Do you want to know the biggest secret to being able to ride faster, well I can guarantee you by reading this article you’ll be well on the way to realising what you need to concentrate on to seeing your full potential as a racing cyclist.
This whole story begins with an email from my brother Sean who’s in and out with cycling depending on the weather (known to the sport as a fair weather cyclist). The email read ‘what do you think of this bike …’ and then there’s a link to a bike for sale on Ebay and by all accounts it was quite nice. There is one huge monumental issue, my brother already has a nice Giant sitting in his garage with less than 1000 miles on the clock, which means mint condition in my books, also he’s not putting the miles in especially considering it’s nearly 2 years old and more than likely knowing his wife he’s going to be doing injury time if he buys yet another bike.
I spoke to him and he said the wheels on his Giant were shagged (his words not mine), why do you want to buy this bike then bro … ‘it’s got Ultegra on it’, oh crap here we go. I’m still not sure I’ve talked him out of it yet but basically I said all he needs is a decent set of wheels and he’ll be good to go again.
The whole point is, and lets rewind a few years here.
I used to race a lot when I was younger, I’d watch in awe as some guys would turn up with the latest carbon fibre kit, top of the line campag record groupset, every possible mechanical advantage money could buy. Only to watch them get shelled out the back in the first 30 miles of a road race because of lack of training, while I rode onto the finish with my battered Reynolds 653 training / racing bike. If you speak to any of my teammates from those days, they’ll agree that 653 frame of mine after a few years of abuse was so flexy at the bottom bracket you’d of thought I’d been teaching it yoga, yet 3 days later I’d do a 23 minute ‘10′ on it and the only change would be a £30 set of tri-bars on the front.
To make the point of this article even more vivid. One night a 70 year old turned up to the club 10 (there were rumours that he was closer to eighty than seventy) and he’d ridden to the event on something that looked like it came from the dark ages with fancy ornate looking lugwork on the frame and eyelets for mudguards on the dropouts. He tied with the club champion that night who was 40 years his junior with a short 23 minute. It really was one of those moments where you think did that really happen or will I wake up in a minute in a cold sweat.
This whole article hasn’t been a dig at those people who want to spend £1000’s on the latest kit because I’d be one of them if I had the money to burn and I do enjoy checking out the latest kit for real rather than looking at it in a magazine but more to those who are just making their first steps into the sport or who are frustrated at a low spot in their form and think that a pointy helmet and a two and a half thousand pound time trial bike will remedy everything.
The point is you don’t need all the latest kit to go fast or get faster, you just need to put your time and efforts into training right and eating right and most importantly enjoying yourself on the bike.
but theres nothing worse than being beaten by someone that you know you can beat if you had the same bike.
Hi, thanks for the comment Steve. Not too sure on that one. Don’t think I’ve ever used the bike as an excuse for losing a race as there’s a usually lot more going on whether it’s a TT course or conditions being better suited to the other rider or having your line blocked in a bunch sprint or missing that decisive break in a road race, or just plain old bad form, it’s very rare you’ll hear of a rider blaming the bike unless it’s total mechanical failure.
It’s funny you should comment on this as I was having the same conversation with another rider a couple of days ago, he was saying about one of his new team mates shelling out for a specialized s-works, I did say to him what happens when this new rider finally hits his peak form? There’s nowhere for him to go with regards to equipment to eek out those extra small percentages in performance as he’s already on a top of the range bike. Not to mention by the time he does hit peak form which can take years his bike is going to be seriously fatigued.
Don’t get me wrong I love all the new equipment but I really think a rider should hone their skills (handling and ability to read a race/conditions) and training first or it becomes an endless cycle of buying new equipment every time they get poor results instead of taking a serious look at more prominent factors.
I know this’ll sound a bit weird but did you ever used to live in the Ashford area, I used to know someone a long time back with the same name as you.