Pleasantly surprised 2

So Simon and I did the 4th cat. racing training, and despite the absolutely awful weather (2 degrees above zero and persistent rain) it was really useful. It was run by Paul of PB Coaching. He’s a pretty experienced 2nd Cat rider, mainly on the continent. We had a rectangular loop set out on the South of England Showground at Ardingly, which was only a 40 minute drive away. The loop had quite a few hazards; potholes, narrowing of the track, gravel etc although Paul and his assistant Tim had swept the course before. That said, it gave a more realistic feel to what we might encounter on the road rather than it being a completely sterile track with no real hazards.  There were 40 of us, most from clubs but also quite a few BC members. A small handful of the riders had already done some racing but most had not and there were about 10 ladies, which was really good to see.  

We started with a quick briefing, mainly focussing on cornering; correct weight distribution, vision, braking technique etc.  With the weather so bad (it was only just above freezing and incessant, light rain) these points were particularly important and hammered home. 

So out on the bikes for the first time we just orbited the track on our own,  getting used to the hazards and corners. Paul told us we all had to stay in the small chainring to get our legs spinning quickly and to avoid people getting carried away in the first 10 minutes. After that, it was a succession of drills to get us used to riding in larger and larger groups. Basically, the order was as follows;

Ride in pairs, focussing on good vision and awareness through the bends.

As above, but in fours, keeping within 1 meter of the wheel in front. (Closer if confident).

Ride laps with your hand in your partners shoulder, they had there hands on their head, then swap on the next straight.

This next drill was the one that was really good fun and really got you thinking about your positioning but the main focus was on communication, both verbally and by a gentle touch on the back or arm.  We lined up in 10 rows of 4, and the four riders at the back had to come through the three channels and make their way to the front.  It started off quite easily but as you can imagine, after a few minutes it got quite chaotic! It was all about calling your position and letting the rider in front knowing where you were and what your intentions were. I have to say that I really enjoyed it.

after a break to warm up and another quick briefing, we were back out, but this time we were working in groups of 8. We self seeded so there was a faster group going down to a slower group (that said, none of the activities we did were carried out at speed. Tim was always at the front controlling the pace and it was very gentle. The focus for the whole day was safety and enjoyment). This time we learnt about pacelines and chaingang riding and focused on that for half an hour. 

We had a final talk session from Paul in the clubhouse which focussed a little more on race specific tactics and some basic training principles.

Although a fairly experienced rider, probably like a lot of us I like to ride with my mates who I know and importantly, I know how they ride. I have been sat behind Simon for so long, I can often pre-empt what he’s going to do before he does it. As a result, thankfully, we’ve never had a crash. It’s a very different kettle of fish when you are riding with people that you don’t know and I think the big takeaway from this course was that if we are all basically riding the same way with really good communication than our safety is going to be much greater. I went from being very sceptical about the riders around me (and I’m sure they felt the same about me) to trusting them within a very short space of time. How often can we say that about the people we sometimes end up riding with or encountering on the road?