Bike Noob

Because I'm Always Learning Something New

Relax

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When I bought my road bike three years ago, I was getting the cursory fitting common to bike stores. The salesperson doing the fitting stepped back, and with a scowl, said, “Relax! Your shoulders are hunched. Your arms are locked. That’s not the position you want to be in.”

She was right, of course. “Relax” is probably the best advice you’ll ever get about cycling. Not only does it apply to your position on the bike, but just about any other aspect of riding.

Let’s take the basic riding position — the one I was having trouble with in the shop. If a rider adopts that position on a long ride, it’s likely to end badly. Your neck will be sore. So will your arms. You’ll be tiring out your muscles when you don’t have to. Your upper body — neck, shoulders, and arms — don’t move the bike forward, so you want to take them out of the equation. No side-to-side motion. No up and down motion.

This road bike rider has been fitted to ride in a relaxed position.

The relax advice applies to other riding moves, too. You’re climbing a hill? Relax. Be still from the waist up. Cycling coach Andy Applegate says you don’t want even an ounce of unnecessary tension. You want whoever is watching you to be unaware of the effort you’re putting into the climb.

Descending? Relax, too. It’s easy to tense up when the bike points downhill. Sometimes those runs can be pretty scary. Tenseness can affect your ability to control the bike. Drop your shoulders, loosen the death grip on the handlebars, bend your elbows. Tilt your eyes upward to look forward instead of craning your neck.

Here comes a corner. Relax. Coach Carl Cantrell says tensing up causes the bike to pull to the outside. You can lose control, and might have to brake to get control back. And we all know how jumpy a bike feels when you brake in the middle of a turn. Relaxing while cornering should become instinctive, says Cantrell. “It is the single most important thing most people can do to improve their cornering.”

Are you falling? Relax. “As you hit the ground,” said one commenter on a biking forum, “try to stay as loose as possible. If you’re tense or stiff, it’s easier to get hurt.”

Starting that first century? Or a big race? You’re probably tense with anticipation. Relax. Smile to relax your facial muscles. Breathe. Calm yourself by thinking positively. Then maintain that relaxed attitude once the ride begins.

For me, a relaxed position isn’t easy to come by. I catch myself from time to time with hunched up shoulders. But I’m getting better. I remind myself every so often to relax. I shift my riding position. I shake out my shoulders. I shift my hands on the bars.

We recently featured several guest posts on the most important thing the posters learned about biking. I’ll add my two cents to the mix. The Most Important Thing: Relax.

Sizing up wet roads

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This post may be coming a few days late — at least in Central Texas. We’ve had nearly a week of heavy rain, courtesy Tropical Storm/Hurricane Alex. For those of us who have to get out on the bike, it means we had to ride in wet conditions.

My wife approaching our neighborhood on a recent wet ride.

My last major crash came because of wet roads. Ever since, I prefer not to ride if it’s raining. But often, I get out out on the road when the rains come. So we might as well learn to deal with them.

It’s a good idea to test the road surface first. We all know (I hope) that roads are slipperiest when the rain has just started, because it brings oil to the surface. After the rain has been around awhile, it washes that oil away.

So, you might want to start your ride in the wet by standing on the pedals to accelerate quickly. If your rear wheel slips, you know the road surface offers less traction. Be careful.  Greg LeMond used to test the surface by taking one foot out of the pedal, and sliding the rear wheel out while stopping to see how much traction the roads would give.

Do your braking well before you enter a turn. Remember that it will take longer to slow down because your brake pads are skimming water from the rims. But don’t brake while turning.

If the road is clear, try to take the turn on a wide arc. That has the effect of straightening the curve. Be smooth about it.

Lots of riders (myself included) try to keep the bike upright, but lean their bodies into the turn. Pro cyclist Davis Phinney says that’s not necessary. Lean both bike and body, he says — just do it gently, and not as far as you usually would.

In fact, slick road tires probably offer more traction than knobby MTB tires, because more tire is in contact with the pavement. However, it is commonly recommended to lower the air pressure in your tires on wet days. I bring mine down about 10 pounds in each tire, and have had good results.

It’s also been my experience that I’m more likely to have punctures in wet conditions, because the road gunk you pick up tends to stick to the tire. So a piece of glass or metal that you might throw off after one revolution in dry conditions might stay on the tire for several rotations — and that increases the likelihood that they will punch through the tread.

Road surface makes a difference. Concrete is better than asphalt. Chip seal is pretty good, because the rough surface gives the tires something to grab. Old asphalt is better than new asphalt. When I crashed, I was turning from an older chip sealed road onto a recently-asphalted residential street. Water collected on the surface of the new asphalt. When my tire hit the new stuff, it slid out from under me.

Be wary of metal surfaces like manhole covers, or flat metal sheets in road repair areas. They’re as slick as ice. So too, for the raised paint that marks traffic lanes. Two riders in the Tour de France prologue were knocked out of the Tour because they hit those raised traffic lines.

Riding in the wet may not be the pleasantest way to spend time on the bike, but it doesn’t have to be a ride-stopper, either. For me, the biggest problem riding in the rain isn’t the road surface, but keeping my glasses clear. Any ideas to help with that?

The “Technique” Ride

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I was chatting with a friend about biking the other day, and he asked what rides I’d done lately.

“Well, yesterday I did the ‘technique’ ride,” I said.

He looked confused, and asked what I meant. I told him that once a week, I do a ride where I don’t worry about speed, or training, or endurance, but instead I try to improve my technique on the bike.

Lately, I’ve been concentrating on three things: cadence, pedaling in a circle, and cornering.

I used to work exclusively on cadence. When I ride the Veloway, I try to keep it at 90 rpm or above. That might mean I’m using some fairly easy gears on some stretches of the route, but that doesn’t matter. I’ve found that getting used to pedaling in a high cadence makes me faster, improves my endurance, and makes it easier for me to draw on my reserves if I’m starting to flag on a long ride. But recently, I’ve caught myself ignoring cadence, and mashing the pedals. I’ve gotten a little slower. So it’s time to get it back. Most of the time, I maintain my 90 cadence in the small ring. I can do it in some of the easier gears on the big ring, but by using the small ring, I don’t worry about my speed — just cranking those pedals fast enough.

When climbing hills, or pushing to catch up to the pack on the flat, I always try to remember to pull up on the pedals. That uses the big thigh muscles to generate power. But two summers ago, I discovered that pedaling in a circle accomplishes the same thing, and the process is much smoother. But it’s really easy to forget that, or to get lazy, and the next thing you know, you find yourself mashing down on the pedals, instead of applying power on the upstroke. So during the “technique” ride, I constantly check that I’m pedaling in a circle.

Then there’s cornering. There’s no real secret to this. But over the past year, after a few crashes, I found myself entering corners with a lot less bravura than I used to. I noticed that I was paying too much attention to the road immediately ahead of myself when coming into a turn, and that resulted in a turn at a slower speed, and maybe some issues with holding my line.

But a couple of weeks ago, it occurred to me: I haven’t been using the proper technique to corner my bike. Remember, the bike will go where you look, so it’s always a good idea to look well ahead, and even around the corner. Taking my eyes off the road right in front of my front wheel makes a marked difference in how well I get through the turn. Remembering to jam my outside foot down on its pedal, and point the inside knee into the turn, adds more stability to the bike. I’m liking my rediscovered confidence in corners.

These are fundamental skills for me. But how much time do gifted athletes spend on the fundamentals of their sport? Yeah. By concentrating on these three things once a week, I find that they’ll be there when I need them on my other rides.

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