March 29th 2022 – Training Set #002 – Spent the last 14 days working on my own training and implementing some of the skills I learnt at my first session with Tri Five Fitness ….. backed up for my next training session with Tri Five and this time we worked on both sprints and high speed cornering. The cornering drills were great and right away I found both similarities and differences in cornering on the BMX verses the Mountain bike. Cornering on the MTB I can sit back a bit and let the suspension do a lot of the work but on the BMX I needed to get down low and make my body the suspension and really get the weight onto the outside pedal. With the sprints ….. it harks back to my days on the track when huge cadence was always the game you played and something that is going to help me going forward with my BMX racing.
During the week I found a small concrete training track near my home which is perfect for practicing my cornering and sprints. It is a small concrete oval which is 200mts in length overall and looks to have been built by the local council for kids to ride on ….. and seeing that I am just a kid at heart, well then its perfect for me. It gives me the opportunity to sprint for about 8 to 10 pedal strokes before nailing the corner.
April 5th 2022 – Training Set #003 – Todays session was a mix of sprints and bike control doing weaving drills around witches hats and holding the bike in a straight line through witches hats.
April 10th 2022 – Training Set #004 – Todays session was a hugeeeee breakout for me as Coach Craig declared that all riders had to be on flat pedals for this session. I have been clipped into my pedals for almost 30 years and even though I have tried flat pedals from time to time, it is not something that I have used for serious training or riding. I guess my saving grace is the time we spend in Japan riding Mama Chari commuter bikes which of course have flat pedals …. but that is a long cry from punting a BMX at speed on flat pedals when you ain’t used to it.
I settled for some old Redline pedals which had some pretty good long pins on them and then used my Dunlop Volley Canvas shoes which have a nice flat grippy sole. I spent a longggg time warming up and trying to get a feel for not being clipped in and even during the warmup I slipped my pedals a few times. I decided that this would be a great learning session for me and that I should stay relaxed and not go to hard during this training set.
The “flat pedal” session was the usual sprints and bike control ……… but then Coach Craig switched it up and we all had turns in wooden bike stands getting a feel for being in the “manual” position whilst being stationary and being assisted to remain in the manual pose. Next up was doing actual real manuals and it was here that I was pretty happy to be on flats. For anyone that has tried doing manual or wheelies you will know how often you will “loop out” and that is a time you don’t want to be clipped in !! We finished the session with a manual challenge over a marked course of 1 to 20 ……. I was pretty happy to manual a 12 out of 20. This was a great session for me and as always I learnt heaps and have heaps to work on.
See ya back here for more shortly