Vocabulary

[Eden]

The Wiki has a nice vocab list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycling_terminology

btw - some of my definitions may only be valid for local races - other areas may have different rules or ways of doing things.

[RoadRaven]

Good words here...

A good list - well done...

What about -

Sucking wheels / Wheel-suckers

Drafting

The other phrase you might hear instead of "Bonking" is "Hitting the wall"

[Andrea]

I'm glad to hear they know about pacelines, but do they know about a rotating paceline? Where you have one line (ideally the side shielded from any cross wind) advancing and one "retreating" line that the riders from the advancing line pull off to as their rear wheel clears the front wheel of the person in front of the retreating line.



It's sooooo nice in a race when a group needs to work together and everyone knows how to do it smoothly.

[Eden]

Yes - we teach them rotating pacelines first off and we make them practice too. Our team is known in the area for having the best drilled newbies in the pack. We also do hands on (or should I say bike on) clinics on climbing, cornering and sprinting. Our experienced women go out before the crits at stage races and ride through them with the new people so that they can learn the best way to handle the cornering. We try to do as much as possible to make sure our women are safe and confident when they race.

[Andrea]

That's awesome- It would have been nice to have teaching like that around here when I started. I learned most of my race tactics through the "trial by fire" method