Week 37 - Day Two: Techniques

BIKE: Mike
TIME THERE: 26 min.
TIME BACK: 26 min.
WEATHER: clear, 7C, no wind there; clear, 16C, 4 km/hr crosswind back.
WHAT I WORE: yoga pants, t-shirt, sweatshirt, running gloves (sweatshirt and gloves in panniers on the way home)
NOTES:

I've been trying to figure out where I do well and where I can improve in terms of my biking technique. From what I gather, I do pretty well coming off a full stop, like when the traffic light changes to green after I've been stopped at a red for a minute or two. I also do fairly well when I've hit my cruising speed and I'm chugging along at a decent clip along a straight stretch of road, though sometimes my cruising speed isn't quite as fast as the speeds I hit coming off a full stop, so maybe I could put more effort into maintaining the initial speed I get up to instead of settling into something more comfortable. I've even found that going uphill I don't do too badly, despite how much I dread and hate it. Perhaps because I've minimized the size of the hills I have to face through my route selection, I feel capable of attacking the hills and getting up them relatively quickly because I know the rest of the ride is flat.

Then there are the parts I can improve upon. It would seem the parts of the ride where I lose the most time and momentum are the parts directly after climbing a hill when the road flattens out again. By this point, I'm so breathless from climbing the hill that I think I even lose speed at the top of the hill compared to what I was doing going up! During these periods of breathlessness, I don't keep up my cadence and I lose a lot of time coasting along at a low speed for the next couple blocks while I catch my breath.

Another place I could definitely use improvement is my re-mount. There are a few times I have to dismount: going up and down the flight of stairs on my route, and whenever I hit a crosswalk and have to walk my bike across. I am positively clumsy and awkward when it comes to re-mounting my bike. I swing my leg over, plant both feet on the ground, kick my pedals into position, then mount up and get going. This little ritual wastes a lot of time, and I'd much rather be able to just swing my leg over and land it on a pre-positioned pedal so that I can just hop up and start pedalling right away. However, I never remember to position the pedals for me to do this before I dismount, so by the time I re-mount I always have to do the ritual. It's an annoying waste of time.

So, my little ideas for technique improvement:
1. Disconnect my breathing from my leg movement. It sounds simple enough because these are two very separate functions, and yet I find that whenever I'm breathless my leg rotations slow down considerably as I concentrate on breathing. This happens even if my legs aren't sore. What I could do to improve is concentrate on maintaining the cadence with my legs and allow my autonomic nervous system to take care of the breathing. I mean, really, that's something I don't have to consciously focus on: if I need more air, my body will ensure it gets it. On the other hand, my legs need some conscious focusing to keep them working at a decent speed. So - focus on the legs, not the breathing, and don't let the heavy breathing slow down my cadence.

2. As I'm approaching a crosswalk, I want to make sure I come to a stop with my right foot at the 3 o'clock position (since I usually end up with my right foot at the 11 or 12 o'clock position and dismount to the left). That way, when I re-mount I can swing my right leg over the frame and land directly on the pedal with my right foot, then immediately start pedalling. I'll be much faster out of the gate that way, avoiding the ridiculous ritual of mounting with both feet on the ground, kicking my pedals into position, and then starting to pedal.

Of course, all the techniques in the world won't improve my time if I keep getting stuck at a red light at every controlled intersection I pass, as I've been doing every ride so far this week. What a pain in the ass! I'll get a good momentum going, then have to stop for two minutes and work back up to that momentum all over again. Egads! Well, the better my techniques in between, the better time I'll make regardless of how long I spend waiting at the lights.