Too Vanilla For You

So I've been teaching these cross clinics out at Alpenrose for a few years now. There's a lot of beginners out there, a lot of them have never raced cross or raced bikes at all. I thought I'd post some of the more common questions that I get and some of the answers. Hopefully this will be helpful even to the more experienced riders out there. If anybody has anymore questions feel free to ask them in the comments section, and I'll do my best to answer them.

1. How do you dismount?
Swing your right leg over your rear wheel. Some people like to put their right leg between the frame and their left leg, then unclip their left leg. This allows you to start off with a full running step. I just swing my right leg over the wheel and kind of use the momentum to unclip my left foot. This means you start out with a "half step"...so be careful. Practice it so you get your timing down so you don't have to slow too much going into a barrier.

2. How do you remount?
The best way to practice is to start slow. Take long, walking strides next to the bike, then swing your right leg over and "walk" onto the bike seat. You shouldn't have any stutter step when you're walking, and as you get faster and faster make sure the stutter step doesn't make an appearance. Otherwise, go back to practicing slowly. You don't so much jump onto the bike (this can be dangerous, for obvious reasons). Instead, when you're going fast, imagine how it feels when you're practicing slowly. There's not a violent impact between you and the seat. That's how it should feel when you're going fast, too.

3. What's a good training plan?
Well, there's a few schools of thought. You can do like Tonkin does and ride your bike as much as humanly possible. I'm talking every waking hour when you're not at work. This works well if you work 60 hrs/week like he does, but plan on giving up a social life. It does help if you eat butter.

I try to ride less, but skip the butter. My goal is to ride as little as possible but still be able to win races. You'll have to experiment a little, because that amount of riding varies from person to person. I've pretty much settled in on commuting to and from work.

4. What should I eat before/during/after a race?
Well, cross races are so short, especially for the beginner categories, that there's not much use taking food or drink with you. That's why prerace nutrition is so important. Here's what I do: warmup well, and during the 30 minutes up to the race I like to have a quad-espresso, a coke, and 2 or 3 gels. After the race, I like to have a nice burger from burgerville. I might have a burrito and a snickers bar after that. On non race-days, I like to eat anything that gets in my way. Don't forget to drink water!

5. How can I/how did you get on Team Vanilla?
It helps if you need a couple bikes. Plan on looking good in baby blue. Do you have a long sleeve skinsuit? I didn't have one, and Sacha had some, so I think that's why I got on the team.

6. Are tubies really worth the hassle?
Well, I'd say that for some courses absolutely, and dry fast courses not as much, but keep in mind that you can get the most performance advantage out of a set of carbon wheels AND tubulars. Make sure you get a set for you backup bike, too. Last year I only had one set, then a set of clinchers on my B bike, but it looks like this year both my A and B bikes will have carbon tubies, and the clinchers will be relegated to my C bike.

7. How do I get really fast? I mean REALLY fast?
I can't give away all my secrets, but it does help to have prior experience at the elite level in other sports. Try this: get really good at snowboarding, then really fast at mtn. biking, then really fast at road racing, then try your first cross race. If you're like me, that will lead to a 7th place finish at your first cross crusade in the A category. From there, once you improve your skills a little and get comfortable in the races, the wins are right around the corner!

Ok, hope this helped.

Peace out.

Shannon