Cyclocross Lesson #1 - Like a Graceful Ballarina

Travis and I made plans with Bill Elliston to spend some time doing cyclocross skills this past weekend. Bill is a professional rider/coach and he agreed to put on a 2 hour clinic for us involving dismounting, carrying and remounting our bike for the purpose of going over barriers. Needless to say we were completely stoked to have a pro show us the ropes. I learned so many rugby skills early on by just trying to emulate what I saw (and failing miserably) and this was a bit more complicated now there was a bike involved so some proper tutelage was needed.


Bill, Travis and I went to a local park near Bill. Nice flat grass, a luxury in Philadelphia if you play rugby. Today though, was all about cross and we started off with Bill showing us how to pick up some speed, unclip our right foot, swing it around and thread it between the bike and our left foot. We then bring our right foot back around and sit back down on the bike and continue riding. Piece of cake. I thought I would be more wobbly, but I was able to do this pretty well, just need to remember to have enough speed, esp on grass. We then added another piece - moving our right hand to top bar of the bike frame. After some practice, we actually put our right foot down and unclipped our left foot at the same time and ran with the bike for a few steps. Getting closer! Bill noticed my cleats were a bit tight since I was putting my foot down and stopping since my left foot didn't pop out easily. After some adjustment, this was loads easier.


Moving forward, we added the act of picking up the bike and setting it back down. I thank my trainers at the gym for all the back rows, tricep extensions, and general upper body work they've put me through because I need to hoist that bike up pretty far next to my body if I want to clear barriers. This gets a bit tiring and my legs are feeling tired from riding around in circles on grass for an hour. How am I going to do all this and go fast and race all at the same time? We practice this for a while and then take a short break before starting on remounting the bike. So far so good, right?