under construction

Standing Starts

Last year it seemed that many people at the student track were losing loads of time on their starts just through incorrect technique. I'm not claiming I do it perfectly but this is how I was told to do it by the real experts...

I've started out on my left foot. Here at the most powerful point of the stroke pull and push for all it's worth. And get some decent pedals that you can't pull out of. SPD-R's are beautiful.	To keep pushing down and pulling up perpendicular to the crank arm, it helps to move forward as you go through the stroke, which also helps bring some arm strength into play to get you going. Note my right foot is tilted up as my leg pulls up.	The end of the power phase of the stroke - you should be right over the handlebars (the WCPP guys get more over the bars than I am here), note my right foot is tilted right up as my leg pulls across the top of the stroke. The preferred technique here is to keep your arms locked straight rather than bent as I am doing.

The dead spot. When you're doing about 10rpm it's very hard to pull across the dead spot to make a nice circular pedal motion. Instead you need to get back into a good position to start the next pedal stroke. At this point my bum is going backwards real quick and I'm throwing the bike forward underneath me to achieve the position in the next figure...	Start of the next powerful phase. I've thrown the bike right underneath me really fast (there's about 0.25s between shots) and dropped my right foot right down to push down hard on the pedal. My arms are straight ready to pull my body back down again as I make the next half-pedal stroke.	Power phase again - my body starts to come forward again.

End of power phase - note my right foot is already tilting up (pointing down, whatever) to try and keep pressing at right angles to the pedal crank rather than just vertically down.	And sprint off into the distance . . . !	Remember to keep mullering it round the banking too! Oh that's not me in the photo is it...?