This is the final installment about the races introduced earlier in “Watching My First Cycling Road Race”, cycling races held on closed streets in Moriyama, Shiga, Japan, about an hour's drive northeast from Kyoto.

After the “youth races” were some “C4” races, races for inexperienced riders (or riders who are experienced but slow). If I were to ever try a race, I'd start in “C4”.

This event broke C4 into three different races: “C4H” for men above a certain age (40?), “C4L” for men below the certain age, and “C4W” for women.

As before, I situated myself at a pinch point in the course loop, so I could catch them twice during each loop. Sometime during the first loop, the motorcycle pulls away and the race is on.

Kazutaka Hatano, whom I would meet a week later on my “bullet train view ride”, was in this race, and I happened to catch some photos of him.

As I discussed in the first installment, it's much more efficient to draft behind someone than to be the leader, who is essentially an “air plow” for those smart enough to follow close enough behind. I've never raced so my understanding is in theory and not practice, but generally one doesn't want to be the leader until the last seconds of the race, camping behind others conserving energy until releasing all the pent-up savings in a final explosive sprint to the finish.

Something strikes me odd about this photo. I know it's a sprint finish and that these guys are all fighting against each other for a spot on the podium. They're giving everything they have, probably going 50~60kph (~35mph). Yet, other than the expression on their faces, there's no sense of movement or urgency in this shot. Even their body positions are not all that aggressive looking. Just feels odd to me.

I didn't realize until it was over, but they started the women's C4 race a half a lap after the men's, so I totally missed it. )-:

Then it was time for C4L, the younger men's C4 race. Before it starts, I'll note that the winner of the older men's C4 race (Mr. Love Me Tender) would have placed 42nd, in the back of the pack, had he been in the C4L race.

Ionut, who we saw riding in the pairs race with Stephanie in the first post, would be in this solo C4L race as well.

I said earlier that one doesn't want to be up front (except during the last few seconds of the race), but a notable exception is when working as a team. Two or more riders working together might work to pave the way for the fastest sprinter to take charge during the final sprint. Until then, the support riders plow the way, burning their energy in the long leadup to the finale so that the sprinter can conserve.

I don't know whether that was the plan for the rider seen leading above, but there were two others behind him with identical jerseys, so presumably on the same team. If it was their plan, though, it didn't work, as the fastest among the three finished in 30th place (which perhaps sounds much worse than it is... 30th place was five seconds behind the winner).

Another reason to not ride behind someone is if you're so much stronger than everyone else that you can ride faster alone than the others working in a group. This “stronger than everyone else” thing is usually more wishful thinking than fact, so it's common to see such attempts crumble as the energy is squandered.

After the stretch above, the riders disappear from my view for 30 seconds or so, to reappear at the start of the long backstretch...

The reaction of me and those with me was “oh no, Ionut, what are you doing!? Big mistake... get behind someone!”. Those who had raced said that until you had experience, it was difficult to moderate oneself during the heat of the race.

However, yet another reason one might want to be at the front of the race is to control the pace, either setting it fast because you think you can burn out sprinters who might be fast at the end but who don't have the endurance to keep up a blistering pace for the whole race, or to keep things slow so that you yourself don't get burnt out.

It's this final reason, to slow the pace, that Ionut later said was his plan. But we didn't hear that until later, and didn't think of it ourselves at the time, so the whole time he was in front we were cringing.

After the hairpin that ends the loop, there's a descent (seen in the background above) where speeds can get quite high if someone attacks (tries to break away), so I imagine there's a lot of jostling for position during this section. Ionut is finally not leading, but he's also still not drafting so the performance penalty is the same.

In the photo above, Ionut isn't drafting, but someone is drafting him, the guy in the center of the photo in red and black clothes, with a GoPro slung under his white handlebars. He posted the video from the GoPro on YouTube... this link opens the video at the spot the photo above was taken; you can watch from there or move around to see the whole race or just the finish (he came in 9th, 1.5 seconds after the winner).

Orange Socks — Seiya Iwata (岩田聖矢) — is in middle school (about 14 or 15 years old) and, according to my web research, has been racing like this for a decade longer than I've been cycling at all. He doesn't appear in any of the photos except these two at the finish because he was always tucked in behind someone, drafting, and not sitting photogenic (but inefficiently) at the head of a pack. He may well be the most experienced rider of the group. That's not saying much for a “C4” race, I suppose. One expects that he should be moving up to “C3”, at least if the rules allow someone that young to do so.

In the photo above, Ionut is at the far left. He came in 6th place, 1.2 seconds after the winner. Full results are published here.

There were, of course, higher-level races held at this event, all the way up to the semi-pro “C1”, but I didn't see those races.