Back to the Basics
This weekend’s race made it very evident that I need to work on some of the basic skills to be a successful mountain bike racer. If we were basketball players no one would be shocked to hear me talk about dribbling drills or free throw practice. No one would would think twice about a golfer, even Tiger Woods, practicing his swing. But you never hear about bike racers working on the fundamentals. The absolute basics of our sport.
First and foremost is my pedal stroke. It’s very easy for me to execute a tangent application of force on the pedals on the road bike or on the gravel roads of a race like the Cohutta, but in the twisty single track of Ft Yargo (which is not overly technical in my mind) I was lacking. This should be second nature and with some practice it will be again. I went without a mountain bike for 5 weeks until the Topeak-Ergon bikes showed up just 10 days ago. That left me a lot of time to refine my pedal stroke on the road, but I realized two things about 90 minutes into the race this weekend: I was not pedaling smoothly through the single track and I was holding my upper body like a roadie. The latter cost me power and time. The former also cost me power & time, but even worse made my back ache. Once I realized these thing and made corrections I was feeling much better, but I had already fallen back in the race. Fortunately the solution is more single track time. Unfortunately it looks like rain all this week.
Second is my cornering. I was definitely getting better as the race went on, but there is so much energy spent in that first lap trying to create a gap on the racers behind that any waste of momentum will cost you later. The sloppy conditions in the latter part of the race forced me to really concentrate how I leaned into the corner and when I applied the brakes. When there is little traction you cannot afford mistakes. That said, when there is traction you can carry much more moment and get back on the gas sooner if you focus on when you brake and when you pick up the pedal stroke again.
My climbing was even off a bit. Pushing hard on the short steep punchy climbs out at Yargo took me off my game early on. The further I slipped back in places, the more I pushed myself on the climbs with bad form. There are some basics I harp on my clients about: pedal stroke, hip angle, how to hold the arms and shoulders, even how to breath….and on more than on occasion I attacked with poor form. The result was having to watch the competition pull away. That hurts a bit, but I am human and must practice these things just like anyone else. I guess the only advantage I have is that I am aware of the mistakes being made.
If the rain ever ends here in Atlanta I’ll have to get some dirt time in. If not, you may see me out on some group rides on the mountain bike at least pretending to be on the dirt.