Crosssports's Weblog

Howdy!

It’s Wednesday, so once again it’s time to work on your cyclocross skills.

If you’re in the Seattle area, make your way out to the Kore Cross workout at Marymoor Park. If you aren’t in Seattle, see if you can find an organized workout in your area or a group of like-minded folks to do some riding with.

Still no luck? find yourself a field and practice skills by yourself… it’s worth it.

OK. ‘Nuff said.

Here’s the plan for tonight’s practice:

– Warm up on the bike for about ten minutes. Just roll around, and get the legs moving.

– Get off the bike and run for  5 minutes, broken down into  30 second efforts with 30 second rests. Run as fast as is comfortable – work up to full sprints over several weeks.

– Stretch. Too complicated to give a full outline here, but if there is interest I will post a stretching/warmup regimen…

– Back on bike. Do dismount and barrier skills for ten minutes. Work on cowboy and step through dismount, and smooth running off the bike.

– Turning skills. Work on slow speed turning while pedaling, and high speed turns where you can’t pedal.

One drill I suggest doing is riding in a circle around a cone, trying to make the circle as small as you can while pedaling continuously. Ride smaller and smaller circles until things get so tight that you literally fall over sideways. Work on vertical bike alignment and countersteering. Push your limits – that’s how you figure out what they are 😮 Switch directions when you start to get dizzy…

– Starts. Practice starts until you get 5 perfect starts in a row.

– Rest for 5 minutes. Drink something, eat something, get ready to go…

– Practice race. I would suggest doing lap on/lap off efforts, or sets of 10 minute efforts. Full gas, pretty damn fast. Have fun!

– Warm down, stretch, get warm and go home.

Some notes:

– If you’re up to it, double up today and ride a classic 2×20 in the morning (link in yesterday’s post) and ride the skills practice in the evening. Big fun.

******Append a big damn asterisk to this suggestion! It will kick your ass, it will jump-start your fitness, it will make you fast… but you will need to make sure you recover the next day, and that you are up for it in the first place. Don’t mess up your season and overtrain, m’kay? *******

– Do some YouTube cruising and find some footage of the Euro guys riding crazy-ass stuff. Watch how different folks ride the same stuff in different ways, and try out the various methods you see.

Figure out what works for you.

I’m a vertical bike, keep pedaling, coutersteer kinda guy. The style works for me, but it’s not for everybody.

What works for you?

Don’t know? Figure it out… that’s what practice is for!

G’night…

~ by crosssports on October 7, 2009.

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