Finding form is fun

"Jeff Potter" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

When I can keep this same feel for an hour in any gear, any position, then I'll really go looking
for races. Usually happens about Sept. Sigh.

People who imagine they've gotten really fast in the off-season usually don't realize everyone else
(whom they are comparing themselves to) has quit trying.

Jeff Potter said:

I'm just starting to get the smallest taste of right riding.

It brings back memories of how it goes. Good form starts by feeling it in one gear in one position
and kind of riding. As form gets better one can keep it with all the handpositions on the bars,
then keep it in an ever-wider range of gears, then conditions. Also, as form improves one can keep
it when riding with others at steady tempo when one picks both a harder or easier gear. You get a
wider range including both faster or slower cadence. Fun stuff!

(The flipside for me is that I know I'm dead on a ride when my legs feel tired at a certain
cadence and neither slowing it down nor speeding it up helps. I call that no-man's-land. --I need
to change something but no gear is better, so it's time to look off the back!)

Yesterday I felt good form when 100rpm was something I didn't notice. I was just centered on
looking down the road. My weight felt shifted a bit forward over the 3-oclock pedal position. It
was high cadence yet I still got a tiny bit of float off the saddle. Enough float to keep the ride
smooth but not so much float that it took energy as in riding out of saddle. (Better form might
gradually allow one to sit heavier in the saddle or keep it even when out of saddle.)

I felt I wasn't bogging down at all. Just a kind of smooth hustle that centered over 3-oclock.
Each cycle was indistinguishable. There was just this sense of good pressure on both feet at
3-oclock. I also felt the back being flat, lower back pulled down a bit, hips rolled forward some,
I guess, but no harsh impacts. Head up nicely.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Some sort of sweet spot in your position?

I've got some comfortable positions on the bike, and a few uncomfortable ones. I avoid the latter.
I'm probably faster in the comfortable ones but I never bothered to check.

Have you recently started riding longer distances? You posted something possibly to that effect a
little while back. It takes me a couple weeks to get re-accustomed to the bike after Winter, but
after that, it's all a matter of conditioning and going faster.

I think form applies more to conditioning.

--
--
Lynn Wallace xmission.com~lawallOpen ↗ "I'm not proud. We really haven't done everything we
could to protect our customers. Our products just aren't engineered for security." --Microsoft VP in
charge of Windows OS Development, Brian Valentine.

"Raptor" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Jeff Potter wrote:

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Some sort of sweet spot in your position?

I'm talking about the SWEET spot.

ooooooh.

I wish that President Clinton had humidored me instead of Monica Lewinsky.

Jeff Pooter [email hidden]

Hmmm, my newsreader isn't getting all the Google posts, weird.

Raptor mentioned that form was related to conditioning. It is, but it's fitness plus technique,
and technique specifically in terms of finding one's OWN style. It took me a couple years of
racing to find my style then another year of broadening it to apply it in all kinds of riding. (I
recall I could first do it in crits, then I got it in TT's then in breaks/bridges.) Now even as a
Fattie Citizen after a certain number of hours I can start finding it again. Nothing like it was
back in the day but it's still something of the feel of form coming around. Not just fitness but
that plus my own style. When it just starts coming around it's no good for racing, but it's the
start of a base I can build on. I can still ride hard but it's not right in my own sweet zone. My
best riding is when the personal style and the fitness come together and when it gets a broad
aspect to it as well.

I suspect some beginner/moderate riders don't ever find their style.

When it's starting to come around, it's only in moderate gears and limited positions ("he said
*position*, Beavis, hork hork"😉. It's not related to bigger distances for me since I don't ride
em anyway.

Anyway, I've lately been thinking it's kind of like running on the pedals. There's a kind of float
where I'm only aware of good foot aspect and the 3 oclock phase. This is right when the foot is
hitting down in running when you're hauling with high tempo, relaxed. Just one strike after another.
Like trotting along, only with no bobbing action. Kinda like when you're dialed in with running, at
a 5:30 min/mile pace, say, just floating along.

Also, I can just look very relaxed down the road. Back is flat, neck relaxed. --That part sounds
like conditioning. The riding is optimized yet you can forget about it.

Anyway, I get it when 100 rpm doesn't seem rushed yet there's some gear to
it. And, as I said, until I get quite a few more hours in I need my hands on the tops with elbows
splayed. A good hustle, smooth, float to it.

--

Jeff Potter
****
*Out Your Backdoor * outyourbackdoor.comoutyourbackdoor.comOpen ↗ for modern folkways and culture revival...
...offering "small world" views on bikes, bows, skis, books, movies... ...new books featuring: XC
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"Jeff Potter" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Hmmm, my newsreader isn't getting all the Google posts, weird.

Raptor mentioned that form was related to conditioning. It is, but it's fitness plus technique,
and technique specifically in terms of finding one's OWN style. It took me a couple years of
racing to find my style then another year of broadening it to apply it in all kinds of riding. (I

recall

Quoted message said:

I could first do it in crits, then I got it in TT's then in breaks/bridges.) Now even as a
Fattie Citizen after a certain number of hours I can start finding it again. Nothing like it was
back in the day

but

Quoted message said:

it's still something of the feel of form coming around. Not just fitness but that plus my own
style. When it just starts coming around it's no good for racing, but it's the start of a base
I can build on. I can still ride hard but it's not right in my own sweet zone. My best riding
is when the personal style and the fitness come together and when it gets a broad aspect to it
as well.

I suspect some beginner/moderate riders don't ever find their style.

When it's starting to come around, it's only in moderate gears and limited positions ("he said
*position*, Beavis, hork hork"😉. It's not related to bigger distances for me since I don't ride
em anyway.

Anyway, I've lately been thinking it's kind of like running on the pedals. There's a kind of float
where I'm only aware of good foot aspect and the 3 oclock phase. This is right when the foot is
hitting down in running when you're hauling with high tempo, relaxed. Just one strike after
another. Like trotting along, only with no bobbing action. Kinda like when you're dialed in with
running, at a 5:30 min/mile pace, say, just floating along.

Also, I can just look very relaxed down the road. Back is flat, neck relaxed. --That part sounds
like conditioning. The riding is optimized yet you can forget about it.

Anyway, I get it when 100 rpm doesn't seem rushed yet there's some gear to
it. And, as I said, until I get quite a few more hours in I need my hands on the tops with elbows
splayed. A good hustle, smooth, float to it.

You need to quit running your mouth and get out on your bike. Forget all about that [censored] that
you are spewing and ride.

Dashii

Jeff Potter said:

Anyway, I get it when 100 rpm doesn't seem rushed yet there's some gear to
it. And, as I said, until I get quite a few more hours in I need my hands on the tops with elbows
splayed. A good hustle, smooth, float to it.

It seems to me that you don't ride as often or as frequently as some of us do. My body knows how to
ride a bike and has since my late teens, but I need an essential level of conditioning to move the
bike fast as well as smooth. I get that in the first warmish month of the year. They seem separate
to me though. Now that I'm doing indoor cycling classes (teaching and taking) I doubt I'll lose that
basic conditioning.

--
--
Lynn Wallace xmission.com~lawallOpen ↗ "I'm not proud. We really haven't done everything we
could to protect our customers. Our products just aren't engineered for security." --Microsoft VP in
charge of Windows OS Development, Brian Valentine.

Raptor said:

Jeff Potter said:

Anyway, I get it when 100 rpm doesn't seem rushed yet there's some gear to
it. And, as I said, until I get quite a few more hours in I need my hands on the tops with
elbows splayed. A good hustle, smooth, float to it.

It seems to me that you don't ride as often or as frequently as some of us do. My body knows how
to ride a bike and has since my late teens, but I need an essential level of conditioning to move
the bike fast as well as smooth. I get that in the first warmish month of the year. They seem
separate to me though. Now that I'm doing indoor cycling classes (teaching and taking) I doubt
I'll lose that basic conditioning.

OK, there's conditioning but I also think there's technique. And form relates to finding your
personal technique solution. Some people thrive on big gears, others twiddle, some ride hills out of
saddle. There's a mindset as well that relates to form. When you find the right focus.

I rode for a couple years at an hour or two a day before really discovering what finding form meant.

Or maybe I'm combining two issues. Can you come into form without knowing your own style of riding?

Proper breathing comes into it as well. As does pedal stroke and one's whole sense on the bike. Like
when I was in form I wasn't thinking about my body much but focused down the road. When I considered
my body it seemed like I was riding from my lower back area, powering from glutes. But also when I
was in form I knew when/where/how I could be effective in a race.

At about the same level of fitness I went from imitating others to finding out how I race/ride the
best. Sure, more time on the bike and more races made this possible. But I suspect there are MANY if
not MOST racers who spend years riding/racing before making this breakthru. I don't think it's
unrelated to top results either.

I think it goes: (1) get fit > (2) then find personal style > (3) then know when one is in or out
of form. This can all be at the same level of fitness! It takes work and observation and trial and
error to make each step up from 1. For any given level of fitness 2 will beat 1 and 3 "in form"
beats both. Maybe there should be a level (4) where one gets fitter, adds to one's range of styles
(not easy to do!!!) and improves one's form. Heck form could even relate to clarity of thinking or
at least appropriateness of thinking while on the bike. As you develop tricks regarding tactics
and timing that get better results, you'd be coming into form better for the mental part of the
game. Maybe?

I dunno. I'm just not sure that form = fitness.

--

Jeff Potter
****
*Out Your Backdoor * outyourbackdoor.comoutyourbackdoor.comOpen ↗ for modern folkways and culture revival...
...offering "small world" views on bikes, bows, books, movies... ...new books featuring: XC ski
culture, a Gulf Coast thriller folding bicycles ... with radical novels coming up! ...original
downloadable music ... and articles galore! plus national "Off the Beaten Path" travel forums!
HOLY SMOKES!