[Emma] - I love cycling on the road,
but for a while now, I've had this
strange, inexplicable longing for something
a bit more
dirty.
You know like, mud, off-road cyclo-cross.
I mean, it just looks like so much fun.
You know, getting really close to nature,
and, of course,
it's a great winter alternative to cold,
wet roads.
So, over the next few weeks, we're gonna
have a series of videos explaining the
fundamentals of riding off-road.
As, I learned cyclo-cross, culminating
in my
very first race.
But, everybody has to start somewhere.
So, here is GCN's
beginners guide to cyclo-cross.
Although, I've been persuaded to race,
you certainly don't have to,
because riding off-road is great fun
just for the sake of it.
My problem, though, is that ever since starting
cycling, in my 20's, I've been very much
a roadie.
A few attempts at mountain biking have been,
frankly, laughable.
Basically, I don't have much in the way of off-road skills.
Now luckily,
Cy is very, very okay at side-cross
and he's offered to teach me his skills.
I mean, just like that, he makes it look
so easy.
Thanks for offering to teach me side cross Cy.
[Cy] - It's an absolute pleasure Emma.
And, don't worry about it, because I have
taught someone before.
- Oh really, how did that go ?
- Uh,
really well,
yeah, really well.
- Jolly good.
So, where do I even start ?
- Well, lets start with a quick overview
of the bike, shall we ?
There are a few key differences
between, a side-cross bike and a road bike.
You can't really ride cross on a road bike.
For the principal reason
that you need slightly wider tires.
So, as a minimum, like 30MM wide.
Hopefully, even more, these are 35's.
And, you also need room to have the tread on
so they can actually grip the loose ground.
Then, you also find that you
definitely need
mountain bike pedals, as opposed to road pedals,
so double-sided.
That means you can clip in and out easily.
And also, use mountain bike shoes,
which have got tread on them, so you can
actually get off and walk, if you need to.
And, then the final difference is the gearing.
You go a lot slower in side-cross than you do
on the road.
There's simply more resistance coming from the ground,
so you probably want smaller chainrings,
and a bigger cassette, as well.
- I appear to only have one chainring,
which, what's all that about ?
- So, you are running 1x,
which is so on trend.
You don't need it for side-cross, but it is
really good, and it's really popular.
- What about position?
Should that be roughly the same as on a road bike?
- Yeah, roughly the same.
So, your saddle should be in exactly the same position.
Because your pedaling in exactly the same way.
The only thing I would recommend is that you come
a little bit shorter, a little bit higher
at the front end, so,
your handlebars are then
slightly easier reach.
And that, kind of, gives you a bit more confidence,
and a bit more control, when you're hitting rough terrain.
Gnarly terrain, as you'll learn to call it.
- Gnarly. Nice.
So, I can definitely go higher at the front,
but shorter is gonna be tricky, for me personally,
because on my road bike, I'm normally at the limit
of short stem rates, just cause I'm a silly size.
- You'll find, probably that, because this is
dedicated cross-bike, they will have already
factored that in. So, your top tube is probably going to be
about a centimeter shorter, anyway.
- Brilliant. Solved that one.
- Yep.
- What about tire pressure?
So, I thought should go lower pressure off-road,
so I've 60 lbs at the back, and 55 at the front.
Does that sound good?
- You could definitely go lower than that.
You're right, you do run lower tire pressure off-road.
Firstly, because you've got wider tires,
you can afford to.
You get more comfort when the tire pressure's lower.
And, you get more grip, when the tire pressure's lower.
And,
it does depend on where you're riding.
So if it's really rocky, then you'll probably
want more pressure in, not than you've got now,
but, just so that you've got less risk of puncturing.
Whereas, if it's really muddy,
really grassy or sandy,
you can let the pressure right down.
So, ballpark, for me,
73 or so kilos,
I'd probably run about 40 PSI,
as like, a kind of,
sometimes higher, sometimes lower.
Given that you're about half my body weight,
you probably want about, what,
25 PSI, is your ballpark?
- 50 kilos, so,
I'm gonna go with 30.
- It's all about where
you ride your cross bikes.
On the one hand, it's not important,
but on the other hand, it kind of is as well.
It's not important because they can go anywhere,
like cross bikes are great on tarmac, but we want
to ride off-road, don't we ?
So, in that case,
you can ride on any bit of patch
of scrubland, in a city, any park,
as long as you're allowed to ride there.
The only thing I would
say, is that if it's too rocky,
and it's too reedy,
you actually, probably, be happier
on a mountain bike because there's
less risk of puncturing, cause the tires
are even wider.
It's more comfortable, and it's faster.
So, that would be the only thing I'd say.
- Let's ride then. Shall we ? It's quite muddy.
Hang on, hang on, I can't start that fast.
Oh, man.
(rock music)
[Cy] - Now, the next biggest difference, I think,
between road and off-road, is that off-road,
you're gonna be dealing with bumps, and potentially,
a lot of them.
There is, you might imagine, a technique for
dealing with them.
And, the quicker you learn it, the faster you will go
the faster you will go faster, basically.
- Right
- You'll conserve your momentum better,
you will have more control, and most
importantly of all, you will be more comfortable, as well.
- Sounds good.
- Do you want to give this,
fairly inocuous looking path,
that is slightly bumpy, a go?
- Yes.
I reckon,
I reckon I can do this path.
It doesn't look to bad.
- I guarantee you can do this path,
and I suspect you're going to boss it.
(Rock music)
[Cy] - How's that Emma?
- Yeah, fun. I like this path.
I love this bike.
- To be fair, you were looking absolutely great.
No problems at all.
The only couple things I wondered,
whether you might benefit from changing something. - Yep.
- I noticed, something, you were getting out the saddle.
Which is a really good move on the one hand,
in that you're not getting your bum bounced
around by the saddle.
But, I would suggest that you probably get a
little bit more traction,
with your weight off
the back end, then the back wheel is gonna be
tends to bounce around.
Whereas if you're, if you kind of use your bum
to, sort of, keep it under control.
- Uh, huh.
- But then, the real technique, I think,
is if you use a slightly larger gear
- Yeah
- Then you would on the road, gives you
something to lean against, and then it can
also mean that you can just hover, ever so slightly,
above the saddle.
- Okay.
- So, you're not, you're not getting fully bounced
around by it, but you'll do it enough
just to keep the back wheel under control.
- This sounds a lot like learning to ride cobbles, actually,
so, slightly bigger gear, weight back,
- Absolutely.
- Not too much grip on the handlebars,
and like, roll over the cobbles.
- Exactly the same principle as riding over cobbles.
And exactly like cobbles,
unfortunately, the faster you go,
the easier it gets.
- Yeah.
- So, in terms of looking at it, in like a
bigger picture of a whole ride, sometimes
you might find, that actually, if you save
a little bit of energy on the smooth sections,
and then really hit the bumpy section hard.
- Yeah.
- Actually, they will feel easier, they'll feel
more comfortable, and you'll get a heck of a lot
faster overall.
[Emma] - It's like a fine balance between
gripping too tightly, and being too floppy,
and then the bike goes all over the place.
It's quite tricky to, sort of, gauge that one.
- It is, yeah.
Your hands are in exactly the right position.
They want to be hoods, or dropped.
And, you're right, you kind of need to hold
the handlebars reasonably firmly, so your hands
aren't, kind of wobbling around.
But then, you need, your kind of,
upperarms relaxed, so that they can absorb
all those bumps coming through,
and save your torso, from bouncing around.
And, that kind of hovering out of the saddle
looks absolutely spot on as well.
- Yeah, that's good. It's less painful than
sitting on the saddle.
And, it's like you put more pressure to the pedals,
and less weight through the saddle base.
So, you're still on the saddle, but the weights
going to the pedals, which
kind of helps the bike move forward, it feels like.
- Yep, exactly.
- Win, win.
- That's the precise reason why it helps to be
pressing hard on the pedals, so the faster you'll
go, and the harder you're trying,
then, the easier your forward progress becomes.
[Emma] - Oh, it's really tight
Does this qualify
as gnarly ?
[Cy] It's quite gnarly.
It's a relative extreme example,
to illustrate,
probably for me,
what's the biggest difference between riding
road and off-road, is that you have to
pay much closer attention to where you're going
off-road.
The good news is, that the obstacles off-road
don't tend to move, unlike on-road, where cars,
and so forth, do.
The bad news, though, is that there are more obstacles
out there, off-road, that you need to look out for.
- Yeah.
- But, it's very easy
to actually, get round that problem.
The trick is to just look,
very closely,
as to where you're going.
Maybe, three or four meters, in front of you.
The faster you go, the further ahead you'll need to look.
Simply because, it gives you more time to react to what's
coming up.
And so, therefore,
when you get to a section of trail like this,
which looks like wall-to-wall rocks,
when you're looking ahead,
you'll see that just where your
back tire is, is actually quite a smooth line
all the way up the left-hand edge of the path.
And so,
therefore, you scamper nicely up there,
completely unfazed by everything that's going on, over here.
- Right, so my habit of looking at obstacles and then
gravitating towards them,
is not right.
- No, it's not ideal, there is that weird
tractor beam thing, isn't there, when cycling ?
- Right
- If you look at an obstacle, the chances are
you're going to hit it.
- Right
- So, in this case, you need to look obstacles
to be aware of them.
- Right.
- But then focus on the line that's actually free
from obstacles.
And, it's gonna vary depending on what they are,
but that's where experience comes in to play.
You know, that maybe, you're gonna avoiding
rocks, and roots, and sand, and mud,
and looking for the, the kind of, smooth lines in between.
Fortunately, it's not all about pedaling in side-cross.
You do get to free-wheel as well.
And so, at that point, we can introduce
another technique, which is called
the attack position.
And, we're not necessarily using it to
attack our rivals, more attacking
the trail itself.
So, what it is, is a way of introducing more
control over the bike?
Particularly when it's gets really technical.
So, what you do, is you stand up,
out of the saddle, with your pedals level.
So, you take all weight off your saddle,
and then you want to hold onto handlebars,
on the drops.
So that's where you got, like,
really strong position, you can cover the brakes,
and you've got the most control over the bike.
And, from there, you can throw it around,
from side to side, you can pick it up,
you can do bunny hops, and then you can also brake.
And more importantly still,
is that when you start to go downhill,
you can then move your body weight back,
to keep your center of gravity in the right place,
to stop you feeling like you gonna go
to the front of the bus.
- Right.
- This is a big concept change for me, but,
I like it because it's a different mindset.
So, rather than feeling like the trail is
attacking me, I'm gonna attack the trail.
- Yeah.
It's weird, isn't it?
On the road, you'd never, actually,
really need to get out of the saddle,
when you're not pedaling.
- No. Unless, you get a sore bum.
- Yeah.
I suppose there's that.
Now, this is a pretty gentle stretch of trail,
except, for this sort of patch of about ten feet
of roots and rocks.
And that's the perfect place, to illustrate the
attack position.
So, you can ride the trail, and then get
out of the saddle, and then you can absorb
these bumps, keep the bike under control,
before carrying on your merry way.
You ready Emma?
- Yep.
(rock music)
- Pretty good.
I'd say,
hold the drops.
- Oh yeah.
- Not the tops,
- Nope.
- But otherwise that looked tore.
Emma, I think we should conclude with a akward
fist bump.
Eh, I don't know how that felt to you, but you looked
like you were absolutely nailing it.
I'm not surprised, but you did.
- I don't think I was nailing it, but I really enjoyed it.
Do you know what?
I feel like, on this bike, I could literally go anywhere.
I mean, I say that, but then I found that track
really gnarly, and it was actually, not very
extreme was it?
Anyway, I just feel quite adventurous,
and I had a lot of fun.
- That's great.
And, in terms of translating those skills that
you've honed on the road, off-road,
how's the transition ?
- Well, I prefer it to cobbles, I'll say that. (Cy laughing)
I think I need more practice.
I think I definitely need to get out on this bike more.
- Well, you've got the basics totally dialed.
The next steps will be the peculiar siker cross skill,
okay, and getting on and off your bike whilst moving.
- Yeah.
I'm worried about that one.
- Also, dealing with situations
where you have less grip.
And, then also, we got some more advanced skills to
teach you, as well.
- Advanced skills.
- A little bit later on. Some more videos coming up.
- Give this video a big thumbs up, don't forget
to subscribe and, of course, if you'd like to check out
more subscribed content, we have an amazing video,
done previously with Tom, with Sudden Leafs.
- That's right, an actual expert at cycle cross teacher.