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Developing Fearlessness/Bike Handling Skills

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Developing Fearlessness/Bike Handling Skills

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Old 03-16-17, 12:23 AM
  #76  
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Originally Posted by scheibo
but because its embarrassing to not be able to post up at the finish
What's more embarrassing is losing tho!

Fwiw after getting my cables shortened I can barely ride with no hands now.. I think the bars don't turn as easily as they used to. Or I'm just getting worse at the whole bike thing as time goes on and I get older.
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Old 03-16-17, 01:03 AM
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Last edited by topflightpro; 03-16-17 at 06:50 AM.
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Old 03-16-17, 03:41 AM
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wait there are people who race bikes who can't ride a bike with no hands? wut?
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Old 03-16-17, 04:11 AM
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I ask this knowing I already regret the response. In fact I think ygduf's aversion to riding anywhere near anyone is starting to make a lot more sense.

Tell me mattm, why did you shorten your cables? Have you performed, or knowingly agreed to have others perform, any further modifications to your bike under the auspices of performance and/or winning? Please be as exacting as possible in your response.
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Old 03-16-17, 05:56 AM
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Originally Posted by Ygduf


lol. full of ****.

There's plenty of germane points for wktmeow in this thread. Increase your skills, decrease risk. No one is arguing. I don't know why people are compelled to hyperbole.

You can never escape risk though so know what you're in for when you race bikes. Everyone crashes eventually and it's usually not even your fault. You're at the whim of people around you. You control your wheel but you can't do **** when someone falls into your front or when you get unlucky with a patch of sand.
I guess the best thing would be to post a video. So I'll do that later this year.
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Old 03-16-17, 06:05 AM
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Originally Posted by mike868y
CDR there's a helmet cam video of yours where you go from last wheel to winning (?) in a lap, just post that.
There is but it's not a move through the field thing. I had to wait until just before the last turn at Nutmeg (because rain and bad tires and I don't corner well in rain anyway) so I had to move up past the whole field in a few hundred meters between the top of the hill and the last corner. In that situation I didn't have the luxury of moving through the field, I had to hit the wind. Probably cooked my legs as I had zero jump.


There were Bethels where I was at or slightly off the back at the bell and then I won or got 2nd, but I don't have proof of that since no videos. B Wolf was with me at the back two weeks in a row, first week I won, second week I messed up and got 2nd, but he's the only one that I remember interacting with who knew I was at the back at the bell. The second week he peeled off to watch the sprint and told me to win again, something to that effect.
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Old 03-16-17, 08:30 AM
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Originally Posted by mattm
Fwiw after getting my cables shortened I can barely ride with no hands now.. I think the bars don't turn as easily as they used to. Or I'm just getting worse at the whole bike thing as time goes on and I get older.
That could be it. I've got minimal cables as well because cables = drag. I also blame it on being light and having an aero frame which acts like a sail. I'm going to try out a longer stem this week (to be the same as it was on my CAAD) which will change the steering axis and maybe make it less twitchy.
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Old 03-16-17, 08:43 AM
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Originally Posted by wktmeow
As in, there's something wrong with the bike? I don't have nearly as much trouble with it on my cx bike but I figured it's the longer wheel base
one note from my experience - I thought I'd forgotten how to ride no handed/lost the nerver to do it. It turns out the headset in my scott was just notched and the bearings had little seats and wanted to stay there. no huge issue with hands on the bars, but without hands it was a death defying experience. On my (newer and less used) bike it's no issue at all.

pick your bike up and swing it back and forth. see if the front wheel really moves freely left and right.
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Old 03-16-17, 09:17 AM
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Originally Posted by scheibo
I'm going to try out a longer stem this week (to be the same as it was on my CAAD) which will change the steering axis and maybe make it less twitchy.
Huh, I would have thought a longer stem would put more weight further out front (or put the same wait on a longer fulcrum) and make it more twitchy, not less.
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Old 03-16-17, 09:20 AM
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Actually started asking about his headset before getting distracted with why you would intentionally lock the steering with short housing runs. Knowing bulbous aero frames with awful routing already play havoc with functionality. It seems rather a blunt solution where nuance and sophisticated technical solutions would be preferable.

Last edited by miyata man; 03-16-17 at 09:36 AM. Reason: potty mouth
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Old 03-16-17, 09:42 AM
  #86  
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Originally Posted by miyata man
Tell me mattm, why did you shorten your cables? Have you performed, or knowingly agreed to have others perform, any further modifications to your bike under the auspices of performance and/or winning? Please be as exacting as possible in your response.
Less drag. When I got aero bars, I figured I might as well tighten up the whole cockpit as much as I can.
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Old 03-16-17, 09:44 AM
  #87  
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Originally Posted by carpediemracing
There is but it's not a move through the field thing. I had to wait until just before the last turn at Nutmeg (because rain and bad tires and I don't corner well in rain anyway) so I had to move up past the whole field in a few hundred meters between the top of the hill and the last corner. In that situation I didn't have the luxury of moving through the field, I had to hit the wind. Probably cooked my legs as I had zero jump.

[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzT0FGn9Co4 /url]

There were Bethels where I was at or slightly off the back at the bell and then I won or got 2nd, but I don't have proof of that since no videos. B Wolf was with me at the back two weeks in a row, first week I won, second week I messed up and got 2nd, but he's the only one that I remember interacting with who knew I was at the back at the bell. The second week he peeled off to watch the sprint and told me to win again, something to that effect.
I was able to beat cat 3's as well, and now I'm cat 1 who still wins.

Why can't I be famous?? Asking Mikey really.
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Old 03-16-17, 09:47 AM
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Originally Posted by himespau
Huh, I would have thought a longer stem would put more weight further out front (or put the same wait on a longer fulcrum) and make it more twitchy, not less.
https://cyclingtips.com/2015/03/how-...-and-handling/ and my n=1 experience disagrees, but I'm sure we can probably find people/articles arguing it both ways. i'm changing my stem for reasons other than being able to ride no-handed more comfortably, but it might potentially have secondary effects
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Old 03-16-17, 09:56 AM
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If you're riding a shorter stem and are more upright you might actually be transferring a bunch of weight onto your hands. When you're more stretched out you're likely using your core more which takes the load off your hands and makes the front end less twitchy. This is in addition to the difference in steering that a longer stem results in.

140 -17 ftw!
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Old 03-16-17, 10:22 AM
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I prefer a longer stem too. It is more stable/less twitchy. It also forces me to rotate my hips more. I'm currently running a 120 on one bike and 110 on the other. My fitter suggested I try the 110, but I think I like the 120 more.
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Old 03-16-17, 10:35 AM
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I might, might, end up having to use 145mm after the unable to be retooled for with modern technology retaining bolt on my 140mm snapped. No issues hitting my knees on the bars.
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Old 03-16-17, 11:29 AM
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Originally Posted by scheibo
https://cyclingtips.com/2015/03/how-...-and-handling/ and my n=1 experience disagrees, but I'm sure we can probably find people/articles arguing it both ways. i'm changing my stem for reasons other than being able to ride no-handed more comfortably, but it might potentially have secondary effects
Good to know. I need to lengthen my cable runs as well. In my case, it wasn't planned, I just made them too long at first and then trimmed, trimmed again, and whoops, now they're too short. Kind of like the toe overlap ting, where it isn't a problem at speed, I rarely need to crank my bars all the way to the right or left, so I didn't fix it until now when I need to change the cables anyway.
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Old 03-17-17, 06:39 AM
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Originally Posted by mattm
I was able to beat cat 3's as well, and now I'm cat 1 who still wins.

Why can't I be famous?? Asking Mikey really.
you need to start a vlog, that's what all the cool kids are doing these days
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Old 03-17-17, 06:24 PM
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Originally Posted by mattm
I was able to beat cat 3's as well, and now I'm cat 1 who still wins.

Why can't I be famous?? Asking Mikey really.
Mikey's a good person to ask, he has like a zillion more Twitter followers than me. Which is very confusing, since he's wrong about like 90% of everything. Oh well, we can't all be stars.
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Old 03-17-17, 11:28 PM
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Originally Posted by mike868y
you need to start a vlog, that's what all the cool kids are doing these days
That Vegan Cyclist guy has like 25k followers on youtube, I have about 100.. need to up my vlog game!
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Old 03-18-17, 05:05 AM
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Originally Posted by mattm
That Vegan Cyclist guy
Is that the guy who is literally insane? Because i think that is an really good way to get people to watch you.
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Old 03-18-17, 06:57 PM
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iunno, i follow him, he's a pretty decent youtuber. doesn't seem insane, or at least no more insane than any bike racer
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Old 03-18-17, 08:35 PM
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Sorry, I was thinking of Durian Rider.
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Old 03-18-17, 08:42 PM
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durian rider is insane.
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Old 03-18-17, 11:47 PM
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So what I'm learning from this is that to be popular on youtube you either need to be winning every pro crit as a cat 1, a new struggling cat 2, an old cat 3, or a crazy cat 6..

But a sometimes-winning cat 1 - who wants to watch that??
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