- Well as you probably know I've done a few Ironmen already
but I've never actually done anything shorter or faster
so I've never had the pressure of having
to do a flying mount,
but I feel it might be time that I've got to give it a go.
Bucko for his sins has very kindly offered
to try and teach me.
I think me might have his work cut out.
(Heather laughs)
That's my teacher.
- Ay up.
(theme music)
(upbeat dance music)
- To be honest, I've never been particularly good
at mounting, even as a kid.
So I was brought up riding ponies and horses
and my parents spent years trying to teach me how to mount
and I was told I looked like a sack of potatoes.
So I'm not really holding out for jumping on a bike.
It is slightly smaller than a horse, I guess.
Maybe a smaller saddle if that's a good thing.
Might be uncomfortable if I miss it though.
(upbeat dance music)
Yeah it looks so easy when he does it.
He can do it slow or fast.
It's just like hopping on.
How can that be hard?
(upbeat dance music)
Now obviously you're an ITU athlete,
and you're used to, you have to get on fast,
but for me does it really make any difference,
'cause I'm confident, I'm safe just getting on my bike.
- Yeah - just heading up the road.
- I think you're right you gotta put safety in first
over everything,
but you can be safe and fast.
- Okay. - Yeah.
Just give me ten, ten minutes of your time
and I'll make you ten seconds faster in transition, easy.
- I think it'll make... - Deal.
Let's deal, it'll make that much difference.
- If you reckon. - Well how about,
we'll do this, this challenge.
Lamppost to lamppost, I'll jump on as a fly mount,
you jump on as normal
and I'll show you how much difference it makes.
- Okay. - That fair deal?
- Yeah I'm keen to see.
- Okay, let's do it.
So we've got a mount line there
and it's the first one to the lamppost
and the only two rules are,
you've got to get on your bike after the lamppost
and before that line.
(Heather laughs)
- [Heather] Ow okay I didn't think about that.
- So as you get your bike from the racking
and you come into the mount line,
the fundamental difference between stopping
and getting on your bike
and doing the flying mount is basically, how Heather showed,
she came to the line and actually decelerated
and stopped to get on the bike before pedalling away.
Whereas with the flying mount
you're accelerating all the way,
over the line and then onto your bike.
(upbeat dance music)
- So it's like all very well that I can
watch you all day doing it
and it looks so straightforward
but I can't just suddenly watch you
and interpret that in my brain of how to do it.
I don't know how to if you have makes sense.
- Yeah, well I think you need to,
first of all you need to strip it down
and start from the beginning,
so the first bit is running with your bike.
- [Heather] Okay. - [Mark] Okay.
- [Heather] Yeah, that's something that I think
I've just about nailed but
- [Mark] Okay - [Heather] You can test me.
- We'll do that because then
that gets your hands in the right place
so that then you can jump onto your bike.
- Okay.
(upbeat ambient music)
- So you can obviously push your bike
and get to the mount line.
It's just getting on the thing.
- It is.
So how do we break this down.
- Well I think you can,
instead of stopping and getting on the bike
like you have done,
there's a halfway house between doing that
and the flying mount and it's called the scoot.
- Okay.
- And basically you just want your pedal out in front of you
upright like that,
so yours is gonna be on that side.
And then when you come to get on it
instead of completely stopping and putting your leg over,
your foot goes straight onto that pedal
and then you're gonna push down,
that's gonna propel you forward
and give you a bit of momentum to get on.
It's like this.
(Heather laughs)
Well often...
- It's like thrusting isn't it?
- Okay so the first part of that,
let's break this bit down then.
If you're not comfortable to do that straight away
then put your pedal right at the bottom
- [Heather] Yeah.
and then just try to push off with your other foot
and make sure you can balance on one foot first.
(Heather laughs) - This is gonna be so bad.
(upbeat dance music)
- She's doing really good.
It's confidence it is with a lot of these things.
She was worried about just putting all the weight
on one pedal to begin with
but she's got the knack of that now.
She's just flying through it.
She was really hesitant at even giving it a go to begin with
and now you at her, she just can't stop herself.
And that's what you wanna do,
once you've got over that first scary part,
just putting your weight on one pedal
then you can just do it time and time again then.
And she's flying through it.
Brilliant.
(upbeat dance music)
So at the stage where she's trying to do the scoot,
where you basically put one foot on the pedal
and then push down with that
and swing your leg around unto the bike.
But she's never done this before
and sometimes, I'll be the first one to say it,
that I appreciate when someone hasn't tried a skill
it can be quite daunting
but she's gone from not being able to put any pressure on
a pedal, to now scooting along like this
and all she has to do now is bring the back leg over,
and she would have nailed it.
(thoughtful ambient music)
And again just remember,
put all the weight through.
And you don't even have to put,
you don't have to sit down on the saddle.
Just like shadow it, yeah?
- [Heather] Yep.
- [Mark] She's already there.
Easy.
Easy. - Just did it.
- Ah see she's nailed the scoot now.
Nailed it, first time.
So look how easy she's made that.
Nailed the scoot first time.
(thoughtful ambient music)
- Mark, when I started I couldn't even just do the scoot
and it looked so simple,
and you see kids doing it all the time,
so I felt a little bit stupid
and to be honest a bit worried about this whole video
'cause I didn't think we were gonna have any content
so I'm buzzing right now because I've got it.
But you're probably wondering
why on earth have I never tried it
and I've started cycling before I started triathlon
and just general cycling
you don't need to get on your bike fast.
You all start, get on your bikes
and off you go.
There's no rush.
And then all the triathlons I've done,
the shortest has been a half Ironman
and the amount of time
I thought it would take me to learn this
I thought I'd much rather spend training.
So I've...
It just makes such a small difference in a longer race,
I've just never I guess,
sometimes I just need a bit of pushing
and having a camera on me has definitely pushed me
out of my comfort zone this morning.
I think if it wasn't right here, right now,
I probably would've given up on it a while ago.
So I'm so glad I've done it,
I'm really excited.
And now I'm like generally "go and try it"
'cause if you break it down and do one step at a time,
you'll be amazed.
I'm amazed.
I could do it all day now.
Just like that.
It's awesome.
(lo-fi hip-hop music)
- So the next phase is the flying mount,
the gold standard of getting on the bike.
And you're gonna need both hands on your bars
so you can see already my hands are quite tense there
because I'm gonna be popping up with my legs
and a lot of my body weight is gonna be going through
my bars and arms.
So if I demonstrate it with a little bit of movement,
you might be able to get an idea of how to do it.
So the key areas to watch is that
I'm putting quite a lotta weight
through the front of the bike
and then I'm gonna pop up off my top
so I can clear my saddle and get over,
my leg over to the other side.
So like this.
(upbeat dance music)
So I think to jump on,
you obviously need to generate a bit of power
to get your leg up and over the other side,
and obviously on a lot of,
especially TT the saddles are quite high
so it might be worth dropping it down a bit,
- Okay. - so you can do that.
(thoughtful ambient music)
There you go.
Put your feet on your pedals.
(Heather laughs)
So you can jump on your bike can't you?
Ay?
Gonna be rocking, kid.
Look at that, poetry.
(Heather laughs) - [Heather] Not quite poetry.
Poetry in motion.
(upbeat dance music)
(high five)
Heather really went through that first five minutes
of just doubting herself, thinking she couldn't do it,
but then she got over that
and then realised she could do each phase
and then just wanted to get onto the next one,
and it all came naturally.
And I think the thing to do is don't get bogged down in it.
Think about it, maybe take five minutes
just to watch the video again
and then get back into it with a bit more oomph
and energy.
But yeah don't get beat up about it
if you don't get it first time.
Just keep practising and practising and it will come.
(thoughtful ambient music)
- Okay, so I'm feeling like I'm close to looking
a little bit professional here,
but I still normally have to teeter through transition,
running on my cleats, wearing them out,
and especially when it's like slippery tarmac
and I see that you guys start with your shoes on the bike.
- Yeah, you'll run so much quicker in bare feet
than you will in cleats.
- So what's the key, what do you need to know for this?
- So we've attached the shoes to the bike
as you can see using the cleats,
so they fix nicely in position.
And you've got elastic bands on yours
that's been mounted onto the bottle cage.
You can also use a rear skewer to hook the band on as well.
Obviously mine aren't attached with bands
and you see how awkwardly they are flapping in the wind.
- And what happens to the bands,
people might be wondering,
we've hooked elastic band on but...
- Yeah, so once you've put your feet into your shoes
and start pedalling,
providing that you haven't got a really long band,
it'll snap and you'll just be left to spin away.
- Okay so the band has snapped,
but how do I get my feet actually,
it might sound stupid,
but how do I get them in,
- Yeah. - Or do I try to get them in
as soon as I've got on,
or do I pedal with my foot on top.
- So some people, and this is the two options,
you put your feet in straight away
or you get up to speed, get up to race speed,
and then put your feet in a bit further down the course,
when you've got a nice momentum going.
So I like to put my feet straight on top of my shoes
without putting them in
and getting up to speed,
and then once I've got my momentum,
and I'm maybe 500 metres into the course,
I then put my feet in.
But say you've got a course where you've got a technical bit
immediately out of transition, or a hill,
you probably want to get them in as early as you can do.
Well awesome, you nailed it.
- Thanks. - I'm proud of you.
Well that's for your patience
because I couldn't've done it,
like I wouldn't have known where to start,
and even at the start I was having a bit of panic on
of "how on earth,
"yeah I need a whole week to do this."
But I think it's surprising,
and this is probably something
that people who've done one before can learn from it.
If you just break it down,
and do one bit at a time
and actually you'll be surprised
at how quickly you can get there.
- Yeah, just watch a decent youtube video on it
and you'll be fine. - Yeah.
Yeah, like this one.
Anyway if you have enjoyed this
and you're feeling motivated to go and give it a go,
gives us a thumbs up like
and remember subscribe to GTN by clicking on the globe.
And if you want some other transition tips,
then why not watch this video just here.
- And if you wanna see a video on the brick session,
click here.