Hey Team ….. to give you an idea of where I am at and so we can all follow my progression, I will put my actual training sessions into their own blog posts.
March 8th 2022 – I spent the week just riding the RM24 and the Mosh locally along bike paths trying to adjust bar positions and resisting the temptation to sit down. After so many years of riding the road bike and mountain bikes it is natural for me to sit down especially after a hill or sprints etc. Well … the first thing you find out is that there ain’t no sitting down on the BMX. During the week I did probably 8 to 10 x 20mt sprints (more like surges) on both bikes just trying to get a feel for them both.
March 15th 2022 – Training Set #001 – Went to my very first training session with Tri Five Fitness. The session consisted of a warm up then some short sprints then repeats of sprint / coast / sprint again. Next up we did some long slow straight pedaling elbow to elbow with another rider …. this was perfect for me after many years of track and road racing where you spend so much time bumping elbows at high speed. Next up we did some repeats of sprint / turn / then sprint again. The session finished with some long head to head sprints with other riders.
What did I take away from this very first time on the BMX training rather than just cruising around ……….
(1) – There is a huge difference in a BMX bike when you are pushing it at speed as opposed to just rolling around with your mates.
(2) – I have to get used to training with a bunch of kids especially very young kids who have no idea that they are training …. to them they are just riding their bike and having fun. The big problem is that they will cut in and over and under you without any regard for their safety (or yours). Not a biggg problem as in a way its good for my reactions and skills but when you get my age, you have a much greater respect for the pain and inconvenience of injury.
(3) – My BMX sprint technique needs a lot of work …. I can sprint well on the road bike and on a mountain bike I can turn out pretty good power when climbing. None of this helps at all when you start to crank it up on the BMX (well my BMX). First up is the pure twitchiness of the front end as it becomes unloaded as you sprint and next was the feeling of losing contact with your pedals as your cadence goes through the roof. Currently I am using SPD MTB pedals on both the RM24 and Mosh. After almost 30 years on clips it is all I know and flat pedals just plain scare the crap outa me. Even being clipped in , there is a feeling of losing your pedal and something that I don’t experience on the road or mountain bike.
(4) – There are way too many opinions on what I should be riding (20″ v 24″) and then even more opinions on how my bike should be set up. I go straight back to what Coach Craig said …. “just ride what is comfortable for you”. For me I think the best thing is to just stick with the Mosh 20″ and leave the setup and just ride it and work on my skills.
Next blog I think we will look at the Mosh and go over it in detail.