[NCNCA] How to kill junior racing in the USA

[Roger Marquis]

>> From experience: I was on an operating table by the
> time I was 18 with 'overuse' injuries to my knees. I raced my
> junior races in the proper gears, but I rode Friday nights, and
> trained, in the 'big boy gears.'

The assumption here is that riders, junior or otherwise, won't use
too big a gear if they don't have access to an 11 or 12 (or 13 or
14 as the case may be). I haven't seen any good evidence
supporting this assumption.

It is just as easy to push too big a gear into a headwind or uphill,
or ride too hard without warming-up, or ride too far without adequate
base miles, or any of a hundred other mistakes that most of us have
made at some point in our development.

In my experience the best thing developing riders can do is frequent
groups where they will need to accelerate regularly, and not be stuck
in too large a gear to do so. It has also been my experience that
fixed gears are the single best way to develop leg speed. Of course
anyone can fit too large a gear, and the USCF limits simply don't
prevent juniors from riding too big a gear, even on the track.

Knee-healthy gearing depends on the judicious choice of crank
length when assembling a bike AND the choice of an intelligent
ratio at every point in a ride. It really has little or nothing to
do with the availability of larger gears.

-- 
Roger Marquis
http://www.roble.net/marquis/