So having two cyclocross races under my belt, I was a little bit unhappy with how my handling of the bike was going. I wasn't completely confident leading into corners or how to carry speed through them. Much of my time was spent braking too early and playing catch up leaving the corners. Not exactly the way to move forward in a race. I needed to teach myself to be more aggressive into corners and build confidence in my handling capabilities. What better way to do that than take my cyclocross bike onto some mountain bike trails? So I did.
At Trek, we have our own private trails that are on private land and are only open to Trek employees and their guests. The trails are well maintained and watched to keep them clean and free from intruders. So I grabbed up my bike as well as a bike from the shop to go teach myself how to handle the bike better on some mountain bike trails. I was basically forcing myself to get a feel for the bike.
I got up fairly early, got a few things done around the house and was hoping that the dew/frost on the grass would leave quickly so I could get onto the trails and not have to worry about slick and wet conditions. But then I thought, there wasn't a better way to teach myself to handle conditions like that than to just get out and ride in them. So I did.
Getting to the trails and unloading my bike, it was a bit of a brisk morning, but it felt good to be outside breathing in the morning air. The trails were empty, as it was a Sunday morning, so I would have them all to myself. Probably both a good thing and a bad thing. Nobody around in case I got hurt was a bad thing. But to feel free to ride the trails how I wanted was nice.
I headed out first through a trees section with lots of turns and tight sections that is particularly flat and fast. It's a great warmup loop that takes 10-15 minutes to get through, depending on how hard you are pushing. At this point, I wasn't too concerend with speed, but more about getting my blood flowing and feeling the bike out even more. One thing I am still trying to comprehend is the amount of pressure I need to ride with to make the bike both handle well in corners and carry speed. I will talk about this in another post.
After this section, I headed to the real mountain biking sections with some rugged terrain and elevation changes to test my limits. The trails were covered with leaves, so seeing both the trail and the rocks and roots was tough, keeping my attention fully and white-knuckling the whole time. I started to feel better and better as I carried more and more speed through each turn. I could feel the confidence building inside of me as I came to tougher and tougher sections.
I spent some time climbing and descending up and over the ridge that much of the trails are built around. I only had to get off the bike a couple times to get over fallen trees and some rocks I really didn't think my bike could handle. The last thing I wanted was a flat or to fall in the deepest part of the trails with nobody around.
I finished up riding the cross bike by going through the rhythm section to really pump out some feelings for the bike, and headed back to the car to get the mountain bike.
Grabbing the mountain bike, I just wanted to get a feeling for how hard I could really turn and give myself a better understanding of grip and tire pressure in the corners. I didn't spend much time on it, but I could feel how much grip I was giving up by running higher pressure. Leaning into the corners was so much easier and I never felt like I was giving up anything except on the climb with a full suspension bike, it didn't climb quite like my cross bike.
I wrapped things up and loaded the bikes up to head home, feeling much better about how I could handle another race soon. I am looking forward to the opportunity and am hoping to get back out ASAP.
-Dave
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