[music] Speaker: Whether you ride competitively
just for fun or maybe you enjoy a cruise with your mates, one area which will benefit all parts
of your cycling is good bike handling. Good bike handling will not only make your ride smoother and
more relaxing, but it'll also help you be safe. To help you along in this respect, we thought
we'll share with you all a few handy little bike handling drills that you can practice on any ride.
Learning to come to a stop, balance, and track stand is a valuable skill. It will help you to
exit junctions at a faster speed as you won't need to clip in again to get going. What's more,
it will really help you balance on the bike when riding on steep climbs at slower speeds.
Now, the best way to practice this is to find a quiet gently sloping road and put your best
foot forward. In my case, my right foot or pedal. Now, you want to point your front wheel
up the slope and find the balance point.
Now, if you're not confident doing this at first, I'd recommend wearing trainers.
Put pressure down on your front foot to drive the bike forward and relax to let the bike roll down
the hill. Personally, I find it much easier to do this out of the saddle. What I'd really recommend
is trying this in this scenario so you can get a feel for the balance of the bike because what
follows in a bit is a little bit more complicated. When riding in a group on a steep climb,
this skill is especially useful. Unclipping at such moments can make it so hard to get
going again and regain your momentum. Learning to track stand on a steep climb is especially useful.
It means if anyone stops in front of you, you can safely stop, pause, and restart safely.
The best way to practice this is to get used to handling your bike at slower speeds
on a steep climb and then progress to stopping momentarily and restarting again. If you want any
more detailed help on how to learn to track stand, you can find a previous video right here.
[unintelligible 00:02:39] walk. It's easier, isn't it?
[music] Many of us cyclists
have some spare bottles lying around at home. I do as well, but I forgot them, so I've improvised
and I've brought some other objects with me. The reason I've brought my handlebar bag,
my saddle bag, a banana, and my energy bar is because I want you all to use such items to lay
out a bit of a slalom course down in a quiet car park or any empty space because this next drill
is a great one for improving your handling. You want to lay them down a step and a half between
each obstacle. I've got quite a big step, so I'll try and keep them a bit smaller than usual.
Lay them all down. Then, next up, you're going to grab your bike.
Be careful not to touch any of the obstacles.
If you want to make this harder, you can speed up or you can shorten the gap between the obstacles,
but I'd recommend first getting used to the slalom before you make any changes.
This is a great way of improving your all-round bike handling and especially your cornering
when you get back out on the road. Another tip to remember when doing this is to put your pedal
in the right position. When you're turning left, put your right pedal at six o'clock.
Right, put your left pedal at six o'clock. This is a great habit to get into
when you're cornering back out on the road.
Another simple and effective skill is to learn to pick up an object from the ground as you're
riding. Before you pick anything off the ground, you need to practice the movement that you'll be
using when you're doing it. You want to lean to the side of your bike, reach down like so.
Once you feel confident doing that, it's time to practice it with a water bottle.
Remember, this is pretty tricky so it's best to try it at slower speeds. Yay. Stay patient,
give yourself a few attempts, and you'll get there in the end. If it helps,
you can get really low and get down on your crossbar like that to reach down.
Road bikes are designed for riding on, well, the road.
Taking a road bike off-road onto a soft stretch of grass or maybe a gentler section of gravel
is a great way of getting used to handling a road bike on trickier terrain. It will benefit
your bike handling allround. Next time you're out on a ride, factor in a soft stretch of grass
and get used to riding on it. You could maybe even throw in some static 180 turns
or try it on a steeper gradient which will be more of a challenge. Try riding out of the saddle,
and notice how your balance is amplified in greater ways when you're riding on such a terrain.
This is a brilliant way of improving your bike handling allround and getting used to your road
bike and how it handles on trickier terrains. It'll benefit you when you get back on the road.
Ever dropped a bottle or a bar on a ride? It's a pain, isn't it? It involves an immediate U-turn to
go back and recollect that item. As someone who raced and as anyone else who raced would know,
being able to catch a bottle from the side of the road is an essential skill to make
sure you're fueled throughout the whole race. Being able to catch a bottle is a great skill
for general riding too. Maybe you're eating a bar with one hand or drinking a bottle with one hand,
if you drop that item and fumble, it's great to be able to recatch it.
A good way to practice this is to simply try juggling with one hand whilst you're riding.
First, make sure no one's behind you. Do this on a quiet road. Then, simply juggle with the bottle.
Throw it in the air and catch it. You can try adding in a few spins to make it a little harder.
Of course, always look at the road in front of you whilst you're doing this and not at the bottle.
Always fully focus on that road. Trying this in a controlled setting will help you next time
it happens accidentally and will help you avoid maybe steering of course or even worse, crashing.
[music] I hope some of these skills
have helped you improve your riding ability. Some of them are a bit of fun. That's what riding is
all about, isn't it? They will help you improve your all-round bike handling ability. What I'd say
is the most important skill is to learn to scan the road ahead, far down the road, and look for
any potholes or oncoming obstacles which you may need to adapt and change your line for. Also, get
used to changing for any oncoming terrain so you can adapt your riding style. This is an important
skill because it will keep you safe on the road. You won't have to do any last minute changes.
Any other skills that you can think of, please let me know in the Comments section below,
anything far more interesting. Personally, I love riding on beaches, but I couldn't find
any in the Cotswolds around here. I'll keep working on that one, maybe in a future video.
Thanks for watching everyone. See you all soon. [00:08:19] [END OF AUDIO]