Friday, September 21, 2007

Still Hopping

I've been checking out (and agonizing over) the list of registered racers in my class for the races this weekend. It looks like some of the faster guys in my class from last year moved up, and most of the guys who finished around me last year are still in the C's. So, hopefully I can do well against them this year and finish near the front. We'll find out tomorrow!

Training has gone well this week. I did a long road ride on Wednesday night. I felt pretty good (and I didn't flat!). Last night, I did an unexpectedly long cyclocross practice session in my backyard. I had planned to practice for about 30 minutes, then go do a "real" ride, but I ended up practicing for almost an hour and a half.

I think my practicing was time well-spent. I got to where I felt comfortable with the step-through dismount. I set up my practice barrier in a bumpy part of the yard, and I see why you want to move your hand to the top tube. If you leave both hands on the bars, the back of the bike really gets bouncing; putting the hand on the top tube stabilizes the bike a lot. I also got much more consistent about clipping the left foot out (an important step for not crashing into the barriers!). The trick is to unweight the pedal slightly as you twist out; the only time I had issues not clipping out was when I didn't unweight.

I also spent a lot of time working on the remounts. I found that I wasn't breaking down the process correctly. I had been thinking: put right leg on saddle, then jump/kick with left foot. This works at low speeds, but at higher speeds, you can't wait until your leg hits the saddle before jumping off of your left. Thinking about doing a "leprechaun kick" with my left foot does seem to help; I just need to do it earlier.

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