Everything to help you ride stronger and better.
I’m rocking a PowerMax indoor cycling class this winter at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine. I expect to learn stuff and get stronger. It’s fun too.
If you live around Boulder and want to train like a pro, check these classes out.
To ride flat pedals well, you have to let your feet move with the bike and terrain. Your feet have to be supple.
Check out 1:52 to 1:55 on this beautiful “Find – The Mountain Bike Movie” trailer.
Logan, a coaching client and beginning rider from Colorado Springs, is rocking a $600 Kona Blast hardtail. He’s learning to Ride (capital R) before he buys his 6-inch dream bike. Here are the tweaks I recommended for him and his Blast.
Today I lived one of my nerdy dreams. I went to the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine, hooked my Tricross to a CompuTrainer-equipped trainer and got my pedaling stroke analyzed with SpinScan software.
This experience confirmed some things I was feeling, and it blew one notion out of the water.
Now that I’m back from NorCal, I’m focused on learning my S-Works Tricross so I can race it half-decently this weekend.
After last weekend’s coaching sessions, I really needed a good ride. The kind of ride where you go so fast you can’t think of anything. The kind of ride where training and skills and preparation and technique all dissolve into a cloud of braaap!
Actually, I’ve been needing that ride for a long time.
The science and art* of mountain bike skills training got its pro card last week in NorCal. I went out there to teach high school mountain bike coaches how to teach mountain bike skills.
*Science first
Hey all, there might be room in my NICA coach training session this Friday. I’ll be doing a classroom session (explaining my teaching model) plus three hours of drills on the bike. This is the nitty gritty — the keys to the kingdom. You’ll learn how to ride your bike better (and you’ll learn how to teach too).
8:30 Check in & Coffee/Tea
9:00 – 12:00 In the Classroom Skills Clinic with Lee McCormack
12:00 – 12:45 Lunch and Q&A with Lee McCormack
12:45 – 3:45 On the Bike Skills Clinic with Lee McCormack
4:00 – 5:00 Coaches/License Test (if applicable)
Registration fee is $125. All proceeds go to the National Interscholastic Cycling Association.
If you are interested, email me at lee@leelikesbikes.com. I’ll know about space availability Wednesday (tomorrow). We need to get this sorted out by Thursday.
Today I’m starting the drive to NorCal.
Sweet!
This summer I’ve been teaching some new pedaling kung fu, thanks to BMX coach Greg Romero and a winter of study on my trainer and neighborhood hills.
My clients and I been focusing on developing high torque while maintaining perfect balance on steep terrain. Everyone one is pretty stoked, but we’ve been breaking chains. Just yesterday we snapped one and pulled one off an apparently worn cassette.
The good news: You’re more powerful than ever.
The bad news: You need a new chain.
I am pinning it hard to finish the NICA coach training manual before my clinics in NorCal next week. So far the book is 90 pages long and full of my best coaching kung fu. (Yes, I will make it available to everyone.)
As part of this adventure, yesterday I interviewed the crew at the Boulder Center for Sport Medicine about bike fit and pedaling technique. That was illuminating. Stay tuned for tidbits.
Also and not directly related: Yesterday I got a one-on-one cyclocross clinic from Brandon Dwight, national CX champ and owner of Boulder Cycle Sport (we are trading pump fu for ‘cross fu). He is a good dude and amazingly graceful in the ‘cross sense. I learned a ton and will practice diligently for my CX debut this fall. Stay tuned!
OK, back to the manual.
Hi Lee
I just finished reading your book “Mastering mountainbike skills 2nd ed” Great read. My first ride after reading about attack position was way better than ever b4. In the attack position does it matter which foot is in front and which foot is in the back? For youe buyer demographics I am a 48 year old married dude who likes to rip it. I bought the book at a local Chapters store.
Sincerely
David V
Lethbridge Alberta CANADA eh
