[Ti Designs]

Really? You think that problems with a group staying in a paceline is an equipment issue? I love this forum...


I've found there are certain things that everybody thinks they do well, but almost nobody can do well without some form of learning process. I've also found that lots of people get insulted when told that they can't do something. Given a new way to insult people, I started taking note of what people can's really do...

There are some things humans are very sensitive to. In sound, pitch is one of them. You can easily tell 88 different notes on the piano. Volume is one of those things your ears adjust to, so any change in volume is only detected relative to the change made. On the bike, power output works the same way. If you're riding along at 200 watts then you decided to bring that down to 150 watts, without a power meter you have no way of knowing what that feels like - your muscles have adapted to 200 watts, anything below that is nothing.

The combination of motors that can't really regulate output and the dynamics of a paceline, not to mention most people's idea of how a paceline works, and you have a disaster. In teaching groups of new riders how to paceline (that's what I do), the first thing to get across is one very simple concept, and one very simple device to make that work. The paceline itself goes at one speed - a speedometer is all you need. To start with, that speed should be lower than the slowest rider can handle. I have my riders pull off to the left and rotate back. If you're on the right side line, doesn't matter if you're the first rider or any other position, the speed is the same. No speeding up, no slowing down, no gaps between riders. The riders pulling off need to slow down to get to the back of the line. It seems pointless at lower speed, but people learn how the paceline works, and if done right, where the lead person pulls off as soon as the last person who pulled off is clear, it becomes a full paceline (where riders are sheltered both on the way up the right side and back down the left side). If you can't make this work at slow speed, you can't make it work.

I have this theory that any four guys in lycra is a bike race, so this keep it slow thing is never going to work. For this problem I have an easy solution - rip their legs off. If a new rider can't help but surge in a paceline full of other new rider, I'll put them in a paceline full of fast guys. The job of the fast guys is to keep the new guy in (they were once new riders, they know the drill), but give them an understanding of what it's like to be the slowest guy in the group. I didn't say weakest, I said slowest, there's a huge difference. The fast guys know to hit the front and rotate off as soon as they're clear. The new guy thinks "I'm at the front, I need to work hard", and he tries to stay up there. They blow up, move over and go shooting out the back. That's where one of the fast guys puts a hand on his back and pushes him back into the paceline. It only takes 2 or 3 times for this to happen before they get what's happening.