Don't struggle on your own for years, join a club and start benefitting from learning the basics from more experienced riders. It's also much more social and enjoyable than riding on your own or with one or two friends. Above, members of Clontarf CC in Dublin, which is only a couple of years old and yet has fostered a great atmosphere making it very popular.
Joining a club and making sure not to skip basic lessons are key if newcomers to the sport - either racers or leisure cyclists - are to improve as quickly as possible and enjoy the sport to the full, writes coach Paddy Doran of www.peakendurancecoaching.com
As we head towards another summer of cycling with dreams of great performances in races or personal best times for sportives in our heads, we need to focus on precisely how those dreams will be achieved.
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The truly glorious thing about bike racing is that it isn’t always the strongest athlete that wins. The factors that will deliver the yearned for performances come under a few broad headings:
- Physical
- Mental
- Tactical
- Technical/Skill
- Lifestyle
Getting your body to the peak of preparation is only part of the job of achieving your goals.
Skills and technique on your bike are often overlooked, especially for riders for whom they don’t come naturally.
But the great thing about skills is that, unlike Tour de France winning lungs or Olympic sprint gold medal fast twitch muscle fibres, they can to a large extent be acquired.
One of the most limiting factors that we see most often when coaching newcomers to cycling is technique/skills.
But with a little coaching and a proper attitude to the process, bike handling can be turned from a limiting factor to an advantage.
So what is this so called skill and technical ability that often seems so daunting and elusive at the outset of a life in cycling?
According to the Oxford dictionary technique is “a way of carrying out a particular task, especially the execution or performance of an artistic work or a scientific procedure.” The same tome describes ‘skill’ as “the ability to do something well; expertise”.
We often see more experienced cyclists held back by poor knowledge of training principles and nutrition.
Beginners like A4 riders with less than a season under their wheels and riders training for sportive challenges can cut out those wasted years and at the same time fast track their acquisition of the right technique for riding their bikes.
Newer riders will see huge improvements by acquiring and honing techniques like being able to safely hold position in a group using the right cadence and gear, cornering, braking and learning how to sprint.
We’ve all seen them in the group and, if we’re being honest, at one stage we did it ourselves: the rider wasting energy by sitting out in the wind instead of getting proper shelter in the group; the rider losing time on corners or climbs and having to burn lots of energy to get back to the group.
Riders can sit in the wrong gear as a corner or hill approaches, or they might disrupt the pace of a breakaway with novice pacing and timing.
It all adds to the stress of competition for the novices in question which in turn leads to further fatigue and ultimately lessens enjoyment of the cycling experience.
If these areas improve, the difference it makes to a cyclist’s confidence and enjoyment of cycling is huge.
So, how does the beginner go about improving the technical end of things?
The first step is to join a good cycling club which caters for different abilities and has experienced mentors to ask for advice.
It sounds simple but it’s the time honoured way to learn the black art of riding your bike in a group to your best advantage. You skip this step at your peril.
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Sportives and A4 races are peppered with lone wolf unattached riders who may be strong but who usually dwindle into the background as the event progresses. They often cause chaos in the bunch with their erratic riding first, mind!
Having joined a club, skills acquisition will be fast tracked on club rides. Your club coach or mentor will probably look to introduce working in smaller groups at higher speeds as technique improves.
And the beginner will no doubt be the recipient of plenty of advice on how to improve. Take it all in the spirit it’s offered. It’s a rite of passage.
Organise coaching sessions through your club. Most have dedicated coaches these days who are only too happy to help out newer riders.
If you feel less confident or intimidated by the group in the early days you could look for some individual coaching sessions with qualified coaches.
You can also improve many of your skills while out riding alone.
For example, try different cadences (the speed you spin the pedals or revs per minute) at various speeds to develop a feel for what cadence best suits you and to get used to changing gears until everything is happening automatically.
Braking
Practice braking in a safe environment away from traffic. It’s one of the key skills to bike handling and can really improving cornering and moving around a bunch.
Try to find a small local, traffic-free circuit and if the circuit has plenty of corners, so much the better for fine tuning your cornering technique.
Female riders
Women should go to www.womenscycling.ie the website for the Women’s Commission of Cycling Ireland. There are regular notices about specific coaching sessions for women that cater for all abilities and experience levels. The Women’s Commission are very proactive in the coaching area.
The Performance Pyramid
Notice in the attached diagram that I have the mental component running alongside the others
The reason for that is that, in my opinion, mental fitness depends on how all the other components are developed. Technical development is the first step in feeling competent and boosting confidence.
If you cycle three times a week or more that’s at least 30 opportunities between now and the end of February to improve technique. Set technical goals for each session. Go for it!
“The only man who makes no mistakes is the man who never does anything. Do not be afraid to make mistakes providing you do not make the same one twice.” -Theodore Roosevelt
Looking for a club in your area? Here's Cycling Ireland's club index
(Urging you to join a club is the best piece of advice we can ever give you, just trust us on that one - Ed)
