Cornering Techniques for Competitive Cycling

Video Transcript

"Okay now that you are riding with a group, you've met some people, maybe you are riding out of your local bike shop, there are certain skills that you really want to work on before you go out and compete in cycling. There are quite a few things that are important but the first thing I want to talk about is cornering. Cornering is how you go through and finish a corner or a turn if you want to call it. That is very very important because it will affect your speed and it also affects those around you. One of the things you are going to hear when you get into cycling is hold your line and basically what that means is when you are on your bike and you are going into a corner, you don't want to have any jerky movements. You want to start and see where you are finishing and that makes everyone around you more comfortable and that also keeps anyone from having an accident. It is very important to work on your cornering and practice it if you need to with cones in a park or somewhere until you get the feel of your bike going in and out of turns. Okay now you've worked on your cornering and you are getting used to going through your turns very smoothly, you are riding with other riders and the next thing you are going to want to work on is riding in a pace line and drafting. Now riding in a pace line is basically where you have one rider on the front followed by another rider, another rider and so on and the key to that is that the purpose who is on the front is taking the most wind. They are breaking the wind for you, they are working the hardest and so what will happen is that person will take what is called the pull. Thye will ride and keep a pace and when they get tired, they are going to pull to the side and the next rider is going to come up and the first rider is going to fall to the back. The benefit to this style of riding is that nobody is ever working really really hard. It is almost like you are taking turns, you are taking pulls and another thing that we call this in cycling is called drafting. The person that is behind the person in front is drafting. They are not hitting the wind so they are not working as hard as the person in front. This is very important when you go to race because when you race your bike you don't want to be on the front taking wind all the time because you will be very tired and the other riders will benefit from just hanging on your wheel. That is a mistake that I've made so I know from this and this is just something you want to work on; riding on a pace line, drafting behind other riders and taking your pulls. "