A road race rewards patience. You can sit in, read the race over three hours, and make your move in the final 20 kilometres. A criterium gives you none of that luxury. Forty minutes to an hour. A circuit that might be 1.2 kilometres. Corners every 15 to 20 seconds. And a field of 60 riders who all want the same two metres of tarmac at the apex of every turn.
Criteriums are the purest form of amateur racing. No hiding. No sitting at the back hoping the bunch stays together until the sprint. The race starts hard, stays hard, and punishes every lapse in concentration, every poor line choice, every hesitation out of a corner. Hunter Allen's power data from crit racing tells the story clearly — the variability index in a criterium is roughly 1.25 to 1.40, compared to 1.05 for a flat time trial. That means the actual power demands swing wildly above and below your average, with repeated spikes of 150 to 200 per cent of threshold coming out of every corner. Your FTP matters less than your ability to produce those spikes and recover from them while doing it again 20 seconds later.
Here's the good news. Most of what separates a rider who finishes mid-pack from one who contests the sprint is not fitness. It is skill and positioning. And both of those are fixable.
Before the Start: Course Reconnaissance
Pre-riding the course is not optional. It is arguably the single highest-value thing you can do on race day, and most amateurs skip it entirely because they would rather sit in the car eating a banana.
Ride the circuit at a moderate pace, three or four times. You are looking for specific things.
Corners. Which ones tighten mid-turn? Which ones have an off-camber exit? Where does the road surface change — a patch of new tarmac, a painted line, a drain cover? A corner that looks like a sweeper at 25 kph might reveal a nasty tightening radius at 40 kph. You need to know that before the bunch finds out together.
Wind. Where does the circuit cross an open section? Which direction is the wind coming from, and which corner exit throws you into a crosswind? Wind determines where echelon splits happen, and in a criterium, a crosswind split can take 20 riders out of contention in a single lap.
Road furniture. Speed bumps that have been covered by a mat, kerb buildouts that narrow the road, bollards on the approach to a corner. You need a mental map of every hazard before you are racing at 45 kph in a group.
The finish. Where is the final corner relative to the line? How many metres from the last turn to the sprint? Is the final straight uphill, downhill, or flat? This determines your entire sprint strategy — and I will come back to it.
Warming Up for a Crit
Criterium warm-ups are different from road race warm-ups because the effort starts at full intensity from the gun. There is no neutral zone. No rolling start. The whistle goes and the first corner is 200 metres away.
You need to be at operating temperature. A 15 to 20-minute warm-up on the trainer with two or three 30-second efforts at race intensity in the final five minutes. The goal is to open the cardiovascular system, prime the neuromuscular pathways for explosive efforts, and arrive at the start line with your heart rate already elevated. A full warm-up protocol is in the pre-race warm-up guide, but the non-negotiable for a crit is those openers — short, sharp efforts that tell your body what is coming.
If you roll to the start line cold, the first three laps will feel like you are racing through treacle while everyone else is already up to speed. By the time your body catches up, you have lost 20 positions and spent the energy getting them back.
Cornering: The Skill That Decides Crits
Every corner in a criterium is a selection event. The riders at the front take the corner at speed, exit smoothly, and maintain pace. The riders at the back brake harder, enter slower, exit slower, and then have to produce 200 to 400 watts more than the front riders just to close the gap that opened through the turn. Multiply that by four corners per lap and 30 laps in a race. The energy cost of poor cornering is enormous — and it is entirely self-inflicted.
Entry Speed and Line Selection
The fastest line through a corner is not the shortest line. It is the line that allows the highest average speed through the entire turn.
Approach wide. This gives you the longest possible radius through the corner, which means you can carry more speed at the same lean angle. Clip the apex late — past the geometric midpoint of the corner — which sets you up for an earlier, straighter exit. And accelerate before you reach the exit, not after.
Kristin Armstrong, who cornered as well as anyone in professional women's racing, described the technique simply: you should be accelerating before you finish turning. If you wait until the bike is upright to put the power down, you have already lost two bike lengths to the rider who started pedalling mid-corner.
The biggest mistake amateurs make is braking too early and too hard on the approach. You scrub speed you did not need to lose, enter the corner slower than necessary, and then have to accelerate harder on the exit to regain it. The fix is practise — not bravery. Find a quiet roundabout or an industrial estate corner and ride it repeatedly, increasing your entry speed by 1 or 2 kph each time until you feel the limit of traction. You will be surprised how much faster you can take a corner than you currently do.
Pedal Position and Body Weight
Inside pedal up. Outside pedal down, weighted. This drops your centre of gravity on the outside of the turn and pushes the tyres into the road surface, increasing grip. Your inside knee can point slightly into the corner, but the real stability comes from that weighted outside foot.
Keep your hands in the drops. Not the hoods, not the tops. The drops lower your centre of gravity further and give you better brake access if you need to scrub speed mid-corner. In a criterium, you should be in the drops for the entire race. If your bars are set up so the drops are uncomfortable for 40 minutes, sort that out before race day, not during it.
Looking Through the Turn
Where you look is where you go. This is not motivational advice — it is biomechanics. Your head position determines your shoulder alignment, which determines your bike's lean angle and direction. If you stare at the wheel in front of you, your reactions are limited to what that rider does. If you look through the corner to the exit, you ride a smoother, faster line that is independent of the rider ahead.
In a bunch, this means looking over or past the rider in front, finding the exit point, and holding that visual focus through the turn. Your peripheral vision handles the proximity of other riders. Your conscious visual attention stays on the road ahead.
Wet Corners
If it is raining, everything changes. Lean angles that are safe on dry tarmac become dangerous on wet surfaces — particularly painted lines, drain covers, and manhole covers. Reduce your lean angle, carry less speed, and give yourself more margin. A crit in the wet is won by the rider who stays upright while others take risks that end in the barriers.
Bunch Positioning: Where You Sit Determines How You Race
Position in a criterium is not a preference. It is an energy management system. The wrong position costs you matches you cannot afford. The right position lets you race the finale on relatively fresh legs.
The Accordion Effect
Every time the bunch goes through a corner, it stretches. The front riders maintain speed. The riders behind them brake slightly, then the riders behind them brake slightly more, and by the time you reach 30th wheel, the bunch has opened a gap that requires a significant acceleration to close.
This is the accordion effect, and it is the single biggest energy drain in criterium racing. Research from cycling dynamics studies shows that riders at the back of a 60-person field can experience power spikes 40 to 60 per cent higher coming out of corners than riders in the front 10. Over 30 laps, that accumulates into a massive deficit. A rider in the front third might average 220 watts for the race. A rider doing the same race from 40th wheel might average 280 watts — and still finish behind the first rider.
Where to Sit
Front third. Between fifth and fifteenth wheel. Far enough back that you are not pulling on the front and doing work for the field. Far enough forward that the accordion effect is minimal and you can see what is happening ahead.
If you find yourself drifting past 20th wheel, move up immediately. Do not wait for the next lap. Do not tell yourself you will move up later. The cost of repositioning now is always less than the accumulated cost of spending the next five laps at the back. Use the straights to move up the outside of the bunch — never try to move up through the middle on a technical circuit.
How to Move Up Without Wasting Energy
The efficient way to move up is not sprinting past riders. It is drifting forward gradually by taking slightly wider lines on straights and slotting into gaps that open naturally as the bunch reshuffles through corners.
Watch the experienced riders. They barely seem to move, but every few laps they are a few positions further forward. They are reading the small accelerations and decelerations in the bunch and using them to gain position without increasing their effort.
The other method is moving up on the approach to a corner. As the bunch funnels into single file or double file for a turn, there are always gaps on the outside. A rider who commits to the outside line on the approach can gain three or four positions through a single corner, even though the outside line is technically longer. The trade-off is worth it because the positions gained stay with you for the rest of the lap.
When to Attack
Most attacks in criteriums fail. That is fine. The point is not that every attack works — the point is that you attack at moments when the probability of success is highest and the cost of failure is lowest.
Out of Corners
This is the single highest-percentage attack point in crit racing. The field is strung out. Riders at the back are still accelerating to close the accordion gap. Reaction times are at their slowest because everyone is focused on the corner exit, not on you.
If you are in the top five through a technical corner and you accelerate hard on the exit while the bunch is still reforming, you can open a gap of 50 metres before anyone reacts. Whether that gap sticks depends on the race situation, but the initial move costs the bunch far more to respond to than it costs you to initiate.
Into Crosswinds
If the circuit has a section exposed to crosswind, an attack here forces the bunch into echelon formation. Echelons are brutal in a criterium because the road is narrow and only 8 to 10 riders can fit in the front echelon. Everyone else is in the gutter, working much harder for the same speed. A well-timed acceleration into a crosswind section can split the field permanently.
With Two to Three Laps to Go
The bunch is tired but not yet organised for the sprint. Teams have not locked up the front of the race. Individual riders are still deciding whether to gamble on a late move or wait for the sprint. This window — between the point where fatigue is high and the point where the sprint train forms — is where the most successful late attacks happen in amateur crits.
An attack with five laps to go gets chased because there is too much race left. An attack in the final lap rarely sticks because the bunch is already at full speed for the sprint. Two to three laps is the sweet spot — far enough out that the bunch has to organise a chase, close enough that the chase is difficult to coordinate.
When Not to Attack
On long straights, where the draft makes chasing trivially easy. In the first 10 laps, when the field is fresh and motivated. And never, ever off the front solo when there are organised teams in the race who have fresh riders to chase you down. If you go alone, you need a reason to believe the bunch will not chase — disorganisation, fatigue, or the presence of other riders in the move sharing the work.
The Sprint: Won Before the Final Straight
The crit sprint is not a road race sprint. In a road race, you might have a kilometre to position yourself. In a criterium, you have two laps — maybe 90 seconds. And the sprint is won not by the rider with the highest peak power, but by the rider who enters the final corner in the right position.
The Final Two Laps
With two laps to go, the front of the race becomes a chess match. Everyone wants the same thing: to be in the top five entering the final corner without having done too much work getting there.
This is where pre-riding the course pays off. If you know the final corner is a tight right-hander that opens onto a 300-metre straight, you know that the rider who exits that corner first has a massive advantage. Your entire focus in the final two laps should be on securing a position in the top five for that corner.
Use other riders as shields. Sit on a wheel you trust — someone who is smooth through corners and will hold their line. Do not get stuck behind a rider who brakes hard into corners, because their hesitation costs you the position you need.
Lead-Out vs Going Alone
If you have a teammate, a simple two-person lead-out is devastatingly effective in amateur crits because almost nobody else is doing it. Your teammate hits the front with 400 metres to go, drives the pace to prevent anyone coming around easily, and you launch from their wheel with 150 to 200 metres to go.
If you are racing alone — which most amateurs are — your sprint starts with your positioning, not your legs. The rider who is fifth wheel entering the final corner and moves to second wheel on the exit is in a far better position than the rider with 100 watts more sprint power who is buried in 20th.
Sam Bennett, who knows more about bunch sprinting than almost anyone in the professional peloton, has talked about this on the podcast — the sprint is a series of position decisions that happen before the actual acceleration. The final kick is the last two per cent of the effort. The other 98 per cent is where you put yourself.
Safety: Staying Upright in a Crit
Criterium crashes are common, violent, and largely preventable. Most happen for the same reasons.
Wheel Overlap
If your front wheel overlaps with the rear wheel of the rider ahead and they move sideways — even a few centimetres — your front wheel gets knocked sideways and you go down. There is almost no way to save it. The fix is simple but requires constant discipline: never overlap wheels. If you are that close, either come around the rider or drop back half a wheel length.
Fatigue and Handling
Here's where it gets really interesting from a safety perspective. Most amateur crit crashes happen in the final third of the race. Not because the racing is harder, but because riders' handling skills degrade as they get tired. Grip strength drops. Reaction times slow. Lines through corners become less precise. A rider who was cornering cleanly at lap five is wobbling through the same corner at lap 25 because they are cooked.
If you feel your cornering getting loose — if you are grabbing more brake than you were 10 laps ago, if your lines are getting ragged — move up and to the outside of the bunch. Accept that you are no longer contesting the sprint. It is not worth a broken collarbone.
Contact in the Bunch
Shoulders will touch. Elbows will brush. Handlebars might clip. This is normal in crit racing and it is not inherently dangerous — as long as you respond correctly.
When contact happens, stay relaxed on the bars. Do not grip tighter. A rigid upper body transmits every bump directly to the steering, which amplifies the contact into a crash. A relaxed upper body absorbs the contact, keeps the bike tracking straight, and lets you ride through it.
Practise this deliberately. Ride next to a training partner and gently touch shoulders. Get used to the feeling of contact while maintaining your line. The first time it happens in a race should not be the first time it has ever happened.
The Hard Rule
If you are in a position where you feel properly unsafe — the rider ahead is erratic, the bunch is sketchy, conditions have changed — move to the back or pull out. No crit result is worth a hospital visit. This is amateur racing. You are doing this because you enjoy it. Act accordingly.
Training for Criteriums
Criterium fitness is not road race fitness. A road race rewards sustained aerobic power — the ability to hold 3.5 or 4.0 w/kg for hours. A criterium rewards repeated short efforts above threshold with incomplete recovery between them. You need both a solid aerobic engine and the ability to punch well above it, recover partially, and do it again.
30/30 Intervals
Thirty seconds at 120 to 130 per cent of FTP, followed by 30 seconds of easy pedalling. Repeat 10 to 15 times. Rest five minutes. Do another set. This is the foundation of crit-specific interval training because it replicates the demands of corner exits — a hard acceleration followed by a brief partial recovery before the next one.
If you do not know your FTP, run yourself through the FTP Zones calculator and set your training levels before building interval sessions.
The 30/30 format works because it trains your body to clear lactate during the recovery interval while maintaining a high oxygen consumption. Over time, the recovery intervals become more effective — your body gets better at buffering the acid and replenishing phosphocreatine between efforts. That is exactly the adaptation you need for crit racing.
Corner-Exit Simulations
Find a quiet road with a corner. Roll through the corner at a moderate speed, and as you exit, sprint for 15 seconds at maximum effort from a near-standing start. Soft-pedal for 45 seconds. Repeat. Do 8 to 12 of these.
This is more specific than 30/30s because it includes the neuromuscular component of accelerating out of a corner — the standing start, the gear selection, the transition from low speed to high speed. Riders who only train with rolling-start intervals struggle with the standing-start demands of crit corner exits.
Tempo Blocks With Surges
Ride at tempo — 75 to 85 per cent of FTP — for 20 minutes. Every two minutes, surge to 150 per cent of FTP for 10 seconds, then return to tempo. This teaches your body to produce and recover from surges while maintaining a high baseline effort, which is precisely what a crit demands. The tempo is the cost of sitting in the bunch. The surges are the cost of every corner, every position change, every acceleration.
Group Ride Practice
There is no substitute for riding in a group at speed. Join a fast chain gang or group ride where the pace is sustained and the corners are taken at race speed. The bike handling, the spatial awareness, the comfort with proximity — none of this can be trained alone on a turbo. If your area has a weekly crit training series, enter it. The £10 entry fee is the best training investment you will make.
Strength Work That Transfers
Crit racing demands explosive hip extension and core stability through cornering loads. Single-leg press, Bulgarian split squats, and standing calf raises build the push power you need for standing accelerations without the injury risk of heavy barbell movements. Pair those with anti-rotation core work — Pallof presses and side planks with hip dips — to maintain stability when cornering forces are trying to twist you off the bike. Two sessions a week in the lead-up to crit season is enough.
Putting It Together: A Race-Day Framework
Race morning. Arrive early. Pre-ride the course. Do your warm-up with openers. Use the race-day checklist to make sure nothing is forgotten.
First five laps: find your position. Move into the front third. Do not chase every surge — let the race settle into its rhythm while you sit in a safe position and read the dynamics. Who is strong? Who is nervous? Which corners are causing problems?
Middle of the race: hold position. Eat and drink. Resist the temptation to respond to every attack — most of them will come back. Save your matches for the moments that matter. If a dangerous move goes and you are in position to bridge, go. If not, let it play out.
Final five laps: commit. Move to the front. Get on the wheel you want for the sprint. Stop conserving energy and start racing. If you are going to attack, this is the window. If you are sprinting, start positioning now — not in the last corner.
Final corner: be in the top five. Exit hard. Sprint with everything left. And if it does not work out, you have a race's worth of data to analyse, corners to refine, and positioning habits to adjust for next time.
Criterium racing is the most skill-dependent discipline in amateur cycling. Raw power helps, but the rider who corners well, positions intelligently, and times their effort beats a stronger rider who does none of those things. Every single one of those skills is trainable.
If you want structured feedback on your race-day performance and training, the Roadman Cycling community on Skool is where riders break down their crit races, share cornering drills, and get coaching input on the tactical decisions that actually decide results. It is the sharpest group of amateur racers I have found anywhere.