We will continue to prep for our first race today with a ride in the warmer temperatures that we will see at the afternoon race in less than 2 weeks.
For today, let’s focus on trying to replicate a race structure. There are a few ways to accomplish this:
Option A — For those who want to ride a large loop today, build into the ride six sections of pushing the pace for three to five minutes, followed by several minutes of easier efforts (to simulate the descending).
Option B — For those who intend to a smaller loop, choose loops that climb for several minutes where sustained efforts can be made to climb at pace and keep moving even when the going gets tough. Four or five of the BST/Canyon Hollow/Gasline loops would actually be a very good way to practice.
Option C — For those groups interested in practicing punchy and more technical climbs, check out Clarks or Rattler. While most race courses do not have a lot of technical features, there is usually one or two small sections.
No matter which option you choose, please focus on building rider confidence by talking about improvements everyone has made over the summer. Emphasize how much farther / faster your group can ride compared to their very first practice two and a half months ago. Point out things that used to be hard, but now are totally ride-able. Ask your riders to point out things the riders noticed they or their teammates have improved on as well.
Also, we hope it goes without saying at this point that all of the strenuous parts of any ride should only occur after an intentional warm-up (which really does take 15+ minutes to do correctly).
A few more helpful tips to prepare for the races:
- point out that momentum is your friend when going over steep or rocky sections/climbs;
- have every rider practice a few fast passes, emphasize that you must accelerate to make a pass safely (i.e., a pass should only take a few seconds to get around the person in front of you); and
- practice drinking while riding . . . please make sure riders with water bottles on their bikes can get the water bottle out, drink, and back in the cage safely while pedaling.