities in a single race. And since the formats depends so much on tactics and even game theory, the track will make you a smarter racer. Some of the smartest tacticians I’ve raced with have track backgrounds, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence. (Hi, Tim! Hi, Shane!)

Even if you can’t commit to a second discipline, or if you just feel you don’t look sexy enough in a skinsuit, it’s worth your while to go and watch.

Sometimes it’s hard to get a feel for what exactly goes on in a peloton until you watch it externally, and the track lets you do just that. Indeed, the velodrome can be like a racing laboratory, and you get a complete, unobstructed view of each race’s development. See which breaks work, notice how teams work to block, and observe when people launch their sprints and how well it works out for them. If you’re part of a team, come visit the infield

— bearing brownies, if possible —

and listen as your teammates debrief and deconstruct each race.

UPDATE: Andy Daley (Team Clif Bar Midwest) sends along this route and recommends it for evening training and getting to the track. “One can do a workout on the Skokie path, make a detour to the ‘drome on the way home, check out some racing on Thursday nights and bum a ride home from a track star.” To get to the track, head west on Plotz Road until you get to Meadowhill Park.

Ever make mistakes in a race? Of course you do, and so do officials. That’s why you should get in a habit of checking results as soon as they are posted. If you wait until results are online, it’s too late.

Scoring a field sprint is like counting cattle in a stampede. Riders are regularly missed or mistaken for teammates, and sometimes numbers are obscured or illegible, even on the race camera. (Some riders like to crumple their numbers, but most officials say it makes them harder to read.)

Checking the results is essential if you’re in the top 10 or in the money, but it’s also a good idea no matter where you end up. You may need proof of the pack finish when it comes time to upgrade. Yes, it’s sometimes a drag to wait, but any extra time just means the officials are being that much more diligent to get it right the first time.

If there is a mistake, you have 15 minutes to file a protest with the officials. Be calm, be polite, be patient. Officials expect riders to point out scoring mistakes and are more than happy to go over the film frame-by-frame with you.

It’s a weekly routine: Racers huddled around picnic benches filling in their USCF waivers. They scrounge for a pen that works and scratch their heads trying to remember their girlfriends’ phone numbers for the emergency contact.

There’s a better way. Print the standard USCF release form. Complete all the blanks that won’t change over the season, then make 30 copies and put them in your gear bag. Now all you have to do on race day is fill in the name and date of the event. Voila: An extra 2 minutes to go find where you put your chamois creme.

Julian Baumgartner (Team Clif Bar Midwest) sends along this tip:

“Before any race starts the officials allow the field to take a lap to inspect the course, get a feel for how to take the turns and get a general lay of the land. This lap can be crucial to understanding the course as sometimes at full speed and surrounded by other racers one hasn’t the time or the wherewithal to spot that nasty pothole or the gravel hiding around turn 3.  It can also be a great time to psych one’s self up or to visualize taking the turns or climbing the hill. 

“Yet often times a rider will take that ever-so-important lap only to find him/herself staged at the very rear of a huge field; not the best place to start a Midwest crit.  If one allows enough time for set-up, one can jump in with another field as they take their preview lap, thus avoiding the terror of the accordion. Just be discreet and polite and exit quickly.”

Here’s a discussion from local coach Steve Thordarson about the importance of being prepared for a course, using Snake Alley as an example. August’s Downers Grove criterium, with its 8 turns and various bumps and road imperfections, is another one where pre-riding the course is essential. You’ll see riders trying the course early in the morning, even before all the barriers are up.

It’s often not possible to pre-ride a road race, but one should try to drive it to be prepared for the climbs and descents. And it’s essential that one pre-ride the last mile. More than a few races have been lost because people didn’t know where the finish line was and started their sprint too early or too late. Pick out useful landmarks for the sprint: Be in 10th place here, be in 5th place here, start the sprint here

—

and cross the finish line in first here.

In my first visit to Matteson lo those many years ago, I had a devil of a time insinuating myself into the pack. So not wanting to be stuck at the back, I would race to the front, quickly tire myself and then sit up. This very nearly caused a crash every time because the rider behind me wasn’t expecting me to slow down, and a teammate rightly scolded me: “Don’t do that!”

But that’s why you do Matteson, to learn things like that.

What I learned is that you shouldn’t just sit up, and you should always signal when you’re about to pull out of a line. The best way to do this is a simple wag of the elbow. Use the elbow of the side on which you want people to pass you. If you want to pull over to the left and have the pack pass on your right, wag your right elbow. If you want to pull to the right, wag the left elbow.

This goes for races as well as group rides. Whether your paceline is a Sunday training ride or a winning breakaway, good communication will keep things smooth and efficient. And just as important, it will keep people from yelling at you.

Ellen Wight (XXX Racing-AthletiCo) sends this one my way:

When you’re on a training ride and come to a stop — and your group ride always stops at red lights, right? — remember to shift to an easier gear. The gear you’ve been using to cruise at 23 mph is probably not the right gear to get you going from a stop. You’ll restart more quickly if you’re not overgeared, and the ride will flow better if the group doesn’t have to wait for a few guys to grind out of their 53x12. The same goes for races: Most packs will slow heading into corners, especially at the 4/5 level where people haven’t mastered pedaling through corners at speed. If you’re overgeared when you exit the corner, you’ll get gapped and eventually dropped. My rule of thumb is to always shift two gears lower heading into turns. This gives me the right gearing to accelerate out of the corner and close any gaps that may have formed.

Chicago racers will often have to drive an hour or more to races, but you don’t want to spend all morning sitting in your chamois. You also don’t want to have to waste time before your race hunting for a place to change, and it’s bad form to do the boxers-into-bib hokey-pokey behind a car door. It scares the children.

So bring a beach towel to your races. I don’t know why, but it took me forever to notice that everyone else seemed to have one and that it made changing quick, convenient and discreet.

Plus, having a towel is helpful when you have excess chamois creme on your hands and no teammates nearby to wipe them on.

This tip comes from Matt O’Keefe (XXX Racing-AthletiCo), who read more than one report of riders clipping in poorly at Snake Alley.

1. Always clip in with the same foot at a standing
start to build muscle memory.

2. Always clip out when you stop instead of doing a
track stand, so you can practice clipping in.

There’s always a guy who doesn’t clip in quickly. Don’t be that guy, and don’t get stuck behind that guy. This is especially important in short criteriums that start fast and stay fast.

August’s Downers Grove criterium is much like Snake Alley in this regard: If you’re not at the front by the first corner, you’re going to have a lot of ground to make up and not a lot of time in which to do it. (It just so happens that Matt won the 4’s race at Downers Grove in 2004 and came in 2nd in the 3’s in 2006, so he knows what he’s talking about.)

Whenever I watch a Cat 5 race start, I always check my teammates to make sure they’re starting in their big ring. Someone gave me this tip early on and I’ve always heeded it.

If a race starts fast, as many criteriums do, there’s a risk you’ll spin out if you start in your small chainring. Suddenly it’s the second turn and you’re off the back and your $20 entry fee is down the drain. Better to start in a big ring and maybe your second-biggest cog and shift to your smaller cogs as you pick up speed.

(The chain rings are the toothed circles by your feet. The cogs are the ones on your rear wheel. Don’t laugh: When I first started racing, I didn’t know the difference.)

Given the flat nature of the races around Chicago, you’re better off sticking in your big ring. It will still let you cruise at a high cadence, but you’ve got enough range there to cover any accelerations.  And if you never change rings, you eliminate the risk of dropping your chain. Whenever I hear about someone dropping their chain in a race, I ask, “What were you doing in your small ring in the first place?”

This tip is so important that it’s almost a shame I’m blowing it now before anyone is even reading, but I have a feeling I’ll be bringing it up again.

The single most effective thing new racers in Chicago can do to improve their racing is to ride the Tuesday night practice races in south suburban Matteson.

Riding Matteson will do you more good than a PowerTap, private coaching or fancy wheels. You’ll learn more in a night than from reading a hundred books or race reports.

The South Chicago Wheelmen have been putting on these races for years and are excellent hosts. Riders break themselves up into two groups, A and B, based on experience. The groups stagger their starts and race simultaneously around the Ace Hardware paint factory.

Each night there are three races with lengths dictated by weather and available light. A typical night might be 15 laps, 30 laps and then 10 laps on the kilometer course with licensed officials keeping track of results. USCF licenses are required, and entry costs $7.

Most beginning riders fear criteriums because they are not accustomed to cornering in packs at great speed. Matteson is a golden opportunity to work on that skill. In a single night you might do 50 laps of racing. That’s 200 corners!

Once racers are comfortable riding in a pack, they can hone their tactics. With nothing more than pride and Gatorade on the line, it’s a chance to take risks and try something new. Happy with your sprint? Try to break away. Need work on your sprint? Practice being patient and sitting in until the final corner.

Then once you graduate to the A races, hold on tight and observe as Team Clif Bar Midwest, XXX Racing-AthletiCo and South Chicago Wheelmen put on weekly seminars in team tactics.

One needs to leave the city in the early afternoon, but it’s worth taking time off work to do so. Leave early to beat traffic and spend the afternoon telecommuting from the Matteson Panera.

One thing racers should do from Race No. 1 is keep a race diary.

I started one mostly because the narrator in Tim Krabbe’s “The Rider” has one (not to mention a prodigious number of entries to keep track of) and I’m glad I did. I’ve recorded information for everything from alleycats to practice time trials, from Matteson practice criteriums to state championships.

After each race I take three minutes to record the following data, if available, into a spreadsheet:

• » Date
• » Name of event
• » Format of event
• » Number of riders
• » Placing
• » Distance
• » Time
• » Average speed
• » Notes on conditions, key moments and why I didn’t do better

It’s that last entry that can be the most valuable. Even if I don’t go back to read it later on, reflecting after each race about what you could have done differently is an important step of the post-race routine.

Such a racing log is also important when it comes to upgrade. Compiling your race resumé for the officials will be a piece of cake if you’ve kept careful records along the way.