You are here: home » blogs » Team Training Camp 2010 - Malaga pt.4

Team Training Camp 2010 - Malaga pt.4
by Paul Rowlands | 08/02/10

Today I rode with some of the team into the hills, out from our base near Malaga. The plan had been to ride for an hour then sling the bike onto the team car to watch from a comfier seat and catch up with John Herety on how the week had gone. That little plan went somewhat awry when the team car got caught in traffic and lost us for a couple of hours, leaving me with a perfect opportunity to compare myself against the professionals.

Now, by compare, I don’t mean see if I’m as good as, I worked out long ago that there’s a gap I’ll never have the talent, commitment or physiology to bridge. I guess I wanted to know how the difference manifests itself, is there something I could actually see that would tell me why it is that they can push harder and faster for longer than I could ever hope for?

The short answer to this question is – no. Which is infuriating on one level but is part of the magic of this sport, there’s no one thing that makes a pro bike rider different to you or me, at least nothing that’s apparent to me.

So I climbed into the team car, satisfied with my all-out effort that had kept me on the coattails of these guys for a little over 2 hours (they were going on to ride for 5). I decided to ask John H how the team manager defines the look of a good rider, and more importantly what’s the tell that gives away a weak one.

Driving in the car behind a squad of professional cyclists gives you plenty of time to study the form and style of each of the riders. Kristian House and Darren Lapthorne each pedal quite a high cadence but Kristian rocks ever so slightly on the saddle, nearly imperceptibly until John pointed it out. Dan Craven and Jonathan Tiernan Locke each pedal a higher gear, but Jonathan stands on the pedals more frequently. Each rider has their own style and for that matter each undoubtedly pedals with a great deal of style too.

But if I were to pedal faster, slower, seated or standing I still wouldn’t be able to reach the standard of the group of riders sat before me, so what is it John? Well, apparently it’s got very little to do with the legs, it’s all in the core. And as John pointed out, the one thing that united them was the solid and all but motionless shoulders and torsos that ensure all the power generated heads south to the pedals where its needed and not (as is the case with your humble writer here) up through the body where it’s wasted. A style of riding John called dancing the canard, a fitting metaphor for the duck like bobbing of the shoulders we’ve all seen and done as fatigue sets in.

The difference between you, me and the professionals of the Rapha Condor Sharp team is nothing to do with what they do, it’s all about what they don’t. Efficiency and economy of effort is something you’re seemingly born with not something you learn, not that that’s going to stop yours truly, perhaps if I could just keep those shoulders still…

<  ·  >