A word of advice.

When you go cycling, (or any exercise for that matter) it is important to warm up and just as importantly cool down. Spend the first 10 minutes of your riding, cycling at an easy pace in a reasonably easy gear. This will get your body warm ready for the rest of your ride.

This five minutes that you spend stretching after a ride is far more important than spending an extra five minutes on the bike.

Correct tyre pressure for road and mountain bike cycling is essential. If you have the incorrect tyre pressure in your bike you honestly have to expect problems.

For a road bike with 700c high-pressure wheels, the correct pressure will be around 100 to 120 psi. For a mountain bike being ridden in the bush the tyre pressure will be anywhere from 35 to 60 psi.

On a road bike, read the sidewall of your tyre. There you will find the manufacturer's tyre pressure recommendation. It will say something like "max pressure 110psi." My recommendation is to run your bike at this max pressure.

If everything is in good condition, that is tyres, tubes and rim tapes, then running the maximum pressure will not cause blowouts but it will improve your rolling resistance and greatly decrease your chance of getting a pinch flat.

On your mountain bike things are not so clear cut. The ideal pressure will depend on a lot of variables, for example, tyre brand, type of tube used, terrain that you will be riding over and your weight. So as you can see, it is hard to make hard and fast rules.

The most important point here is to experiment a bit to find out what tyre pressure works best for you and stick to that. If you run too low a pressure you will be forever getting pinch flats and if they are too high your tyres will slide around too much. You will be very surprised at the difference 2 or 3 pounds will make.

All this information is irrelevant if you don’t own an accurate tyre pressure gauge. There is no other way you will know whether you have 95 psi in your road bike tyres or 110, or if 40 or 45 works best in your Mtb. And remember, check your tyre pressures at least every second day, as you will find that over 24 to 48 hours your tyres will deflate 5 to 20 psi.

Are you forever getting punctures on your road bike? If this is you then read on.

You see, very often road bike punctures are caused by the rim tape inside the rim not protecting the tube properly. If you use module type rims (they’re the rims with the two layers of alloy with space between the two walls), then never ever use rubber rim tapes on these rims. What you will find is that with the high pressures you use on the road bike the tube will sink into the cavity of the module rim through the rubber rim tape.

Even on a new road bike, don’t presume the manufacture has fitted the correct rim tapes, because very often they haven’t.

Rubber rim tapes are definitely out, plastic rim tapes are better but can often split after a while and very fine cloth rim tapes often are not strong enough either. For me, the only brand to use is Velox. It is a thick woven cloth rim tape that eliminates the tube puncturing inside the rim. Problem solved.

A word on Cadence.

Ever watched the Olympics or the Tour De France on TV and wondered just how it was possible for these guys and gals to go so fast for so long. Well.... apart from the countless hours of training and their incredible natural talent, technique takes a major role in their unbelievable performances.

Cycling technique is the one thing that you can work on that will make the biggest difference to your performance.

And probably the most important technique that will give you this performance boost is the art of spinning on the bike. That is, how fast your legs go round. This is called cadence.

Should you have a slow cadence or should your legs spin around quickly with a high cadence, and just how fast is a high cadence?

A lot of people think that the best way to get fit, or to beat your mate, or to go the quickest, is to put it in the biggest gear that you can and grind away on the pedals….using brute force. WRONG!!

All this will do is make you go slower, for a shorter distance with more pain and probably wreck your knees in the process.

The answer is in spinning. The cadence or leg speed which is considered the ultimate for road cycling (on any style of bike) is 90rpm. That is, your legs are rotating 90 times every minute. If this sounds quick to you then this information is for you.

You see, a cadence of 90 is deemed to be the most efficient way to ride a bicycle. You will be able to cycle longer distances with greater ease, go a lot quicker over a long distance, keep your heart rate up higher and lose a lot more fat in the process. Surely all of these benefits are better than grinding away in a massive gear and just plain old getting sore knees!

If you don’t have a cycle computer that tells you cadence then don’t despair; all you need is a watch. It’s easy to work it out. Simply ride along, count your leg revolutions for 10 seconds and multiply by 6. If it is around 15, then perfect…. You have the ideal cadence for efficient cycling. If it is around 10, 11 or 12, then you have something to work on. Practice dropping it down a gear and pedaling more quickly until 90rpm feels natural. It is as simple as that. After a while, you will know what 90rpm feels like and you will no longer need to count. This does take a little bit of time, but probably after your 4^th ride or so, you will have mastered the technique of spinning.

The only exceptions to this rule are a) riding a mountain bike in the bush where it is virtually impossible to ride at this high a cadence, and b) riding up a hill on the road. In this case it is more efficient to just grunt over the hill and to sacrifice your leg revs a bit. Notice that I said hill, not mountain. Riding over mountains becomes much more effective using a high cadence technique of maybe 80 rpm and occasionally getting out of the seat to rest your back as well as getting you over the steeper parts of the climb.

Happy Cycling!

In the cooler months it is imperative that you keep your body warm when cycling. If it is cold make sure you use leg and arm warmers, as well as full finger winter training gloves and a jacket to keep the wind off your chest. Also shoe covers are a good idea to keep your feet warm as well as ear warmers to keep your ears and the back of your neck warm. How many of these items of clothing you will need will depend on the temperature.

The best way to keep your feet warm is not to put an extra pair of socks on (because the wind will still go straight through your shoes) but to wear a pair of shoe covers over the top of your shoes. If you don’t have any shoe covers then an old pair of socks with a hole cut out for the shoe cleat does just as good a job.

Keeping your chest warm is obviously very important and a winter training jacket is the ticket. Don’t despair if you don’t have one of these, as a sheet of newspaper between your cycling jersey and your singlet will do the same job.

Fuzzy Logic.

Off road cycling requires a bit of what I term "Fuzzy Logic." That is, to a degree let the bike go where it wants to go. Don’t always fight the bike, let the front wheel float to where it wants to go. This sounds easy and it is.

To do this, always ride in the bush relaxed. That is keep the arms and upper body loose and relaxed. Don’t ride stiff armed and tense. This is energy robbing.

Keep your arms relaxed and slightly limp at the elbows. This is your suspension to your body and allows the front wheel to float over the loose stuff and find its own way. This is generally safer, easier, faster and less fatiguing than keeping your arms rigid and trying to make the front wheel go exactly where you want it to go.

This is especially advantageous in loose, rocky ground. So next time you are out in the bush remember the term "Fuzzy Logic"

Efficient road cycling requires you to feel and be relaxed on the bike. To do this, keep your arms and torso loose and relaxed. Being tense robs you of energy and tires your body more quickly.

The best way to remain relaxed is to hold onto the bars in a relaxed manner. Hold onto the bars as if you were playing a piano. This is a great thing to remember. That is, don’t grip the bars as if you were trying to strangle them but lightly rest your hands on the bars, keeping your fingers, arms and torso loose and relaxed.

Keep that extra energy for when you really need it, maybe to beat your mate in the next sprint.

When riding in a group on the road it is important to be able to see what is coming up. As you already know, riding in a closely-knit pack with other cyclists on the road is by far and away much easier than riding alone. But it does present its own hazards.

You need to be able to see if there are any potholes, parked cars, etc., that could jeopardise your safety. That is you need to be able to see what lies ahead on the road. Often this is not easy if you are following 30 or 40 centimeters behind the rider in front.

The natural thing to do when riding in a group or pack of cyclists is to watch the back wheel of the cyclist in front of you. But this is not the best thing. How do you know that he/she is not just about to dodge a pothole and land you straight into it?

The answer is to look past the rear wheel of the rider in front and look through their legs to the road ahead. In that way, you can see what is coming up and you have less chance of having a nasty surprise.

Let me tell you, there is nothing worse that being confronted by a huge pothole just about to take your front wheel out.

Riding in the bush requires a bit of body language. Apart from the fact that you need to stay relaxed on the bike, you also need to be able to move around on the bike.

When you are travelling down a very steep descent, you need to get your weight back over the back of the bike. This is to avoid a very undesirable "over the bars" situation.

When you approach a very steep descent, make a deliberate effort to push your bottom off the back of the bike saddle. This moves your center of gravity further back and allows you to descend the hill without going over the bars. The steeper the descent the further you need to move your weight back.

On extremely steep descents you can even lay your stomach on the seat with your bottom almost touching the rear wheel. This allows you to negotiate descents that you previously thought impossible.

Keep in mind that you often need to shift your weight back further than you first thought because once you are on the descent, there is more weight on your arms and front wheel, and this in turn is trying to throw your body over the bars. This is something that I suggest you avoid at all costs.

When you are climbing a steep ascent in the bush on your mountain bike you need to move your weight forward on the bike. This is to avoid the front wheel from lifting off the ground.

The trick here is that if you move too far forward on the bike, your rear wheel can then slip and you can lose traction for a second, then you will be walking up the climb.

So it is all a matter of compromise and weight distribution. When you are ascending a steep climb, you need to make a few judgments: how steep is the climb, how loose is the climb, and how technically demanding is the climb? Then it is a matter of getting the right combination of weight distribution, speed and balance to conquer the hill.

So, move your bottom forward on the seat to get more weight on the front wheel. In really steep situations you can even sit on the very tip of the seat. This will help keep your front wheel on the ground to avoid losing steering control.

If it looks like you may lose rear wheel traction, then be slightly further back on the seat and bend your elbows to bring your head and body closer to the front of the bike. This in turn applies more weight to the front wheel. If the hill is not only steep but also long, then you need to be able to control your speed so you will not run out off fitness before you reach the top of the climb.

So pace yourself. Just give yourself enough speed to be able to climb the hill and keep your correct course, and then when there is a steeper, looser, more technical section, you will have the power to increase your speed to traverse this as well. Happy climbing!

Have you ever been sitting at the traffic lights on your bike, trying in vain to get them to change to  green? Try as you might, nothing seems to work. You jump up and down on those pads under the bitumen that set the lights off, but still they stay RED.

The way to get a bike to trigger them off is to ride on the very edge of the pad. You see, at the very edge of the pad where you see that black line in the bitumen is where they are most sensitive. At this point they will pick up the metal of the bike frame and trigger the lights.

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Wednesday November 19, 2008