Cycling Workout by coach Jamie at InfiniteNRG
Roadie Rule - Etiquette and safety in group rides
When new riders with developing skills come into these group rides, sometimes there is increased tension, nervousness and even accidents. This past Tuesday, an experienced rider from the UCLA team hit a cone that was not pointed out by the rider in front and ended up in the hospital. This was an entirely avoidable incident and indicates a need for a reminder about key points of etiquette and safety on group rides.
Please give this list a quick read and strive to apply these rules and tips in your own rides. It is incumbent on each of us to become more skilled, safer riders. Often, it is not YOU who will bear the burden of your unsafe riding but the people in the pack around you.
With that...
1. BE A GOOD GUEST - If you are not an established member of a peloton, please act as a good guest. "When in Rome..." Try and assimilate into the norms of the group. That includes pace, communication, and any special riding patterns such as rotating pace lines. Also, start nearer to the back as a sign of respect for the regulars on the ride.
2. RIDE A ROAD BIKE - I can't stress this enough. Ride a road bike with drop handlebars. Leave the TT bike at home. If you have one bike with clip on aero bars, take them off. TT bikes are inherently less stable, less nimble. At best, you are a riskier bike handler, at worst, if you get in your aerobars in a peloton you will rightly get your butt yelled at. NEVER get in aerobars in a pack unless you are on a Pro Tour team preparing for a Team Time Trial. You're not. So don't.
3. MAINTAIN THE PACE OF THE GROUP - Do not 'do your own thing'. If you are on a group ride, you need to maintain the pace of the pack. If that means going slower than you'd like, so be it. If it means hammering until your lungs burst, well...do it until you pop and then slide out the back. When riders vary the pace they create gaps behind them or allow gaps to form ahead of them. This yo-yos the pack, esp. the people near the back. Bad form. Don't do it.
4. POINT OUT OBSTRUCTIONS - Verbally call out and, when safe to do so, physically point out obstacles. This may include but is not limited to:
- Upcoming red lights ('light up')
- Cars ('car up'/'car back')
- Pot holes ('pothole' and a finger pointing toward the hole)
- Cones ('cone' and a pointed finger)
- Water/sand/gravel (call out plus a waved hand to indicate a wide area of issue)
- Narrowing road or shoulder ('skinny up' and a hand extended outward and back waving the riders behind you to form a line behind you as you move left)
- Anything that causes you to slow or stop ('Slowing!' or 'Stopping' often accompanied by a flat hand, palm facing backward, laid against the lower back.)
- Flat tire ('Flat' with hand raised, if safe to do so) Just slow down gradually and when safe, move to the right
5. RIDE TWO WIDE - One of the great advantages of a group ride is that cars see us. I find it much safer to ride in a group than solo. But please...only two riders wide. And if there is a rotation in the group, watch what the experienced riders are doing. Are they moving up the right, rotating to the left and drifting back? Or just the opposite? Smoothly enter the rotation OR...feel free to stay near the back and stay out of the rotation if you are not yet comfortable.
6. DO NOT MOVE UP AT STOPLIGHTS - When the group comes to a stop at a light, you must NOT move up eight or ten spots. Stay where you are. The group needs to come to a stop in the same order that it was moving. Swarming the front of the group is bad etiquette. Move up when the group is rolling.
7. STAY BEHIND CARS AT LIGHTS - When you are solo (or if you are on a fixie, no helmet, smoking a cigarette) you might consider splitting the lanes and moving up through cars at a light. In a group, if you are at the front of the pack and arrive at a line of stopped cars...stay behind them.
8. WHEN IN DOUBT, PLAY IT COOL - Don't show up and be a loudmouth. Blend into the group and watch for cues from the veteran riders on what is expected in the group. Many of these standing rides have been going on for thirty years or more. Rides like Nichols Canyon, The Donut Ride, and Marina Loop have been around since long before most of us even started in the sport.
When you show up on a TT bike, bright red LATC jacket, double water bottle holders behind the seat, and your Ironman race number still stuck to your helmet or seatpost...you are basically asking to be singled out. Rightly or wrongly, all eyes are on you just *waiting* for you to blow it. Don't set yourself up for a situation. Tone it down, act like a respectful guest and you'll be fine.
Don't expect an outpouring of love. Roadies are a tough group. It ain't like a bunch of happy-go-lucky triathletes. And to some extent, the actions of one triathlete will color the way all of us are received in roadie pelotons. But the rewards for participating in group rides are undeniable - You'll ride smarter, ride better, ride harder and see incredible results.
As always, train safe and race hard. Hit me up with any questions.
Konrad Ribeiro konrad@konradonthemic.com
Riding L.A. to San Diego, a guide.
You can see photos from our trip here: Flickr
Up until this point I had not ridden more than 65 miles, but when Tim Bomba invited me to ride 140 miles from LA to San Diego recreating his first epic ride to pick up the Endurance Athlete of the Year award I didn't hesitate to agree. If you've never ridden over a century, or are looking for a beautiful scenic ride with a lot of refuel options along the way, this is a great ride to do with a friend or small group. You won't set any land speed records since you must come to a complete, legal stop at stop signs and red lights or else face a moving violation ticket from the aggressive beach police. (Redondo Police have stepped up enforcement towards cyclists in the last few years.) But because you are in urban beach areas there are plenty of places to stop for bathroom rests and water bottle reloading.
Bomba and I hit the road at the crack of January dawn, 6:45am, from my apartment on Culver Blvd near Sepulveda. We dropped the 1/2 mile south to the Ballona creek bike path behind Culver City High School and headed west. The weather was perfect, just over 50 degrees with a small breeze and low moisture. I opted for a base layer, cycling bibs (with a generous application of chamois cream), arm warmers, head kerchief, and cycling jersey and it was perfect for the whole ride, even as it climbed towards 70 during the day.
Exiting the bike path we descended south on Pacific Ave through Playa del Rey. This becomes Vista Del Mar and follows Dockweiler Beach along the coast. There isn't a bike lane here and riders should beware of car doors and families with beach chairs. In fact, just to get it out of the way, this ride isn't for newbies though it isn't super complicated or technical. You need good riding skills, should be comfortable with hand signals, and know how to control your bike when cars do dumb things like park in the bike lane, eject pedestrians with long surfboards, and kids run across your path. There is also the occasional suicidal squirrel and you must be okay with rolling over it and maintaining control of your bike instead of dumping and dying. It won't necessarily happen to you, but be prepared.
Bomba and I tried to pack as lightly as possible, but in a ride of this length even with local bike shops along the way (and there are about a dozen, including Nytro tri shop), you should carry everything you might need. My supplies for the trip were kept to what I could fit in my jersey and the bike. I have 4 water bottle cages on the bike so I used my down tube and seat mast cage for easy reach fluids, and the rear cages held one bottle of Endurox R4 recovery drink which I held in reserve in case of dire need. It's 300 calories of liquid recovery and I figured if at some point in the ride I couldn't eat solids I would want it handy. The front two bottles could be refilled along the ride and I kept a bottle of Nuun electrolyte tabs to add to each bottle. (It would turn out the Nuun did not have enough sodium or potassium for the ride.) The fourth water bottle did not hold fluid, rather it held two bike tubes and two CO2 cartridges stuffed inside. In my jersey I stuffed 16 bags of my yam/almond butter/honey/salt fuel, and in my center pocket a plastic bag holding my ID, insurance card, credit card, debit card, $40 in cash, extra CO2 cartridge, written directions, cell phone, and mini HD video camera. Finally my bike bag under my seat held a multi-function bike tool (allen wrench & screwdrivers), tire levers, tube, and CO2 cartridge with inflator. Obviously this is not a race setup, but it did ensure that if we hit trouble in remote areas we would be able to get back rolling.
Somehow even with light traffic we managed to hit every single stop light and stop sign in the south Bay. We were on beach streets with light traffic, but stopping every two blocks made building speed futile. It took almost two hours to get through the south Bay beach areas, even with light traffic and few pedestrians. The lights are simply ridiculous. I know many riders blow through stop signs and lights, but I’ve known too many people that have gotten tickets and I’ve been hit by a car as a pedestrian, so I’m not willing to lay down my life or insurance rates for a few minutes of time savings when it’s not a race.
Vista Del Mar becomes Harbor Drive. It deadends at Longfellow, where we turned right, and then dropped downhill two blocks to a left on the bike path on Hermosa Ave.
Hermosa Ave goes into Redondo. Turn left at Beryl, right on Catalina (Triathlon Lab is at this intersection), this road runs parallel to the Pacific Coast Highway. We took W Torrance Blvd left two blocks, then right onto PCH. We opted to take PCH (Hwy 1) as opposed to climbing around Palos Verdes Drive. PV is beautiful, but knowing there were still more than a hundred miles ahead of us dissuaded our urge to climb the hill.
This stretch of PCH through Redondo gets more strip-mall and commercial as we rode south. Road conditions were fine, but the bike line could use better demarcation. Any would be good.
PCH turns and bears solidly east as Rancho Palos Verdes makes up the southern bulge of the South Bay. PCH stays commercial and densly residential through Walteria and Lomita.
We made a right turn on Western followed by a quick left onto Anaheim St. Tim knew this would be a rough area, remembering his last time through, and Babak’s warnings are also correct. This was the toughest part of the ride due to really rough road shared with gigantic freight trucks. The asphalt has been heated up and rolled over so many times by such forces that it squidges at the sides into pools of hardened blubber where a bike would ride. (Imagine trying to ride a bike around the muffin top circumference of Britney Spear’s zaftig phase stretch pants.) We were early enough in the day on a weekend so the roads weren't totally jammed with trucks, but the road conditions and other vehicles make this for experienced riders. The view of the train yards, loading cranes, and industrial works of the Port of Los Angeles and San Pedro is spectacular. I do not have photos because it was more important to live through the area than document it. There are two bridges that require some climbing, if only to get past the debris and speed past the truck blind spot after cresting the hill. Anaheim St crossed over the 110 and the 710 freeways, a lot of L.A. rail and waterways, finally entering Long Beach and depositing us to PCH south. (The reason you cannot just ride PCH through this area is that it crosses several bridges built with expansion joints that would require dismounting the bike to cross.)
Much of PCH in the south Bay is basically Barrio. It smells like frying bacon and clean laundry. Big chunks of L.A. smell like a cooked pig rolled in Tide.
Once we crossed into Seal Beach near the Naval Weapons Station (where they do not, I found out, build missiles that shoot from your navel), we stopped at a McDonalds to use the bathroom and refill our water bottles. We were just over two hours into the ride at this point and I was not drinking enough water. There were plenty of places to stop in the beach communities already, but I was so busy paying attention to road conditions and traffic that I was not drinking enough water. I cannot stress this enough – DRINK WATER CONSTANTLY. Every five to ten minutes I should have been taking a long pull on the bottle. But I didn’t. You should.
We stayed on PCH for a long while, through Seal Beach and into Huntington Beach. Huntington Beach really opens up for cyclists and is a great time to settle in to a good paceline. We buried a few weekend riders but were surprisingly left behind by a couple on a tandem bike hauling ass. The stop lights are spread further out and the bike lanes are generous. We could tell that the wealth of the area kept increasing as the price of the cars trying to kill us went up.
The next several stretches were Orange County beach towns of generally courteous drivers and decent travel punctuated with lots of traffic lights. We finally started hitting long stretches of park area in the south end of Newport Beach. This was some good pedaling and we were able to maintain solid speed. Newport Beach also has a park along the ocean which allows for sustained pedaling. There are also bathrooms in the park area.
We stopped in Laguna Beach for quick lunch at Subway. We split a footlong turkey sub and spent a few minutes refilling bottles. A 6” turkey sub without cheese or mayo is 315 calories. This is not enough, but solid food was a welcome change.
Laguna leads to Dana Point, and at the south end PCH becomes El Camino Real. This is mostly commercial strip malls and light density residential. It begins to get more spartan with seedy motels and laundromats, traveling on the east side of I-5. Civilization finally comes to a trickling stop at Cristianitos. We turned right crossing over the freeway, towards the last residential area. Just past the I-5 on-ramp on the left is a narrow bike path entrance, unmarked and easy to miss. But once on it the path opens up to a wide service road alongside I-5 without car traffic. We popped onto a road that passed the SoCal Edison facility and then the San Onofre nuclear power plant that looks like giant breasts. I always think of the Naked Gun movie when I see those globes. Along this path was some sort of bike bottle depot with several dozen water bottles hanging off the chain link fence. We went by so quickly I couldn’t tell if it was art, support for another ride, or a “take one, leave one” public offering.
This access road took us through a park area, and a gate entrance maintained by a friendly man made completely of leather. It was after this gate that I started to cramp in my diaphragm. It was about 85 miles into the ride and I wasn't too happy about the pain. I tried stretching, I tried deep breathing, I tried soft pedaling, nothing worked. As we crossed through the last gate of old Highway 101 and swung right under I-5 we stopped to check our maps. We should have turned left to enter the base, but under the bridge was a good spot to pause. Tim handed me two sodium pills and I popped them with some water. Amazingly in about five minutes the pain was gone. Looks like I'm going to start carrying sodium tabs on all long rides because I've had diaphragm issues in the past and it's killed me. No more! We realized we should have stayed left (counterintuitive to go left when the ocean is right) but the entrance to base is left and then hooks around. A kid at the gate checked out IDs and reminded us to ride single file and obey all traffic laws.
From the base entrance, we stayed right onto Las Pulgas Road, then right onto Stuart Mesa Road.
Camp Pendleton was a ghost town other than a few cars every now and again. It seems like the whole base is deployed. Even the residential areas were quiet; the stucco boxes for military families were completely silent. We didn't see a single person walking around the neighborhoods. One or two cyclists passed through going the other way, but no one actually living there was visible. Also, the road signs at bridges were for “Tank Crossing”. You just don’t see tank crossing signs that often.
Stuart Mesa Road led us to Vandegrift Road, which turning right took us towards the shopping areas for the military personnel. We finally started seeing more people as we were leaving base and this told us we were not riding through on “chemical attack Saturday”. After going under I-5 we hooked left and took the quick ascent onto Coast Highway arriving in Oceanside.
It was time for another Subway sandwich and liquid refuel. This time we switched to Coca-Cola, looking for a change in beverage as well as a sugar high. Hopped up on caffeine and sugar we took off, zipping through Oceanside and its commerce areas down towards Carlsbad.
Carlsbad through Encinitas, through Solana Beach. Solana Beach has become forever linked with the shark attack that killed the veterinarian triathlete several years ago. The photos from the articles do not do justice to the beauty of the location. If you had to pick a place to expire doing what you love, Solana Beach is one of those majestic places. Positively gorgeous.
Then we hit Torrey Pines.
Torrey Pines is one mean mother of a hill and it just keeps going up. It's long, slow, steep, and the long turns just reveal more hill. This comes after already putting in over 100 miles, so just turning the pedals on this uphill is a challenge. It's also after leaving one of the most beautiful stretches of ocean along the coast, so it's hard putting that behind you as you climb into woods and traffic. But we finally did make it, cresting at the top near the Scripps medical complex and knowing we were finally in La Jolla.
Sadly, just after the climb is where we made our wrong turn. We read and re-read our directions at the zenith, but as we shot the downhill we went straight on Genessee instead of staying on Torrey Pines, so we wound up going a long circle around La Jolla to get back to La Jolla Blvd. This also included a sharp ascent while dodging I-5 on-ramp and off-ramp traffic while pedaling into the sun looking for our left turn road. A few recreational cyclists pointed us in the right direction and when they found out how far we had biked, all they could say was "today?". That was worth it.
We attempted not to die as we rolled downhill through La Jolla and into San Diego proper, avoiding one particular bus that seemed intent of killing us both. At this point we were chasing down the sun as it began to dip behind buildings and dusk settled over the city. I had to remove my sunglasses to see, which meant the wind pushed my contact lenses away from center. Not my favorite way to ride. Not having road lights on our bikes was dangerous, and all we had to identify us was a blinking red rear tail light that I remembered was still attached to my bike. I took caboose and trailed Tim through town as we got more punchy against traffic and just kept pedaling to reach Sea World. There is an abundance of convertibles on the roads allowing easy access to drivers for directions, or for yelling at when they do dumb things.
After a left turn at the roller coaster we glided into Mission Bay, then crossed over to the hotel area for less vehicle traffic. This led us to the Sea World entrance. We rolled through the parking lot to find the entrance because Tim wasn't going to be happy until he saw Shamu. We rolled up to the main gate and found...a red carpet.
We arrived just as the check-in desks were being set up for the awards show. We were surrounded by several lovely ladies who clearly were impressed and a little confused at what we had just done.
My wife was waiting for us with a trunk full of bagels, soda, water, Payday bars, and our personal bags. We used the washrooms at Sea World to get cleaned up and changed, putting on sweats and loose clothes. It’s weird to eat a Payday bar and not taste the salt.
Final numbers:
Total time (from GPS): 11:01:09
GPS mileage: 134.5
Total wheel spinning time (from bike computer): 8:25:41
Lessons learned:
1) Bring salt tabs for anything over a 2 hour ride. I'm not getting enough salt from my Nuun tabs and yams. Apparently you should take 500mg per hour and even Thermolyte tabs are 50mb each. Not enough.
2) On super long rides pack solid food, even just stuffing a giant sandwich in a jersey pocket. The two Subway stops were critical, and those were only 315 calories each. The ride burned 7500 calories, and that's rough given whatever formula Garmin uses to calculate.
3) Be careful when switching to Coke. The sugar rush is intense and for some of us once we start the sugar rush parabola it is hard to stop. I don't like soda, but in small doses it did perk up my spirits and I could see how flat Coke on the Ironman courses is highly effective.
4) MAP MAP MAP MAP MAP. Having the iPhone was a lifesaver, but it's laborious to stop, get a signal, and map directions. My short term memory is shot after 120 miles and I needed simple directions. I had planned on taping the directions to my leg, fighter-pilot style, but I couldn't figure out how to laminate it sweat-proof before we left. It was also two pages of directions. Next time, it's going on the leg.
5) Start as early as possible because you really don't want to ride in the dusk when drivers aren't paying attention, the sun is blinding, and you're trying to navigate to your finish on a weary brain.
6) Invest in chamois cream companies because they really, really save your ass.
And here, for the leg, is the one-sheet directions for the next trip:
1) BEACHES SOUTH TO REDONDO, TO PCH
2) R WESTERN, L ANAHEIM CAUTION
3) R PCH THRU BEACHES, EL CAMINO REAL TO END
4) R CRISTIANITOS, L BIKE PATH
5) OLD HWY 101, L LAS PULGAS, R EL CAMINO, R STUART MESA
6) R VANDEGRIFT, L COAST HIGHWAY
7) CARLSBAD BLVD, PCH, CAMINO DEL MAR
8) CLIMB TORREY PINES RD, R TORREY PINES ROAD @ GENESSEE
9) R TORREY PINES, LA JOLLA BLVD
10) MISSION BLVD, L MISSION BAY BLVD
Tri Bike Makers and Club Demographics
In an effort to create a research starting point for members looking to buy a tri bike, in August of 2008 I asked LA Tri Club members to tell me their tri-bike make and model. Here is a list of triathlon bike makers, from the mass made to the custom. Of 63 respondents, the number in parenthesis indicate the number of tri club members who ride that brand.
Giant
Softride - no longer making bikes (1)
For those interested, here is how the list breaks down by model:
Maker Model Count
Calfee Luna : 1
Cannondale Ironman : 1
Cervelo P2C : 4
Cervelo P2SL : 2
Cervelo P3 : 5
Cervelo Soloist : 3
Cervelo P3C : 2
Cervelo P3SL : 1
Cervelo SLC-SL : 1
Cervelo Dual : 2
Elite Time Trial : 2
Felt S22 : 2
Felt S32 : 1
Felt (unspecified) : 1
Griffen : 1
Guru Crono : 1
Jamis Comet : 1
Kestrel Airfoil Pro : 2
Kestrel Talon : 1
Kestrel Talon SL : 1
KHS : 1 (this is a road bike and therefore not included in the above data)
Kuota K-Factor : 4
Kuota Kueen K : 2
Kuota Kalibur : 1
Lynskey Level 4 : 1
Orbea Aletta : 1
Orbea Diva : 1
Parkpre Image TT : 1
Planet X Stealth : 1
Quintana Roo Seduza : 3
Quintana Roo Picante 650 : 1
Scattante CFR (Performance Bike house brand, technically a road bike) : 1
Scott TT : 1
Seven Custom : 1
Softride Rocketwing : 1
Specialized Transition : 1
Titanflex Terminator : 1
Titanflex Veteran : 1
Trek Project One : 1
Trek Madone 5.2 : 1
Trek Equinox7 : 1
Trek Equinox 9.9 TTX : 1
10 Key Rules of the Road
10 Key Rules of the Road
Always…….
Wear a helmet when you ride.
Ride as far to the right as possible, sharing the road with cars.
Keep some easy to find ID on you when you ride.
Keep your hands near the breaks while riding in a group.
Keep your attention on what is going on in front of you.
Leave a gap between your front tire and the wheel of the rider ahead.
Plan an escape route, should the rider ahead slow suddenly.
Communicate with riders behind - verbally and/or with hand signals.
Ride at a steady, smooth pace, your behavior affects every person behind you.
Point out hazards in the road to help prepare the rider behind you.
All the best, IanIan Murray
Triathletix.com
