From left: Mike, Jakob, Ellis and Alex work on their bike handling skills in a public park in Livermore.
Wenzel Coach Ron Castia doles out wisdom during the morning session.
Attack is the rule of the day.
Ellis and Alex getting up close and personal during bumping exercises.
The group sets up in paceline formation in front of Castia's Livermore home.
Aubrey running the cone gauntlet during the afternoon session.
It’s bright and early Sunday morning and there is a group of men and women riding their road bikes around a grassy knoll in a Livermore, CA public park. Everyone is in full kit.
The whole thing is kind of a mess. People are bumping into each other, overlapping wheels and at least one rider keeps falling off his bike. On the ground he laughs nervously, then remounts and goes back to bumping into the other riders. Oddly, everyone here has paid to be a part of this bizarre scene. It’s Ron Castia’s Beginner Race Clinic.
In the group there’s a swimmer, a triathlete, someone recently diagnosed with diabetes, a couple of racers and a mishmash of others. The youngest person is 20. The oldest is 58.
Ron is a coach with Wenzel coaching and he has brought this collection of cyclists together to teach them how to flow.
“A lot of this is about how to be nimble on the bike,” Ron says.
Just about every drill Ron puts this group riders through returns to this theme. It turns out that regardless of whether you’re interested in entering your first race, doing your first century, riding more comfortably in traffic, or you have been racing for years, the road to happiness is self-awareness and nimbleness.
Here’s some of what Ron said about achieving this ultimate goal:
- Look up the road
- Feel the bike
- Engage your bottom bracket
- Bumping on purpose can unnerve your opponent
- Safety is not the only reason to be relaxed and attentive. You also need ready to pounce on an opportunity for a breakaway
- Develop smoothness
- Look through the turn
- Don’t white knuckle it
- Get those elbows out
- Lean the bike, not the body
- Assertive, not aggressive
- Don’t put yourself in a position where you have to sprint out of every corner
- Hit the apex of the turn
- Understand that bicycling is a game. And their are strategies to any game
As I watch people try and take his advice, it becomes clear that everyone, even the veteran racer, has room to improve on bike handling skills. Just like the need for hard efforts, recovery rides and staying hydrated, body/bike awareness is crucial.
After a day of riding in the park, pacelines in the front yard and orange cone drills, there is a lot of information to take in. Ron does a nice job of balancing the need for skills and the desire to know the secret for victory. Because in the end bicycle racing is indeed about who wins and who loses. And who has the best story to tell.
“Use your bullets when they will count the most,” Ron says.
