Thursday morning was team time trial practice for the Valkyrie ‘skillez’ group (as dubbed by Simon). It was a good turn out – the three fabulous helpers (as mentioned in the previous post), Eleanora, Linda H, Cherrie, Leonie and me.
After meeting at the ANU we rode off to OPH as a bunch to practice our team time trial skills, but at an intersection in Civic, one of the girls got stuck at a set of red lights with two of the V-Mobile boys. I was keen to stop and wait for them, and mentioned that to Cherrie, who signalled that to the rest of the bunch. But Milto, thinking it was just the boys we’d left behind, called out to just keep riding and that they would catch up. I wasn’t sure about this, but just went with it, and we kept riding to OPH. Eventually we all met up at OPH, but I learnt a critical lesson about being in a bunch from this experience. Being assertive and confident in your calls when you’re in a bunch is really important. If you are unsure about a decision that someone else has made – speak up! What I should have done is spoken out and made it clear that we were going to pull into the carpark and wait for them. I think for a bunch to be safe and comfortable, all its members need to be confident enough to speak up.
Once at OPH we did some drills set out by Simon. We rode twice round the circuit as a bunch, getting used to riding together and doing some one-handed drills. Then we pulled back in, split into two groups and did some TTT practice. We focused on: spacing to the wheel in front, being smooth (with use of brakes and general bike control) and pulling off the front clearly (calling out and using the elbow to signal). In the later laps we practiced using the drops.
Overall, it was a good session – it gave us the opportunity to reinforce important skills and get comfortable riding together as a bunch.
No comments:
Post a Comment