Bicycling Miscellany: Technique

[ornoth_cycling]

Over the past few months, I’ve been re-reading my back catalog of cycling magazines, pulling out points that I thought were worth remembering and/or sharing. Here in part four is a collection of hard-won cycling techniques.

In training, either go easy or go hard, but don’t spend all your time at a moderate effort like 10 BPM below your lactate threshold. While this is exactly the pace most group rides travel, you’ll wind up incurring fatigue without stressing your body enough to cause it to adapt and improve. Emphasize quality in your training sessions, not quantity.

When riding in a group, try to stay in the front half of the pack, because riders at the back expend more energy by getting whipsawed during braking, turns, and accelerations.

People habitually breathe very shallowly, using only 10-15 percent of their lung capacity. Train yourself to breathe deeply to more effectively power your muscles. On the bike, concentrate on full exhalations, because it’s more important to get rid of waste carbon dioxide than to take up excess oxygen.

As you approach a climb (or a sprint), take a dozen big, deep breaths to flush all the carbon dioxide out of your system. Also, most riders’ heart rates go up unnecessarily at the mere thought of a hill, so work on mentally relaxing and welcoming such efforts, and your heart rate will not spike as readily.

At the start of a climb, be sure to ask the people you are riding with questions which require them to give extended answers. While they’re busy talking and panting, you’ll be breathing normally and dropping them.

When climbing, pull up on the handlebar with same hand as the foot you are using on the downstroke. That is, pull up with your right hand to give you more power while you drive your right foot downward.

On descents, beyond a certain speed (around 28 mph) pedaling actually doesn’t provide a lot more forward momentum (maybe 5 mph max). It’s probably more efficient to get into your tuck and use the time to rest and recover from your climbing effort.

Coasting descents are your best opportunity to relieve a weary butt by raising yourself slightly out of the saddle.

Aerodynamically, it’s important to keep your knees and elbows turned inward or inline, rather than splayed out, where they catch a lot of wind and function like air brakes.

Counterintuitively, having your head very low, with your chin near your bars, isn’t an aerodynamically optimal position. It actually creates more turbulence than if your head is 4-6 inches above the bar. Keep your head still and your back flat and aligned with your head rather than hunched up.