Adding to the Arsenal
It’s training time…
There is something quite phenomenal about living in South Texas: Winter days usually hover in the 60s and are full of sunshine. If you can handle 3-4 summer months of humid, 95+ temperatures, it’s the perfect place for year-round cycling.
Therefore, I should get off my ass, no matter how hard it is to admit I suck at something I love. I want to race my bicycle, but here is the list of things I either don’t have, can’t do or am not very good at:
- Cornering at high speeds
- Drafting
- Balance/safe riding in tightly packed groups
- Speed, sprinting, climbing
- Dependable motivation
- Waking up early
That about covers it! I seem to be starting from ground zero, but I picked up some literature to help motivate me at a time when I lack a race or group ride to look forward to. I’m asking for a trainer for my birthday and plan to plunk it in the middle of my bedroom to goad myself.
We’ll see how this goes…
When you corner, go out-in-out, it give you the widest possible angle, ergo you scrub the lest amount of speed
When you draft, stay behind somebody and know before they do when they will brake, etc..
In groups, do that thing that chicks do to get people to like them and then they wont knock you down
4-6 you are on your own dude
as someone who took a long time to decide to begin racing and then fell in love with it (the speed, the close quarters, the buzz of fifty freehubs as a soundtrack), i get where you’re coming from. so, my two cents’: 1) for 5-6, join a racing club if you haven’t already. cycling is a team sport, and even if you don’t believe that, being in a group that shares training, motivation, alarm clocks, and tips can provide a sort of critical momentum that is bigger than just little old you. 2) for #1-4, practice at slow motion. for instance, get a friend (or new clubmate), find a field (not one that’s rock hard or strewn with broken glass), and ride slowly together, occasionally bumping shoulders. you can even practice the dreaded wheel overlap and rub this way (the trick when your front wheel hits a back wheel is to overcome your impulse to jerk it away and instead press your front wheel into the rear wheel, recover balance, and gently ease away. takes practice, and you don’t want to practice at 26 mph in your first crit. on a soft field, it’s a lot safer. slo-mo practice goes for sprinting, cornering, and drafting as well. these kinds of skills training won’t improve your aerobic capacity or the speed of your sprint, but they’ll make you more comfortable in mass-start racing. good luck.
Another book I recommend is Racing Tactics for Cyclists by Thomas Prehn. From the title you can gather it is more about tactics and what to look for in a race. It gives a beginner perspective on how to engage in the different pacelines. The author also interjects his own racing experience in using the tactics in good and bad.