Cycling: A rite of passage on the bike

Every couple of years the readers might recall a progression of the Alta Alpina junior cycling team that is recounted like in this article.

In the recent months there has been a great variety of ages and levels of juniors joining and continuing with the team.

Our ages this year range from 11 years old to 17 years old.  A couple of the alumni have been turning out to help with leading rides and mentoring the younger ones.  It is quite rewarding to see the riders progress from learning not to swerve into traffic to being able to ride in a group and take a drink from a water bottle and maintaining position in the junior "peleton" without endangering others around them.

Usually the progression of abilities and fitness follows the kids as they pass through the Thursday night racing categories from the introductory D category up to the fairly competitive A group.

As the riders gain confidence and skills, they usually start to win races and move up fairly quickly.  Adults might take a year or two to move through a category, but the juniors can usually move up two or more categories in a year.

If a junior is somewhat diligent and in the 14-16 age group, they can move into the A group fairly easily.  I attribute this to a rapidly developing physiology.

There are three things that develop quickly during these years:  motor skills, aerobic capacity and intellect.

Motor skills are extemely important to keep the rider safe and others riding around the rider safe.  Very young kids have trouble riding a straight line and riding smoothly.  I found it a sign of progressing maturity that a rider can isolate the alternating pedaling motion from moving the upper body, primarily the shoulders from swaying and oscillating the handlebars.  A skill that is often taught for new riders, and even experienced riders to polish their skill, is to ride the white shoulder line or just to the right of it.  This is the main reason why the age limit for the junior team is 12 years old.

However we have had riders as young as 9 that can ride with the team and riders as old as 14 that need to develop those motor skills.

It took me a while to figure out that the aerobic capacity needs time to mature and be able to ride a bicycle for longer than a neighborhood ride.  It is quite interesting to see that some juniors develop physically faster than others.  In this way, depending on their physical development, one rider may have a natural aptitude towards cycling or aerobic sports, but simply has not developed.  Many people don't realize that intellect and instinct can be tools in the riders' toolbox for success.

In racing, this is key to having success and good rides, but it is also key to just riding with friends.  Being able to know when to dose out efforts on bikes and when to sit in and relax can be important to keep riders of varying levels together.

Some riders are naturally good climbers and some are better on the flats, which also depends on physiology (thin vs. powerful).  A good flatlander might conserve their energy on the flats and rollers so they can keep up with climbers on the hills.  A climber might lead less apt climbers up the hills so that the flatlanders can help with breaking the wind on the more tame sections of road as far as incline is concerned.  These are the specific skills a racer needs to be successful.

This all leads me to the progression of skills and aptitude of a few of the juniors.  Last Monday was the annual ride up Kingsbury for the junior team.

The team usually rides up to the top in the later part of the season since the riders have the fitness to make the climb and the skill to descend.  About half the time the coach is the strongest of the group andthe other half, a couple of juniors are better...  There is a point in the season where a few of the juniors surpass the coach.

This is met with mixed feelings: as a coach, it is great to see the riders progress, getting stronger and smarter, but as a rider, it is difficult to see riders pull away from you.  As a rider, my fitness, ability and motor skills don't get much better year after year.

As the junior riders ride their meteoric trajectory, inevitably they leave the steady coach behind.

That crossing point happened on Monday. The team started together at the bottom and quickly Trend, one of the younger riders, decide to make his own pace up and ride casually to the top.  There was a group of five - Levi, Trevor, Jeremy, Tanner and I - that rode a pace faster than I would have preferred.  Tanner and Levi had decided to put the pace at a level that hurt us all.  I commented that a great rider from Reno, Inga Thompson, once said "ride the first half of the climb somewhat easier than the second half.  If you feel good at halfway, you can start to ride at a max level, if you ride hard the first half, you run the risk of blowing up and completely cratering on the second half."

Jeremy quickly found the pace too fast and decided to back off and ride up with Jennie, the Alta Alpina newsletter editor, at a more reasonable pace as Tanner and Levi upped the level once again.

Trevor in the mean time was sitting in comfortably while turning over the pedals with ease.  I have seen this pedaling style before in Andrew Pederson (alumni) who was one of the best climbers I have seen on the team.  I knew I was in for trouble.  It was a windy day so drafting even uphill was a significant benefit.  The pace slowed a little so I went to the front and led most of the way up the climb.  As a big rider, I like a nice steady pace, and climbers usually can accelerate and re-accelerate causing damage for the rest of us.  Tanner held on till about 3/4 of the way up before blowing up.  As it turns out, he should have taken my advice on riding the first half easier.

As the three of us: Levi, Trevor and I moved past the 7,000-foot mark, I told Trevor there was about 8 minutes left to the top, since it was his first time up Kingsbury.

He must have taken this as a sign that he needed to drop me.  Trevor went to the front and accelerated.  I tried to stay on his wheel and couldn't so I waived Levi through and Levi took his wheel and the two were gone.

At least I could still see them, but the two quickly put about 45 seconds on me.  They were riding comfortably fast which is good for them and bad for me. 

Young riders usually can climb fairly well since they don't have a lot of muscle mass and are fairly lean.  Both riders were below 150 pounds and I think once was even at 135.

I can likely still drop the two on a flat road, but for me, I am now at the back on the hills. 

Traditionally, the riders must touch the summit sign to make the ascent "official."  Tradition of the junior team also is that any riders that make it to the top of a pass or hill must turn around and descend to meet the last person and encourage them up to the top.  This promotes teamwork and also gets the lead riders more miles.  There is a great sense of team so far so this seems to work well. 

Mel Maalouf is The R-C's cycling columnist and the coach of the Alta Alpina junior team. He can be reached at alpinajr@gmail.com.