- [Narrator] You know what this means.
How you deal with this is by going off center.
You know what this means.
It's arts and crafts time.
Some of you may know I do a bike ride
with a group every Tuesday and Thursday morning.
Good morning trainiacs, this is the graveyard,
PD bones, chews from and leave lying around.
And that group is crazy road cyclists,
not triathletes but that doesn't mean
that I shouldn't be going out with them,
because actually riding in a pack
helps you with a lot of things,
in regards to triathlon.
Number one, it really, really ups the speed like crazy,
and mentally, I find that getting into that pain barrier
of like crazy (grunts) kind of feeling,
helps in triathlon because you're all of a sudden
not afraid of that pain.
Secondly, going out with a group,
it makes you wanna ride a lot more,
so because I'm riding a lot more
and becoming a stronger cyclist overall,
that helps my triathlon bike and my run,
because I'm fresher when I get off the bike.
And then third, it helps me with my bike handling skills,
and the more comfortable you can be on the bike,
the more you're gonna want to get out biking,
the more your gonna be able to handle turns, corners,
when people go in front of you
and around you during a triathlon
it's not gonna faze you as much.
So mentally,
you're going to become an all around better cyclist,
physically you're gonna be a better cyclist.
All that said, it's very important
to know how to ride in a pack.
And right now, we're gonna use arts and crafts time,
and some army men,
to show how you should be drafting in a pack
based off of where the wind's coming from,
and what the group dynamics are doing.
Okay, so like I said this morning,
we do a group ride, it's about 50 K from start to finish,
and there's four different sprint sections
that are like about three to seven minutes
and they are crazy, crazy fast,
so you need to be really confident in a pack.
Today what I'm gonna show you
with the help of our trusty army men,
is how to use the wind to your advantage,
and the cyclists around you,
because there are guys in our group
that are 30 years older than I am,
and I'm just as fit as they are,
but they, because they know how to use the dynamics
of the group and the wind around them,
they're able to go just as fast as I am,
be fresher for when the sprint sections come
because they know how to use the slipstream, the drafting,
and the wind.
So let's start with the easiest set up
and that's with no wind at all,
or the wind coming in front of you,
which are the same dynamics.
In those cases, whether you're going side by side,
two by two, or single file,
it doesn't really make a difference,
you wanna be immediately in behind
the person in front of you.
And with the wind coming from the head on,
or no wind at all, all of the resistance
is going to be coming from the head on
so the people in front are going to be
working by far the hardest, and you wanna be
directly in behind them,
and if you're directly in behind them
it could save you as much as 30% of your effort.
If you're off to the side a little bit,
you're gonna catch wind in the face
and you wanna be about a wheel length apart
from the person in front of you.
Any tighter than that, and if the person in front
ends up kind of swerving or hitting the brakes quickly,
you could run into their tire, causing a crash.
Any further behind than that,
and you're not gonna be getting as much draft
as you would being close up.
So anywhere from about two feet to three feet
behind the person in front of you
is where you want to be.
Never ever ever overlap wheels like that,
because if the person scoots out to the side,
they're gonna take you out and cause another crash.
Next set up.
Now let's assume that the wind
is coming from one of the sides.
The wind is coming from the side,
and you're heading that way,
the safest place to be
and the place that's going to end up
being the least amount of work
is on the non-wind side.
So the people that are on the non-wind side
are going to be sheltered by
the people that are on the wind side.
So let's say that you wanna save yourself
and make things a little bit easier on you,
or you're not as strong a cyclist
as the rest of the people in the group,
but you wanna keep up and benefit from their strength,
go on the non-wind side so that they shelter you.
Their body is going to be struggling
to keep the bike upright and they're gonna be using
a lot of energy to keep that bike upright,
whereas you are gonna be sheltered from the wind
on this side.
And vice versa.
If the wind is coming from there,
the people on the non-wind side
are going to get the benefit of being sheltered
by the riders that are out in the wind.
Next set up.
A head on crosswind.
So let's say that it's coming to us from this direction.
Now this is a much more difficult situation to deal with
because even if you're on this side,
you're gonna be out in the wind
and you're gonna be having almost as tough a time
as the person out front.
Basically, the only people that are gonna be getting
any benefit are the ones out here,
because they're sheltered in front and on the side.
How you deal with this is by going off center.
And what you'll find is when you get off center,
still going a wheel length in between everyone,
you can see the wind coming across
ends up going down the line
and everyone gets a benefit from the person in front.
So how you find where you exactly you should be
is you go side to side,
based off of where the wind is coming from,
and then you'll find a spot about a wheel length in behind
the person in front of you,
that's all of a sudden gonna get quiet.
When you go side to side and you find that quiet spot,
that means that you're in their draft.
Now what happens if you're doing this
and by the time you go all the way down the line,
these last people are going into traffic
and there's cars coming in behind them,
well that's what's called an echelon.
So instead of having two people side by side,
you have only as many people side by side
as you can get
until you end up going into traffic.
So maybe it's only every three people,
and then back here, you've got another echelon.
So there's always going to be that angle
coming off of the wind
so that people are getting a break
from having to go directly into the wind,
and you're not pushing everyone into traffic.
You break up into as many groups as you need to,
so that you can keep an echelon with everyone.
And how you do an echelon is you find that spot
and then when you drop back,
let's say there's a number of people,
when you drop back, you don't wanna just...
(makes a shooting sound)
...come off of the back and be gone,
you wanna come off the back fairly close within each other,
so taking maybe a one to two second pull at the front,
and then the person comes past you, and then they come back.
And what ends up happening,
is as your echeloning through and dropping back,
these two people on the side are also
protecting the wind for these people.
So you start coming back and it's like a complete circle
as everyone's going through and helping out.
Because I like symmetry.
(phone rings)
That means I gotta move my car.
The first few times that you ride in a group,
it's gonna be scary as all hell,
but trust me, the more you do it,
the more you're gonna love riding in a group,
and the less you're going to enjoy solo miles
as a triathlete by yourself.
As I've said a bunch of times on this channel,
and just like real life in general,
training solo as a triathlete is not the best part
of being a triathlete.
It's long, it's lonely, it's painful.
But the more you can surround yourself
with a community of like-minded people
that are pushing each other
and sharing in the suffering and sharing in the process,
the more motivated you're gonna be
and the more it's gonna become a part of your life
and not just something that you do outside of life,
that takes time away from life.
It's gonna become your life,
and then you're gonna enjoy it a heck of a lot more,
and because you're enjoying it more,
you're going to become faster.
Now, does riding in a group help you
specifically for that absolute top end,
pro level fitness as a triathlete?
No, to do that you gotta ride with triathletes,
you gotta run like a triathlete,
you gotta be coached like a triathlete,
gotta train like a triathlete,
24/7, 365.
But for the majority of us out there,
we just wanna be the best version of ourselves
and in my opinion, the best version of ourself
is somebody that is able to continue the training
day in and day out and not have it feel like work.
In my opinion, doing that with a group is the way to do it.
I gotta go move my car.
Leave the bike outside for five minutes
to climatize to today's temperature.
Five minutes of me time,
to get my rods and cones up here settled,
and then we go.
Cycling time, let's go.
Hey.
(mumbling)