goose70

After two years of training (and hesitating), I’m looking to try some races beginning next spring. I have the usual weekday and weekend warrior “fast ride” paceline experience, but am considering something a bit more focused this winter, like a race skills clinic. Can any of you recommend one in the DC-Annapolis-area?

I know that some folks will probably say that the best clinic is to just show up to an actual race and learn. I don’t doubt that, but unless you feel that a clinic is a waste of time for some particular reason, I’d still like to do a winter clinic for my own edification.

MDcatV

a skills clinic is a great idea. unfortunately, you just missed this one. not sure if ABRT has anything set up or not, but they're a good club for you to consider joining for racing in MABRA.

goose70

Yep, I usually learn about stuff like that after it happens.

I did find this "Cabruce Road Racing Skills Clinic" that meets Saturday mornings at Hains Point throughout the winter. https://www.ncvc.net/rides1/Cabruce%2...%20Clinic.aspx I'm not clear whether you have to be a NCVC member to participate.

Although not really a race skills clinic, I also learned through ABRT that Parvilla Cycle near Annapolis is offering some state-of-the-art indoor training beginning later this month. https://abrtcycling.com/news/team-spo...ter-fit-studio I will probably give that a try.

tombailey

For cabruce you do not need to be a member to join. But most of the people who go are members or become members. If you've already joined a team it's a little uncool to show up to something provided free by another club. OTOH the more cat 5s that do a clinic of some kind the better. So just don't go in team kit.

My company wants to start weekend clinics but we may not be up and running this year.

carpediemracing 

I need to figure out a curriculum for a 6-session clinic, 45 minutes each lesson. Pavement, no grass, not much in terms of class space, 50 people (assumption).

I wish USAC had a standard session format/content. That would be nice. Well as long as I agreed with it. Heh.

MDcatV

i did a skills clinic for our junior team.

I broke it down into pacelines, group comfort, cornering.

pacelines:
i took a dry erase board and covered pacelines, 3 basic types: double, single, echelon (rotating) and how they worked. then we went out and practiced them. over and over again until we could navigate each smoothly.

group comfort:
we went and did a double paceline on some grass where the pair in back had to be leaning on each other while rotating through (until those pulling off were level with them - i did this so that if they fell down only they went down instead of everyone).

cornering:
in a parking lot, we did some cornering, practiced leaning the body, then leaning the bike, then following a more experienced rider through the corner to force faster cornering.

it wasnt particularly organized since i put it on, but it was pretty well received. focusing on those as the pillars one could work out a really good skills curriculum. 3 days on pacelines, 2 on cornering, 1 on pack confidence. everyone focuses on bump drills, and i agree that they're important, but in my opinion the above are more important and mastering would give one the wherewithall to handle some contact.

tombailey

i think that covers the basics. We also did touching each rider on the shoulder or hip as you move up the line. Given more time and the right space i would also add some bunning hopping, bottle pickup/setdown, riding whilst holding an ankle etc all for bike handling. Maybe TT starts as something a bit different. With a bigger group you can also do following a (more experienced) rider through a group.

carpediemracing 

Thanks for the ideas. I like the paceline thing. I'll cover, more in depth, the stuff from the ones I did for the Bethel Spring Series too (bethelspringseries.com). The 50 riders (or thereabouts) is the tricky part - I'm making the clinic mandatory for all Cat 5s, every week.

We have no corners to speak of but we have a hill, so I'll cover standing without shooting the bike back a foot. Etc.

Treefox

Sport and Spinal just did one too.

You can always just show up to Greenbelt in the Spring and go wild in the shattered field. (tragic there's no Tradezone anymore)

RudeSiggy

I'm on Tom Bailey's club (NCVC) and used to help lead our "CaBruce" clinics for new racers. I know that we've had trouble finding truly experienced racers to lead it, so I'm not sure when they are starting up. We'll definitely announce it on our facebook page (www.facebook.com/natcapveloclub) so you can stay posted there.

The unwritten rule in the past few years is that you can come to 2-3 Saturday sessions and ride with the club on our Sunday rides before it is a faux pas. I agree, however, that educating other novice racers is not a bad contribution to the local racing community. It's also easier to practice certain things with sufficient numbers for a realistic "racing" experience.

CDR, if you're looking for a "curriculum," PM me. I'd be happy to send you our outline for 5-8 two-hour sessions. We always have one or two official "leaders" for each group - hopefully an elite racer and/or a very experienced masters racer. A few other Cat 3/4s generally help as "grad students" to keep paces in grops steady, for example.

It usually starts with pacelines in small groups of 6-8, then we do bridging/attacking, cornering, bumping/wheel rubbing (on grass). Sometimes we also do a "hill climbing" clinic where we coach guys a bit more individually, for example, about not mashing too much.

We also have one day where we ask the entire club to come out so it's a big enough peloton for the newbies to get used to moving through the pack - instead of around in the wind - and following an experienced racers wheel. We call that "wheelsurfing." Lastly, we try to end with short race simulations that we actually line guys up and blow a whistle so they have to clip in. We tame it in various ways, but we do want them to have experienced a few hectic sprints before their first USAC race.