Bike Skills!

Last night I attended a free bike skills class sponsored by my club, WOW. (Women On Wheels) The clinic was put on by Marla Emde and her husband, Michael. Marla is a retired competitive cyclist and an expert coach with USA Cycling and USA Triathlon, while her husband is one of the top Cat 1 cyclists in the state. The two also promote numerous cycling, duathlon and triathlon events in the area, including Valley Girl Tri, which is my A race this year. The two share a Ton of experience and coaching skills!

The purpose of the clinic was to become more comfortable riding in a close group, getting bumped around, touching wheels (which we talked about but didn't get to practice) and, god forbid, what to do if your handlebars become locked with another rider bars. Mostly it was about gaining the confidence to not panic in these situations. The clinic took place on the grass at a city park, and while it made the bike handling somewhat difficult due to the bumpy terrain, the knowledge that if we fell we would only get a grass stain, improved our confidence.

First we did some shoulder bumping. This required us to ride very close to each other and bump our shoulders together. This was to simulate the bumping that sometimes goes on in large groups of riders. More importantly, if someone steers their bike into you, you can put your shoulder into theirs, stabilizing them and preventing them from sending you flying.

Second exercise: How to ride in a tight group and look behind you. This is meant to stabilize you and your bike. Riding close to your partner, you reach out and put your hand on their back at the base of their neck or between the shoulderblades. With your hand here, you can now turn and look behind you without your bike veering off course. Regardless of whether you are on the left or right, you always want to look to the center, between you and your partner. Looking to the outside will cause your bike to veer right into your partner!

Ok, this moves us into the next cool skill. This allows two cyclists riding side by side to stop at a traffic light together, balance each other so they don't have to put their foot down, and then take off together. Not only is it really cool to see in action, but it comes in handy when two cyclists want to take up their space in the center of the lane, and not allow cars to sneak by at a stop light.

Here's how it goes. Riding close to each other, one person puts their hand on the upper back of their partner. (just like we did in the last exercise.) The other person lightly reaches out and touches the other persons handlebar, just for balance. You need to be going slow to pull this off. With a slight lean towards each other, you feather your brakes (one will be doing their front with their left hand while the other brakes their rear with their right hand) and slowly come to a stop together... perfectly balanced, pedals horizontal, ready to take off together when the light changes green. Wow! Doesn't that sound easy?

I have to admit, as much as I wanted to try this, I didn't step up quick enough, and the two people who did try were having such difficulty, that the instructor broke the skill down to it's root and had people practice doing Track Stands. This is the art of balancing on your bike without moving, or moving Very slowly. It's a very handy mountain biking skill, but works well when you pull up to a traffic light that is about to turn green. It prevents you from having to unclip or put your foot down.

Next we did some slalom stuff and practiced turning from the hips instead of from the bars. We also took to the street and made a couple laps around the park, practicing what we learned... bumping and turning to look.

My favorite part of the evening was where we learned to pick items up off the ground while riding by. When Marla first told us we were going to be doing this, we all laughed and said "Ya, right!". Being rookies, we used water bottles (the tall ones!) filled with water. There were two lines of bottles with 5 or 6 in each line, so we had several to aim for. We started by just riding by and trying to touch the top of the bottle. You want the pedal of your reaching hand to be in the down position or hoizontal track stand position. This gets the knee out of the way and allows you to bend over your leg to get at the bottle.

After several passes, touching the bottles became fairly easy. Next was to actually pick the thing up! Going slow... coasting... pedal down... bend at the waist.... Reeeeach... Got It! Yea!

I really enjoyed the challenge of this skill. To go from "no way I can do that!" to "cool, I picked up another one" was very fulfilling. More importantly, I liked the fact that I was more skilled on my bike and gained confidence in my riding skills.

At one point, I was riding at the back of the pack with Michael (and his dreamy Austrian accent) and he told me that the faster you go, the more stable you are. All the skills we just learned were a lot easier to execute on the road when we would be going a decent speed. I thought to myself how much sense that made. A gyroscope is most stable at high speeds, as it slows down, it becomes less stable, just like the wheels on our bikes. The faster the wheels are spinning, the more stable the bike is.

We happen to be going down a hill at a pretty decent clip. Michael was riding without hands, and without really thinking, I let go of the handlebar and sat up. I felt more stable than I had any other time I've ridden without hands. In fact, previously, I had to remain peddling to maintain my balance, but the speed we were moving made me feel quite stable. Michael then swerved back and forth to show me that if you steer with your hips, you don't need to hold onto the handlebars. I wasn't quite ready to do that, but instead, threw my hands up in the air as though I had just won a stage of the Tour d' France. If for no other reason, learn to ride without hands so you can throw your arms in the air like you just won something.

Viva la Victoire!