- Here we are, it is lesson three
of my attempt to learn cyclo-cross.
What's up next, Si?
- Well, today we are gonna be looking
at how to control a bike in loose and slippery conditions.
It's one of the big fundamental differences
between road, where hopefully you almost never lose traction
and off-road, where hopefully you lose traction quite a lot
because actually, that's part of what makes it so fun.
- Right, so the fact that when I lose traction
in any kind of situation, I panic and scream usually.
Not a great start?
- No, it's a perfect place to start,
because with one or two key skills you will learn
not to panic and then potentially...
- Not to scream? - Start to enjoy it.
Yeah, no screaming allowed, please.
(energetic music)
Before we venture too far, Emma,
I think we should remind the viewers
of one of the things we covered in week one,
which was about looking where you're going.
Obviously, you gotta do it on the road,
but off-road, it's really important
because you'll then be able to select
the best places to ride.
And when it comes to finding grip in loose
or slippery conditions, it's every bit as important.
So even right here on this gravel track,
which is not particularly cyclo-cross, but anyway
you've got this bit here, which is really loose,
like kinda marbles, and then right next to it
you got this patch here, which is like hard pack
and will give you loads more grip.
So obviously, when you're riding along it,
you can see that bit is gonna be difficult to brake on,
it's gonna be difficult to accelerate on
and you definitely don't wanna corner on it,
whereas that bit is absolutely fine.
And then, if you're in more typical cross conditions,
like muddy paths or like a brown stripe
through an otherwise green grassy field,
the same principle applies.
Normally, towards the edge of the path,
- [Emma] Right.
- [Si] particularly in cross races, where green means grip.
- Okay. - So search for the grass.
- [Emma] So like ride on those few remaining
strands of grass that are left.
- [Si] Basically, yeah, annihilate all grass, yeah.
- Okay. - Now, it is bad
for trail erosion, so know you probably wanna think about it
if you're riding somewhere sensitive
but if you're after grit.
- When I do come to race, I will be at the back,
so I will have the least grass left, probably.
- Well, you do laps, so everyone's on the same boat.
- Well, except that if you're at the back of the lap,
then it's even worse, right?
- Well, what you could do is hold back,
get lapped, then you've got one less to do
and technically you'd be in front of the leader.
- [Emma] I'll pretend it's on purpose.
- [Si] There's no way you're gonna get lapped.
- I'll pretend it's on purpose when I get lapped.
Right, it was just so I could ride on the grass, guys.
(techno music)
- So, hopefully, that kind of illustrates the point
about where to ride, but what it also does is flags up
terrible braking technique.
So, just grabbing hold of the back brake
is not very effective, it's slowing you down.
So, as on the road, your front brake is your best brake.
The only kind of thing that you need to remember
when it's loose or slippery
is that your front wheel is more likely to slide,
so you need to be your own kinda ABS system,
and just get ready to let go of that front brake
when it goes--
- So have the confidence when it starts sliding,
let go a little bit of the front brake.
- Yeah, you won't be able to slow down as fast,
but you won't be on your bum so that's a good thing.
And, you have disc brakes which is great,
'cause you get so much modulation from them,
that the more you ride in those conditions
the more you feel when the front wheel is about to go
so you don't even need to get to the point of sliding
and then letting go, you kind of just,
sort of feather it a little bit.
- So, a bit like on the road where you're scared
and you feel like you're gonna slide,
grabbing the brakes is the worst thing you can do
'cause then you probably will slide.
- Absolutely, yeah. - Okay.
- And, it's kind of instinctive,
until you override that instinct with a bit of practice.
- Yeah, okay.
Right.
Better practice then.
(groovy music)
Are you supposed to keep your bum on the saddle?
- It depends, actually.
Because if you wanna slow down really, really fast
on the road, you get your weight back, obviously,
but off-road, if you haven't got as much grip,
then it's kind of less important.
But, yeah, generally weight back
- Weight back. - is a good thing.
- But on the saddle.
- No, behind the saddle, I think.
If you wanna really slow down fast,
you gotta get behind the seat.
(lively music)
- Right, so before we leave this beautiful gravel corner--
- It's nice, isn't it?
- By this bubbling stream and everything,
can I ask you a few questions about cornering technique?
Because I think I'm happy now slowing down and stopping,
but that is what I feel like doing before every corner
'cause I'm a little bit scared of going
through loose corners.
And this reminds me a lot of road cycling
where having started late,
I was atrocious at descending and cornering,
and I had to really learn from scratch.
So, I'm prepared to learn,
but it might take me a bit of time.
Can you talk me through the cornering techniques
on a cross bike on loose ground?
- I can.
Firstly, I'm gonna ask you what were the techniques
that you learned on your road bike?
- Literally everything from the ground up.
Literally.
So, I fell off a few times, got scared.
I had to learn weight distribution to lean the bike,
put weight on the inside hand, outside foot,
keep your weight back.
Not breaking the corner,
and just I had to start very slowly and build up the speed
'cause I was very scared.
- Well, that is absolutely perfect then
because all of those points there
translate from a road-bike over to a cyclo-cross bike.
So not breaking the corner, that's really key.
Leaning the bike.
When it's really slippery,
you might not be able to lean it that hard,
but then you have to go slower as a result.
And then, dropping that outside foot, as well,
that's really important.
What you do on a cross bike though
that you don't do on a road bike
is actually you can unclip your inside foot,
so you have it kind of dangling out next to you.
It's like a bit of a kind of, you know, as a safety net
almost because when the bike does start to slide,
you can, your foot is there and you simply like,
dab it on the ground, and away you go.
- [Emma] Right, that's novel.
- Yeah.
So, do you wanna give it a go?
Well, yeah, no, give it a go with your foot dangling out--
- Okay. - to start with.
And then, we'll see how you get on.
(playful music)
- [Si] Whoa, check it out!
Nice!
Nailed it!
- I'm not happy I'm clipping my right foot
when the left one's still in.
- I think the thing about that, Emma is that,
like, you said it was slow but you lost traction
so actually it was as fast as you could go.
(air hissing)
There we go.
- I did pump not to go on a road ride with friends,
so it got dropped--
(brake squeaks) (laughs)
(adventurous music)
(bike chain clicking)
Oh
- Yeah, I mean, it is just a loose corner, isn't it?
- [Emma] Yeah.
- There's not much more you can do about that.
- Well, I guess that's kind of the point of cyclo-cross
though, isn't it?
Loose corners?
- Yeah, but gravel's a bit, gravel's like crap loose
'cause, you know, it's a half-way house
between grippy tarmac and slippy mud
'cause it grips quite a lot and then it suddenly goes.
- Yeah.
And it's unpredictable.
Like you have to know the angularity of your gravel,
the size of the gravel, I've been thinking a lot about this,
like it's all about like contact points of the tire,
and with that gravel you've got lots of discreet points,
whereas with mud it's obviously a homogenous, at our scale,
homogenous entity--
- [Si] Emma, you've taken cyclo-cross
to a whole other level. (Emma laughs)
- [Emma] This is basically why I did a whole PhD was--
- It's just like this is amazing, homogenous mud versus--
- Discreet! - Angular gravel.
- Discreet angularity of gravel.
I did a whole PhD on the like, size of lumps of soil,
so there you go. (lighthearted music)
Funny thing is, I feel like, it takes me a good half an hour
how to get used to not a bike as much
as the loose road surface.
I have been practicing but I've been on my road bike
the last week or so, and then I'm a bit nervous
when I get back onto gnarly territory.
And I don't know, then when I realize it's all okay,
and that you can actually ride over most things,
- Yeah. - And I'm alright again.
It just takes my brain a little while to adjust.
- I think that's absolutely fair enough.
Like, I find if I don't ride off road
for, you know, a month or so, then the first ride,
I'm never quite as comfortable as I am the second ride.
Just because it is very different
and you need to kind of remind yourself.
Also I'm feeling bad that we're spending time
riding on gravel when actually
that's not totally appropriate for cyclo-cross.
It's a really important skill to be able to do,
to ride off-road, but actually,
it is far more unpredictable.
So, why don't we move over onto like a grassy corner,
and then we can maybe,
sort of just reassess what we're doing on there.
Right.
Proper cross surface here.
I mean, technically it's actually not that proper
because I've only ridden around it 15 times so far,
not 100 people riding 10 laps on it.
So, it's still very grassy,
which what does grass mean, Emma?
- [Emma] Grip!
Grass means Grip! - Yay, there we go!
- Green and grass mean grip. - Yeah.
- What is brown grass? - Still grippy.
- Okay, good, right. - Grass means grip.
Okay, but yeah, so this is gonna be a perfect place actually
because it's quite predictable.
So, dare I say homogenous, in fact.
So you'll be able to just go around
and gradually build up your confidence.
It's a great place to learn grassy patches
because should you push it too far,
it's not the end of the world.
So you don't need to worry about falling off
but, let's be clear, we also don't want to fall off.
- No.
- That's not the end of the game here.
- I do wonder, though, sometimes whether it might be good
for me to have a few tumbles and like realize
that it's not that bad.
'Cause at the moment, I'm a bit scared of falling off
so if I were to go too slowly, maybe I should push it,
find the limit, go a bit past it
and realize that well, grass is quite soft, really.
- I guess, yeah.
It depends on how scared you are of falling off.
So, personally I'm not that scared of falling off on grass,
but equally I really don't want to fall off
because, I mean I don't like falling off
and actually it feels like I've done something wrong
if I do, so I would never advocate
that whole push the limits, and then throttle back a bit.
- Okay.
- Because the beautiful thing about this surface,
I don't normally call grass beautiful
but, is that you've got plenty of warning
when you can hear your tires scrabbling
for grip on this, so yeah.
Let's give it a go, we'll ride around it a few times.
Do you wanna follow me around? - Yeah, please.
(soft guitar music)
(bike chains clicking)
oh, that was bad.
Right.
So...
Oh, I got off my bike the wrong way, bloody hell.
Sorry. - I did, too.
- So the question. - Yeah.
- Were you breaking into the corner or through the corner,
or not breaking at all and just swooping through?
- That's a good question, actually.
So I wasn't breaking in the corner, but it brings up
the whole question of entry-speed, doesn't it?
Because it's all very well
sort of trying to go faster and faster and faster,
but there is a limit as to how fast you can go
around corners, about how good your technique is.
And so actually, I suppose, subconsciously
you're kind of making a judgment on you
about what grip you think the corner's got.
- I'm doing it quite consciously, actually. (laughs)
- Well, yeah, I mean that's great.
So you are coming in and thinking right
well, you know, I think there is a lot of grip on the grass,
therefore I can bank it over and not brake too much.
So I think, in answer to your question,
depending on how much speed you're carrying,
yes, sometimes I'm breaking in and sometimes I'm not.
So, yeah.
But I think it's also probably worth airing
on the side of caution,
because when you do start to slide,
here it's gonna be fine,
whereas on the gravel you lose a lot of momentum
when you're sliding.
- And gravel is really sharp when you land on it.
- That's right.
It's got angularity.
Something, rather.
- Awesome, well, thanks Si.
I think it really helps to have a patient
and encouraging teacher.
But also, I think--
- I'd be rubbish if you were crap, Emma,
I'll be completely honest.
- Then, I'll keep practicing then, eh?
But what I do think really helps on the road is
that I did have to learn on the road to corner.
So, I've had the experience of having to think
about technique where some people are so good at cornering,
they never have to learn it.
And also I know that it's all very well knowing what to do
but you have to practice, practice, practice
until it becomes automatic
because every time when you time in a corner to think
about oh, weight on my left hand, weight on my right foot,
under the left foot, where do I look?
Like, it has to be automatic
and I'm a bit of a slow learner
so I'll just have to keep practicing.
- Yeah, that's a really good point, actually.
That becomes automatic and then what you're always thinking
about is where is the best line.
Because lines change, laps and lap in a cross race,
or there might be a corner that you're unfamiliar with.
So, that's the thing that should be forefront in your mind,
and then, yeah you leave
all the technique stuff to instincts.
So yeah, definitely.
And I also wanna just go back to that point you said about,
you know, the pressure of going fast versus having fun.
At the end of the day, you know,
cycling should always be about fun,
and so you should never feel pressurized
into going too fast or whatever.
The only thing is that when you put all the steps into place
to get your technique right,
then you will be able to go faster,
and still have a grin on your face, as well
without being worried.
- Good.
I think I go faster when I smile, so that's great.
Well, thanks for the lesson!
Give us a big thumbs up if you liked it.
You can check out my previous cycling lessons,
by clicking down here.
Don't forget to subscribe.
- Absolutely!
There we go!
Nice one.
Right, lesson number four Emma, are you ready?
- What is this one?
We have another lesson?
I thought that was it.
How can there be more cyclo-cross to learn?
- Ah, so much to learn.