Bicycle Racing: A Dynamic Chess Game On Wheels– March 3 clinic & riding
Victory Velo Racing Athletes:
Victory Velo Racing is presenting a **free** team-only race skills development and on-bike practice clinic with Julie Young of o2Fitness, Saturday March 3, from 11:00-1:00, light lunch after.
For those of you that haven’t seen our posts on this topic previously, Julie is a professional athlete and coach who competed in the top-tier European professional women’s cycling peloton, winning extensively in the U.S. and Europe, achieving– among many famous women’s races– overall victory in the 1992 Tour de l’Aude in southern France, known as the “Women’s Tour de France.” Julie is strong, tough, resilient, highly skilled and experienced, a pro athlete with solid street cred backed by extensive education.
This clinic is free to team members, part of your benefit for riding with Victory Velo Racing. We’ve scheduled it at 11:00 so riders can get in their early morning training– in Loomis Basin– then ride over for coffee and an hour chalk talk at McKay Florence’s comfortable facility off Dick Cook Road. After the one-hour instructive information session, we’ll ride the two and a half miles over to Rutherford Canyon Road, the site of our Loomis Basin Montserrat Circuit Race, for an hour of on-bike practice. After, we’ll return to McKay’s for lunch and socializing with your teammates, or you can choose to continue riding on some of our region’s most popular cycling roadways.
** Mountain bikers**: If you train on a road bike to build race fitness, even if only occasionally, don’t hesitate to join us for valuable riding skills and tips for staying safe while group riding.
Inclement weather plans will be for an enhanced instructive chalk talk information session and lively discussion/question/answer. If it’s raining we’ll have a bigger lunch, too, so don’t let rain stop you from attending at McKay’s and joining with your teammates in productive socializing.
This clinic is not to be missed. You as an individual rider and our team as a whole will benefit from these crucial, necessary cycling skills that help keep you, your teammates, and other competitors safe in the peloton. Additionally, and more importantly, you’ll acquire skills and tactics that when practiced over time will help Victory Velo Racing win! Don’t miss it!
Bicycle racers are quick to brand dangerous, unsafe, or unsteady riders, and even quicker to characterize, discount, and intimidate riders lacking solid skills and tactics. Once stigmatized, it’s very hard to overcome. The same is true for riders that practice good skills and sound tactics– they’re treated with respect and feared by the competition.
We’ve ridden with some very high-level racers that make basic skills mistakes, even professionals. It’s happened to us all, so we don’t know of any athlete on Victory Velo Racing’s road team that wouldn’t benefit from this information and on-bike practice.
If you’re planning to ride a bit in the morning prior to the clinic, and you plan to transport your bike to the area by motor vehicle, try parking at The Flower Farm, corner of Auburn-Folsom Road and Horseshoe Bar Road about 2 miles from McKay’s residence at the end of Covenant Court off Dick Cook Road. The Flower Farm is accommodating to cyclists, they have a very nice garden-style cafe with good coffee and breakfast treats, and they have a good-size parking area in the back near the big red barn event facility. Please do not appropriate the parking near the cafe, use the parking lots nearer to the center of the property by the red barn.
HERE’S JULIE’S OUTLINE OF INFORMATION AND ON-BIKE PRACTICE SKILLS SHE WILL COVER:
Clinic will start with chalk-talk providing overview of concepts and on-bike race tactics clinic. Intuitive astute tactics win more bike races than super human vo2 max values. Maintaining calm and composure amongst the race chaos coupled with proper peloton positioning and intuitive tactics leads to victories. Cycling is dynamic chess game on wheels – let the adrenaline begin…
- Brief review of pack riding safety
- Protocol – be aggressive, but keep it safe
- Standing up in the middle of the pack
- Drafting
- Overlapping wheels – hmmmmm?
- Basics on one day race tactics
- Effectively and efficiently covering attacks
- Protecting the team’s designated rider
- Understanding when/how to bridge or not to bridge
- Timing
- Make it clean
- Adhering to team pre-race plan and adapting to changes in plans
- How to reconcile team tactics and race strategy with individual intuition and opportunities
- Peloton protocol during a race?
- Safety takes precedence
- Keep it in perspective – is this the World Champs?
- Safety takes precedence
- Team tactics in regards to other players/teams
- Sportsmanship
- When to pull in break, when to sit in
- Sit on the break and sprint – is it okay?
- Sportsmanship
- Positioning in the peloton
- How opportunities are made and lost
- Flats, winds – your team’s secret weapon – the quickly, well organized echelon
- Capitalizing on cross-winds
- Pre-race strategy
- Capitalizing on cross-winds
- Sprints
- The art of lead out and sprint
Following chalk talk we will take it to the streets and put the concepts in to practice. Throughout the clinic pre, during and post, there will be opportunities for Q and A. Looking forward to it.
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