From bike handling and position to descending techniques and safety advice, these are 9 habits beginner cyclists should avoid doing to improve their cycling ability.
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00:00 Intro
00:10 Use lights
01:24 Bike handling
03:03 Avoid locking upper body
04:30 Descending techniques
06:49 Surging
07:58 Under-fuelling
09:13 Bike maintenance
09:59 Bike fit
11:00 Safety
This cycling instructional video was filmed in Girona, Catalunya, Spain; a cycling mecca that has been home to many professional cyclists including Ben O’Connor, Jack Haig, Esteban Chaves, Ryan Mullen, George Bennett, James Knox, Dorian Godon, Jay Vine, and at one point George Hincappie, Lance Armstrong and Tyler Hamilton. Girona is used for training for races such as the Tour de France, Volta Catalunya, Vuelta Espana, Paris-Nice, Giro d’Italia and more. Teams such as Bora-Hansgrohe, INEOS-Grenadiers, Israel-Premier Tech Pro Cycling, Human Powered Health, Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team, UAE Team Emirates and others use Girona for team training camps and rider testing.
29 Comments
I gotta say man this video amongst others helped me so much. Changed up my form and my seat position and dropped 6 minutes from my normal 17 mile ride. I even stopped to adjust the seat during the ride and time. Can't wait to elevate my cycling.
For reference for how slow I am. 17 miles. 1 hour 16 minutes. Avg speed 13.5 mph.
You should get a bike fit before buying a new bike and not the opposite otherwise you could get the wrong size
riding with no hands on the bike will also be useful in celebrating race victory🤣
Thank you, Tristan, I'm really enjoying your channel ,.. some really great points… I can apply most of your advice re nutrition, safety, training… all except the pedal position while corning… no free wheel and with 36" wheel there is plenty of clearance… 😉
Road cycling = poor balls health
thank you for the wonderful infos really helpful.
bike fit here in my country is so expensive
Nice video. It seems like common sense but maybe it's a generational thing. Back in my day, we lived on bikes
I cornered with inside heel down and the pedal hit the road!!! Almost wrecked.
5:10 I did not think of that! Well, I did think to put my outside foot down to allow clearance when I am leaning on the turn. To avoid scraping the road or even getting caught on something and falling over.
The thing about grip makes total sense. Though, I did fall over once when I leaned a bit too hard to the right when it was raining. It kind of subconsciously makes me fear leaning to the right. I've been forcing myself to lean right again.
One thing I still can’t do is raise my seat. I can’t get over not being able to touch the ground. I freak out. I paid to have my bike fit but he couldn’t do it correctly because of getting up and down I just can’t wrap my head around.
I learned about #4 the hard way.
Overall excellent video but the explanation as to why cornering should be done with the outside foot down is rubbish. The advice you give is 100% sound but the explanation you concocted for it is just that – a concoction. As others have pointed out, it's mostly about avoiding touching a pedal or shoe to the pavement when leaning over while still allowing the rider to lower the center of gravity while cornering. Your explanation about inside/outside pressing the tire into the road is just completely made up and doesn't track to actual physics. A road bike tire or any bike tire for that matter is much too small for the type of localized loading you talk about to matter or even take place. The contact patch (and therefore traction) of the tire to the pavement is not affected by your pedal position – it still has the same weight vertically pressing down on it and the same centrifugal forces acting laterally on it irrespective of where your pedals are positioned. Please take this as constructive criticism because otherwise you made a very good video.
Varia can also pair with Wahoo and others.
Very usefull tips. Thank you mate
I learned to ride with no hands at all, including going round corners, not hard.
Properly fitted quality shoes!!! I started with cheapo things, taken years to recover.
Please correct me if im wrong, but from an engineering lens, your foot positions while navigating corners have no impact on how the tire is pressed into the ground. Your legs being in different positions simply move your CG (centre of gravity/mass) around, which does influence how forces are reacted through the tires. But the impact is negligible. It is purely for ground clearancw that you should keep your cranks level or outside down. The loading of the tires is identical. If you want best advice, it will be related to consciously thinking about how you are distributing weight and braking force throughout any maneuvre.
E.g. sandy patch straight power? Lean way back. Put the weight on the rear wheel, the stability of the bike increases drastically.
Sandy patch braking? Keep 90%+ brake balance on rear or your front wheel will lock up ans you will go down.
Midcorner braking?
Bias brake balance to rear, keep your ass off the sadle for quivk reactions to rear end slide, keep your eyes ahead of where you WANT to go, and widen your riding line if you need to brake harder fast. Deviating from above just means your will lovk up your wheels sooner and go down.
Straightline braking? Brake both wheels hard and progressively. Rear will always lock up first. Back off that one when it does, and keep pressure at the threshold of lockup. Get low, and lean back. You will be able to load both tires equally for maximum braking power. Back off of front brake any time any road or weather condition put any doubt of tracrion in your mind. Always be ready to react to a sliding rear end.
Etc
i have a question, so i'm a new cyclist and just transitioned from a MTB to a road bike, and can only do around a 40km loop for now, i usually wear a hydration backpack that's 2.5L, would you consider that a good or bad decision?
Thanks a bunch for this! 🎉 cheers
WEAR a Florescent VeST..It Makes a Huge Difference. I ride a Motorcycle, as well, and People do see you and give you ROOM. Do a Visual as you ride or Drive and look for cyclist alot of times they blend into the roadway. Stand Out and BE SeeN.
I've lost 40 pounds over 3 months by riding hard. When something hurts, like my knee or back, I just stop for as many days as it takes for it to stop hurting. If it is full sun above 90F I ride after dark. If it is below 40F I don't ride because it sucks. Other than that, I go all in on each ride. The trick is to listen to your body and stop before you take it too far and actually injure yourself. By the way, the weight loss isn't from bike riding, it's from eating less. The bike riding just takes your mind off the hunger and keeps you fit.
The primary reason given for going around a descending curve with the outside foot down sounds a bit bogus ("pressing your weight down through the tire, reducing the chance that your tires will slip"). I think these are much more important reasons for doing this:
1. It gets the inside pedal up and out of the way of the pavement so you don't accidentally clip the pavement or other objects with your inside pedal while leaned over, which is much closer to the ground than if you keep your outside pedal low.
2. With the outside pedal low and the inside pedal high, if your tires do let go because of unexpected sand or gravel or water, your inside foot is high and much more ready to catch your fall.
wearing clothes that can be sen by motorist.
New rider, great information
Surprised 🙀 to see something in this world consists of bent back as a good form.. Im sure its the best suggestion but wont it hurt the spine (I've always wondered why are cycle handle heights so low)
Good tips. I would add “wear something bright”. You can’t underestimate the average motorist.
Do you have any tips for trying to maintain power on a hill if you don’t have a power meter?
very basic and instictive id say
Very good very nice tips and advice ! I might mention some thing I was taught when taking one hand off the bars is to place it on the tops or the flat section. Depending on a persons, skill or bike handling skill that is if they placed one hand and keep it on the hoods maybe they hit a reflector in the road or something you could easily oversteer and maybe crash makes the bike very Squirrley so I think it’s for me. I try to keep it on the tops there’s less chance to oversteer or over correct . just my two cents 🤔👌🏻😄