Bike Drills

While on my ride today I focused on bike drills. Here are the drills I practiced:

1. working on turning good circles with the pedals – imagining scraping mud off the bottom of your shoe. This is a very important skill and all the bike gurus recommend it. When I remember to do it, I definitely see a difference in power output. I really do try to remember to pedal this way, but it is not a habit yet. Hope springs eternal.

2. dodging homicidal squirrels – dodging homicidal squirrels falls into two categories:

a. the homicidal/suicidal squirrel – in this scenario the h/s squirrel waits by the side of the trail until it perceives just the right moment to dash out and attempt to jump into your wheel, thereby causing you to crash and kill you both.

b. the malevolent homicidal squirrel – here, the malevolent homicidal squirrel waits by the side of the trail as you approach. It then dashes out to the middle of the trail, stops briefly, and then either continues on or turns around to return the way it came (leaving you to guess which it will do). The effect of this is to either give you a heart attack or cause you to crash. In either of these events, the malevolent homicidal squirrel is safely back under the fence and laughing gaily as you lie there gasping your last dying breath.

3. drinking – actually, the skill is getting your water bottle out of that tight cage and taking a swig without needing to come to a complete stop or crashing. I can't do this while pedaling (but at least I don't come to a complete stop), at least not yet, but that is why we practice these drills, isn't it?

4. lifting the front wheel slightly – the San Gabriel River Trail has lots of cracks in it and it would be useful to be able to lift the front wheel over the cracks and prevent a little bit of teeth-cracking jarring. I believe the technical name for this is skill is "popping a wheelie." This is a skill that most people learned as children, but, alas, not me. Sometimes I can lift my wheel slightly and sometimes not. I think I am doing the exact same thing in both instances so I don't know why sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I hope to one day be able to do this on command and with precision (i.e. not dropping the wheel INTO the crack). Any hints or suggestions would be appreciated.

As soon as I have mastered these skills, I am sure there are lots more to be tackled.