Ride Report: NEBC Racing Clinic - Day 1

4 April 2009.

Late last year, a co-worker recommended NEBC's Spring Racing Clinic which consists of two classroom sessions and four outdoor clinic sessions.

After brief introductions, our group (one of four or five) started off. Lesson one: The pace line. Having done pace lines before, most of this material was review for me, but not all. For example, I didn't know how standing impacts a pace line. (If not done correctly, the standee's bike zips backwards as he stands, possibly causing trouble for the rider behind.)

After a lap of "follow the leader" pace lining, we moved to the rotating pace line. If you have watched the Tour de France, you might have seen this. A group of riders rotate - the leader pulling off to the side, "slows," and rejoins at the rear, ad infinitum.

This was fun. Each time I pulled, I learned something. As leader, don't soft pedal on descents - Trust the train to keep up with you, Occasionally, look back to make sure you didn't break apart the group, Stay close to the train when rotating back, etc.

For our group, things started to go pear shape on one of my pulls. I took the lead over on the bottom of a hill and held that pace during the ascent. This had the unfortunate side effect of rocketing me off the front, fracturing the group behind me. When I realized what I had done, I sat up and soft pedaled until the group caught up. After rejoining the rear, one of the instructors had some words for me, mainly about wasted effort (at least that's all I could make out).

Now when we rotated to the front again, his pull fractured the field again, we eased, then did it again. Essentially these repeated hard pulls were separating the group, those that could keep up and those that could not.

And that is what happened. Three riders (including myself) and an instructor escaped the rest of the pack and set up a fast rotating pace line (instead of pulling for 30 or 60 seconds, you pull until the last leader rejoins the rear).

All told we did 2 laps. At some point in lap 2, I did a long sustained "strong" pull into a head wind ("strong" is what the instructor called it). Unfortunately, I pulled off the front just as we started a hill... put another way, I spent myself on the pull and couldn't keep up on the ascent. Try as I may, I just could not make my pedals move fast enough to keep the wheel of the guy in front of me and I fell off the rear. I tried a couple of last ditch, pull out all the stops, jumps - to no avail.

At this point, another rider fell off the pace and when they reached the crest, the rest of the group (all 2 of them) waited for us to catch up. As the instructor later related, you don't want to drop guys if you don't have to. Always-slow riders, sure. But if you have a guy who does great headwind pulls on the flats, don't leave him on a hill since you can use him later on. Reassembled, our group flew through the rest of the lap with no difficulty.

After this on-the-road fun, the full group reassembled in a large parking lot for bike handling drills like picking up a water bottle off the group (without stopping), slalom, cornering, and the grand-daddy - Follow the leader.

The exercises were a fun way to see what you and your bike can do, a safe place to go deeper into a turn then you might ordinarily.

The real "fun" came during follow the leader. The group was split into smaller groups which followed one instructor, and the instructor I went with a bit of reputation. Our follow the leader course involved, 4 guys on road racing bikes hopping curbs, riding on grass, turning fast in loose sand (to practice bad traction turning), slow turns, fast turns, track stands, parked car slalom... anything and everything to test your bike handling ability.

All in all a wicked fun morning, so much so that after getting home, I signed up for two more races!