[NCNCA] Early Bird Lesson Plan - week #5

[Shawn Mehaffey]

Week #5 - Putting it all together
 
Discussion Items: A brief review of the topics already covered and stress steady, predictable riding and good safe bike handling. New Topic - Proper behavior at a race, negative racing, and racing with intelligence.  
 
Warm-up: Warm up in groups of 15 w/ 3 mentors each, ride double pace line for 2 laps w/exchanges every 20 seconds.  Review the best line getting through the corners, riding over bots dots, and pulling off on the outside vs. the inside of a turn.
 
Practice: Execute the threaded (three) paceline drill - the two outside lines slide back and the center row moves forward.  Riders should alternate moving over to the right or left side of the pack once they reach the front.  Emphasize the need to keep all three lines tight and close together to make this drill effective.  If this is confusing don't worry, we’ll demonstrate it before we do it.
 
After 15 minutes we will practice bridging to breaks.  Send a few riders 100 or so meters ahead of the main group and then designate one or two riders to safely bridge to the breakaway.  Repeat every 10 seconds until the pack has reformed.
 
EB ad link:  http://www.velopromo.com/ebcr-ent.htm

***
 
Here are the details involving the three pacelines - the two outside lines slide back and the center row moves forward.  A rider that starts in the right line rotates to the center line once he or she gets to the back.  The riders at the back alternate moving to the center line - one from the right, then one from the left.  When a rider reaches the front, he or she moves over to the OPPOSITE line than where they started from.  In other words, if he or she stared from the right line, then he or she would pull off to the left then begin drifting back. 
 
This drill brings together all the skills these riders have been working on:
holding a line, not overlapping wheels, staying together and in formation through a turn, and pulling through smoothly.  Most people get a kick out of it; I know I did the first time Larry Nolan showed it to me.  If this is confusing don't worry, I diagramed it below and we'll go over it on Sunday.
 
 Three Paceline Diagram:
 
 
 start -
 
  XX    XX
  XX    XX 
  XX    XX
  L2    R2
  L1    R1
 
 
 rotation begins -
 
  XX    XX
  XX    XX 
  XX    XX
  L2    R2
  L1 R1
 
 
  XX    XX
  XX    XX 
  XX    XX
  L2 R1 R2
     L1
 
 
  XX    XX
  XX R1 XX
  XX L1 XX
  L2 R2 
 
 
 R1 now completes cycle and pulls off to left line -
 
  R1   
  XX L1 XX
  XX R2 XX
  XX L2 XX
 
 
 And so on... -
   
  R1    L1
  XX R2 XX
  XX L2 XX
  XX XX
 
 
Note this formation remains intact around the entire course.  Also please be aware that this is strictly a bike-handling drill, it is NOT a recommended way to move up in the pack!


      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Looking for last minute shopping deals?  
Find them fast with Yahoo! Search.  http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping