Swing Thought

Back in the early 2000's, I gave up cycling for golf.  I love golf.  But I don't do it anymore.  I like cycling almost as much as golf.  But it has way more physical and mental benefits.

So for the foreseeable future, I'm a cyclist. Again.

This round of cycling has been about diversity.  I used to ride exclusively road, but when I started back up a couple of years ago, I added single track "Mountain Biking" and Cross racing.

Actually, I started in the late fall of 2012.  I decided at that time to start riding in the winter.  That meant using my cross bike.  Yeah, my cross bike.  It was in sorry shape.  It had been hanging in the garage for years.  The chain was rusted stiff. Whenever I walked by it, it would squeak "Oil can" at me.

Getting it all dusted and cleaned off paved the way for the other cycling disciplines.  I rode tranquility and Swanson with the cross bike until I got the 29er.

The 29er made all the other trails more enjoyable.

So even though I think of myself as a road rider, I actually enjoy both mountain biking and especially cross more than road "racing."

I think a fun spirited road ride will always be my favorite, but I'm not much of a fan of races on a road bike.

Road racing is scary to me.  Well, just crits.  But that's most of the road races around here.

And time trials.  The worst.

I think Mountain bike (single track) races are kind of fun, mostly because of the ride itself.  Plus there's the whole "conquering your fear" thing.  I suppose I could apply that to crits, but crits have tremendous crashes at high speeds.  Mostly it's the handling skill I like learning while riding the 29er.

But Cross.  That's just a big sufferfest of fun.  It's always a party atmosphere.  The cheering, heckling, beer handups, stinging ass slaps.  That's as much fun as I've ever had on a bike.

And I'm getting better.  Slowly but surely.

My bike is heavy old steel.  It is not yet the main thing slowing me down.  Not yet ...

I can corner a little braver now.  I can pedal a little faster over bumpy, grassy land.  I can climb steep hills with better balance, etc.

But there's one thing I really struggle with.  It is the toughest thing about cross as far as I'm concerned.

Back when I was a golfer, when I was not practicing my swing, I was meditating on it. I took lessons. Everybody recommends lessons.  The pro can easily correct faults with your swing.  He gives you a new way to think about what you are doing.  He gives you drills to help.

When you are trying to learn the swing, you may have 5 or 6 things going through your mind about how to swing.

Eventually, you will hopefully get that down to one thought.  Then it's not a thought.  I believe it's a trigger at that point.

I learned some important things from golf that I apply to cycling. I have become a better cyclist in the last couple of years than I ever had been before.  The main thing I learned is relaxed muscles move faster than tensed ones.

Of course you have to use muscle to ride fast, but you need to learn to use as little as possible to get the job done.  To be efficient.

I saw a great demonstration of this principle once.  It was a golf video, but it applies.  The instructor showed what it looks like to run with all of your leg muscles clenched at once.  It was a comical, stiff legged hobble, but it illustrated the point.

When I'm climbing well, I'm thinking of relaxing my legs as much as possible.

In golf, my instructor wanted me to get all of my thinking done before I addressed the ball.  Once I set up, I was supposed to just swing.

Some thoughts seemed to help for a while - then they would get stale.  I'd pick another that would be good for a time then -- suck.

These days, I spend about as much time trying to remount my bike (cyclocross) as I used to spend trying to get my swing right.

Every once in a while, I would effortlessly hit that straight 250 yard drive.  No idea where it came from or how to repeat it.

A week ago, I was at Super Secret cross practice (Monday or Tuesday).  Lucas was the only other person there.  I mentioned that I was trying to figure out how to get back on the bike.

He gave me a fantastic swing thought.

About 90% of the time, I stutter step or land so hard on the seat, I'm afraid I'm going to pinch flat or break a spoke.  But sometimes I land so perfectly. So smooth.  Sometimes my feet just attach to the pedals immediately after the landing.  Sometimes.

I've been learning that smoothness in all of the motion helps.

Going only as fast as I can handle helps too.  If I try to go from anything more than a about 5 mph right now -- stutter step.

But I'm getting faster. Little by little.

The problem with swing thoughts in golf and remounting is that you are thinking about what to do.  Not doing.  The thought actually gets in the way once the correct feel is established.

As I've had a few more successful remounts lately, I've noticed they all feel pretty much the same. The more I do this, the more it's about feel and the less it's about thinking.

That's the big problem with trying to explain this to someone.  If you know how to do it, you probably never think about how you do it.  It's all feel.

That's what makes good instruction so valuable.  It's coming from someone who not only knows - but can put it into word form so the student can have a starting point.

When I told Lucas what I was doing, he said "Have you consulted the internet?"

"Not this year," I told him.

He kind of contemplated it for a while and went through the motions real slow, thinking to himself, doing sort of a remount from basically a standing position.

He came back and said to me, "I've heard if you think of sliding your thigh onto the saddle, that's a good place to start."

"I'l give it a try"

Then he went to do a lap or 10.

So far, his suggestion has been the best I've heard.  I've been practicing and it's coming along.  I have only landed on the back wheel twice!

I haven't racked myself at all this year!

Thanks Lucas.