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Ever forget how to shift?

08.01.2009 by Ray Niekamp // 8 Comments

The other day, I was out for an easy morning ride with Pat. This is the one where we get to the Veloway, and I speed away from her to complete three laps, while she does two.

So I’m on the backside of the track, approaching the pesky little hill that provides the only real challenge to riding here. Usually, I’m in the small chainring, moving about 21 mph in one of the smaller cogs. I shift down two or three gears to be able to get up the hill without coming up out of the saddle.

This time, though, I zoned out. I pushed the left brifter in — but that’s the one that shifts me into the large chainring on the front. Startled, I realized I was screwing up, and mashed the right brifter in, snick, snick, snick.

hill

By now, I had reached the bottom of the hill, and had to negotiate a sharp right turn to start the climb. But a lady on a mountain bike was in the right lane. Instead of starting in the left, picking the apex of the turn, and shooting across to the right lane to smoothly attack the hill, I had to keep to the left lane.

I hit the hill in the large chainring, several gears higher than I normally ride it. I wound up standing on the pedals this time, pushing hard to get to the top of the short grade, and watching as the lady’s mountain bike stalled halfway up, in the middle of the track. She put a foot on the ground, and I went by her.  (In her defense, I well remember when I first rode the Veloway on my mountain bike. I didn’t stop, but I strained to get the pedals around on that hill.)

I’ve done this route so many times that even in the wrong gear the hill wasn’t a problem. It just wasn’t as smooth a job as I’d like. What bothers me is that it’s not the first time I’ve missed a shift like this. Most often, I’ll mean to downshift with the right brifter but click the little black paddle instead — the one that upshifts. This time, I got the wrong side altogether!

Has this ever happened to you, or is this a case of my Oldsheimer’s taking over?

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Categories // Technique Tags // shifting, Technique

Riding in pacelines

07.23.2009 by Ray Niekamp // 8 Comments

PaceA paceline in nice, cool weather

A couple of weeks ago, the B ride from my club started 45 minutes ahead of the A group. Since we rode the same route, we had a chance to watch them pass by us while they were heading out to the turnaround.

The first six riders had formed a paceline, and what a sight they were! Really moving fast along a country road, and visibly putting distance between them and the less organized group following.

Paceline riding is something I haven’t done much. In the MS ride, I latched onto a couple of small lines, and found that I could keep up with them, but I only got to pull once. They quickly fell apart.

Apparently, most of the riders I encounter haven’t done a lot of paceline riding either. We tend to bunch up in clusters, rather than lines. Even in a bunch, there’s some wind blocking, but it’s nothing like it could be if we were in an organized line.

But then again, one thing I do know about pacelines is that you must be confident in your co-riders. If you don’t know how they’ll behave when you’re wheel-to-wheel, it’s probably not a good idea to form a line with them.

Watching the Tour has inspired me to try to get into some pacelines again. There’s plenty of info online about how to do it, such as this item from Examiner.com, a site featuring articles by experienced freelancers.

I’ll also bet a lot of Bike Noob readers know something about pacelines. How about sharing your insights on it? Let’s all get better together.

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Categories // Technique Tags // Technique

Most common noob mistakes

07.12.2009 by Ray Niekamp // 12 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, I spotted a woman starting her bike ride who was making an obvious mistake. That got me wondering — what are the most common mistakes we see new bikers make, time after time? I asked, and Bike Noob readers responded. The results are in!

I guess I’m not surprised by the outcome, although some mistakes I thought were very common didn’t even get a mention by the survey respondents. Anyway, here are the top five most common newbie mistakes, according to the readers of Bike Noob:

1. Inadequate hydration. This got more mentions than any other item. Apparently, we have all had experiences with the bonk.

2. Inadequate food. Could go hand-in-hand with hydration, but it got fewer overall votes. Still, second-highest tally, so nutrition is certainly on everyone’s mind.

3. Riding in too high a gear, at too low a cadence. This one didn’t occur to me, although when I started biking, I was as guilty of it as the next guy. Riding in a high cadence has helped me improve my cycling ability more than any other technique.

4. No helmet. I was a bit surprised by how many mentioned this one. Although I see people ride without helmets all the time, it still isn’t as common as it used to be. And maybe it won’t continue to be a major newbie mistake, because the kids I see on their bikes all wear helmets, and all seem to regard them as a kind of status symbol.

5. No light at night. There’s a guy in my neighborhood who rides for exercise, but always at night, and always without lights. Drives me nuts. I just know he’s going to get hit one of these nights.

Other mistakes that got multiple mentions included: Riding against traffic; the clipless fall; improper tire pressure (usually too low); and having the saddle too low.

Some mistakes that got only a single mention, but ones that I’ve seen: turning with the inside pedal down (it could catch the ground and cause a nasty fall); never resting, and in a similar vein, going hard on each ride; and finally, wearing underwear under bike shorts(!).

Good stuff, everyone. Thanks for contributing. Let’s help our fellow noobs by gently correcting their errors when we encounter them.

Oh, that woman whose mistake triggered the idea for this post — she put her helmet on backwards. Third person I’ve seen do that this summer.

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Categories // Technique Tags // mistake

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