- Ruts, R-U-T-S ruts.
You know when you're having a bad day
you call your mom up and you're like
"Mom I'm not doing good."
And she says, "Honey it sounds like you're in a rut."
Well that's not a good thing, but on a Cyclocross bike
being in a rut is actually an amazing thing
you want to ride ruts.
So today's video is going to be all about how to make ruts,
how to ride in the rut, and have a great day
out of the Cyclocross bike.
(energetic music)
So why is it important to learn and to use ruts
when you see them out on the course?
If you can imagine an off-camber section of routing,
something that's slightly downhill that's like either sandy
or muddy, well if you try to go across it
you're just going to slide out and go down,
but if there's a nice rut then you're going to be able to
put your tires into it and ride it
like a train on tracks across that obstacle.
It's also important to think about a rut
as something that allows you to carry
your momentum and speed, if you're coming into a rut
in a sandpit well then you're able to carry your momentum
through because someone has already made that rut.
Where as if you're just having to plow through straight sand
that's going to be really, really hard on your bike.
So first off let's check out how we make a rut.
(dramatic music)
First things first, where do you make these ruts Jeremy?
Well if you have a local sandpit like this one,
that's a good idea, you could also look up a
local volleyball court where people obviously
play volleyball, that can make nice ruts into that.
Make a little track.
Also if you have a local pond or a beach,
those are all great places to get your sand training on.
Okay so here at the pit, where are we going to do
a fresh sandbar?
Well right down here if you can look,
there is untouched, completely manicured,
by the mother nature and rain,
and so what I'm going to do is I'm going to come down this hill
and I'm just going to make a simple u-turn in the sandpit
and that's going to give me a sense of showing you guys
from start to finish how you make a rut.
It's going to take at least five passes
before you get a nice rut going.
(dramatic music)
That is what it takes to be able to make a rut,
you guys saw six seven passes something like that.
Then I've got now a really good line.
The hardest part of this for me is actually the entrance.
You can see that this part was the softest amount of sand
but now that I've plowed my front wheel through there
I've got it down to the underground,
meaning like the hardest part, it's tamped down.
So now I've got a nice straight shot
all the way in this turn.
I can use all my finesse and my body weight,
picking my head up, all these little tips
that I'm going to talk to you guys more about
to be able to get through this perfect.
(upbeat music)
Now that you've got something nailed down
and a good rough going, start to think about
how you're weighting up the bike.
You want to make sure that you're getting your weight
really far back, like as far back as the seat
will allow you to be on it.
You also want to look now, where are you going?
A good friend of mine, Ben Spies, a former MotoGp superstar,
once told me that you have to pick your head up
and look through the turns.
And the last thing is, you don't want to have a high cadence
because you'll literally be bouncing all over the bike,
completely off balance.
So make sure you have a nice, lower to medium cadence
when you're riding in the sand, let's go.
I've got my weight really far back.
I'm looking up with my head.
It takes me right through the turn.
Perfectly.
(energizing music)
So you want to make sure that when you're going to ride sand
that you have a pair of slick tires.
Lots of manufacturers make them,
I'm using the Continental Cyclocross Speed tires
which are just about a 100% slick,
they've got little knobs all over them.
But you want to make sure that you don't have any tires
that have bite on them, tires that have bite,
not great, you want to have a big traction patch.
Meaning like the most amount of tire
that you can possibly have on the ground
and slick tires are actually what complete that.
So you also want to bring your tire pressure way, way down.
You don't want to have 50-60 pounds, you need to have
nice, soft pressure in your tires so that the tire
is moving underneath you, the sand is also moving
so that in order to have the tire moving
while the sand is moving you have to have low pressure.
So to reinforce how important ruts are
we're here at the local track where we've got this
nice uphill section and then we come into an off-camber,
pretty steep downhill section.
This section rides exactly like I said before
like a train on tracks, but if I was to hit this fresh,
like something here or whatever,
I'd be completely flying over the bars.
So I'm going to attempt to show you guys what it looks like
in the ruts and not in the ruts.
Okay so I'm going to take this perfectly manicured rut
all the way down, whoa.
And now I'm going to show you guys what it looks like
if we don't use the rut, I can't promise exactly
how this is going to go, but.
(energetic music)
Whoa, oh gosh, eh, aah, ha ha ha.
So the key takeaway, you always want to use the road
most traveled and that is why ruts
work so well.
(dramatic music)
Here I am at the apex of a figure eight.
Couple years back the Cyclocross World Cup
in Koksijde, Belgium was canceled.
I was actually there sitting in a hotel room
having flown transatlantically to find out
that the race was canceled because of wind and rain
and I was thinking in my head, well that's not that cool.
Wout Van Aert, a pal of mine, posted on his Instagram
later that day when he got home in his local sandpit,
that he went out and did a big figure eight
in that sandpit and it pretty much caught the world
of social media on fire, every single rider went out
and did a figure eight in their sandpit
and well the rest is history.
Well we've been doing figure eights here ever since,
shout out to Wout, I'm gettin' that video up
and teaching us all a little bit about how he trains.
So why does a figure eight make sense?
Well it's constantly challenging you,
so I always create a figure eight.
Here's one from a previous training session
that we have already.
It allows you to constantly be challenged,
you're always pushing yourself and you have to get
a nice big stretch of sand to be able to make one
and then you can link it up with other sections.
So then you've got that drop, you've got that u-turn
over there, then you've got your figure eight,
and then you've got yourself a pretty hard,
little sand training circuit.
Maybe a little bit of inspiration about how you ride
these figure eights, here I come,
is make sure that you use all of the things
that we talked about, you want to keep your weight back,
you want to pick your head up, you want to make sure
that you're in the right gear,
and it's all about balance and agility.
Everything that I've talked about is going to make
this drill a lot of fun and it's going to really help you
become a good rider in the sand and in the mud.
And where Cyclocross riders really shine
in the technical stuff.
(upbeat music)
I'm always hearing at the races,
"Commit to the rut, commit to the rut".
Now you guys have some good tips
to be able to actually commit to the rut.
I hope you guys enjoyed this video,
you got something out of it, share it around,
tell your friends, get out there start riding
some figure eights, post them on the gram,
let us know what's goin' on.
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leave a comment below.
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