Why Course Preview Matters
Racing an unfamiliar course means making thousands of micro-decisions—gear selection, positioning, braking points—with incomplete information. Course preview transforms you from a reactive rider to a proactive one, knowing what comes next before it arrives. The riders who win are often those who prepared better, not necessarily those with the best legs.
Preview serves multiple purposes: understanding the technical challenges, developing tactical plans, identifying key race-decisive sections, and building confidence. The mental comfort of familiarity cannot be overstated—knowing a descent intimately lets you descend on the rivet rather than on the brakes.
Professional teams spend days previewing Grand Tour stages. Amateur racers rarely invest comparable time, creating opportunities for those willing to do the homework. Course knowledge compounds across an event: confident descending preserves energy for subsequent efforts, and tactical awareness prevents positioning errors that cost watts.
Strava Route Intelligence
Strava’s route builder provides elevation profiles that reveal what race websites often obscure. Input the race course and analyze gradient changes, identifying where grades steepen mid-climb or where descents include punctuating rises that catch tired riders by surprise. The elevation tool shows meters gained, but the gradient visualization shows where those meters concentrate.
Pay attention to gradient changes within climbs. A 5km climb averaging 6% might include a 200-meter section at 12%. That steep pinch determines where attacks succeed. Similarly, descents that appear continuous often include false flats or brief uphills that reward riders maintaining tempo rather than coasting.
Strava Segments on the course tell deeper stories. Sort segments by popular times and leaderboards reveal realistic time expectations. User comments on segments often note road surface issues, tricky corners, or wind exposure—local knowledge embedded in the platform. Read the most recent comments; road conditions change.
Check flyby data on Strava activities from previous editions of the event. Seeing how packs split on specific climbs or reformed on descents shows where the race breaks apart and where it comes back together. You can identify crux points before experiencing them yourself.
Google Earth: Virtual Recon Rides
Google Earth’s 3D terrain view reveals what flat maps cannot: true descent character, corner angle severity, and how climbs roll rather than ascending uniformly. Use the elevation profile tool while tracing the course to create a visual roller-coaster of the day’s challenges.
Street View provides ground-level preview for critical sections. Study technical descents corner by corner, identifying visual landmarks for braking points and apex locations. Note road surfaces—chip seal, broken pavement, or freshly paved sections all affect tire choice and handling. Road width matters too; narrow sections demand different positioning than wide-open roads.
Look for road furniture: traffic islands, speed bumps, drain covers, and roundabouts that might affect race routing. Race organizers often modify courses from year to year; verify your preview matches current race information. Construction projects might have altered roads since Street View imagery was captured.
Examine approach angles to key features. How does the road arrive at the base of the main climb? Is there a corner immediately before steepening grades? These transitions often catch riders poorly positioned. Understanding the approach allows you to be where you need to be before you need to be there.
The In-Person Recon Ride
Digital preview cannot replace physical reconnaissance when practical. Riding a course reveals road surface nuance, true exposure conditions, and the cumulative fatigue effect of sequential efforts that profiles only suggest. Plan your recon ride for race-similar conditions—same time of day, similar weather if possible.
Focus your in-person preview on decisive sections: major climbs, technical descents, and the final 10 kilometers where races typically conclude. You don’t need to pre-ride every kilometer of a 150km race, but knowing the finish circuit intimately provides disproportionate advantage.
Ride at race pace on key sections. Previewing a descent at 30kph teaches different lessons than descending at 60kph. If safe, push technical sections to understand their limits. Corners that feel comfortable at moderate speed might exceed your skill threshold at race intensity. Better to discover this during preview than during competition.
Note landmarks for tactical execution: the tree at 500 meters to go, the driveway where attacks typically launch, the corner where you must be positioned in the top 10. Racing becomes executing a plan you’ve already made, not improvising under duress. Mental rehearsal—visualizing yourself riding these landmarks—cements the course in memory.
Weather and Wind Analysis
Course knowledge includes understanding how weather affects different sections. Which exposed sections turn into crosswind nightmares? Where do headwinds favor breakaways versus bunch racing? Prevailing wind patterns might favor different tactics than calm conditions.
Check historical weather data for race day timeframes. If the event traditionally faces afternoon headwinds on the final climb, early positioning becomes critical. If crosswinds typically shatter fields on a particular road, that section demands extra attention during preview.
Note microclimates: valley sections might be sheltered while ridgelines expose riders to full wind. Tunneled roads through forests versus open agricultural fields create dramatically different racing conditions. Your preview should capture this variability.
Combining Sources for Complete Pictures
Layer information from multiple sources. Strava shows what locals know about a climb’s difficulty. Google Earth reveals what the turn into that climb looks like. Race websites provide official course maps. Previous race reports describe where selections happened. Community forums share real-time updates about road construction or detours.
Create a race-specific document synthesizing your research: key climbs with gradient profiles, critical corners with visual descriptions, distance markers for tactical triggers, and contingency notes for weather-dependent changes. This document becomes your tactical playbook.
Share preview information with teammates. Distributed intelligence means multiple eyes examining the course from different perspectives. One person might notice the pothole on the finish circuit that another missed. Collaborative preview multiplies individual effort.
The Competition Is Previewing Too
Assume your competition has done this work. In competitive fields, course knowledge approaches parity—everyone knows where the hard parts are. Your preview should aim not just to know the course, but to know it better: the subtle rise before the major climb, the tailwind section that favors early breaks, the corner where you can carry more speed than others expect.
Marginal knowledge creates marginal advantages, and races are won on margins. The rider who knows there’s a cattle guard at 2km to go gains a second on those who discover it surprised. The rider who knows the headwind starts at the flamme rouge attacks 200 meters earlier. Small edges compound into race-winning differences.
