Road | 3 Skills Every Rider Should Know
These three essential skills will help you ride better.
Regardless of fitness levels, riding experience or where you ride – you’ll benefit immensely from practicing smart eyework, knowing how to look behind you and being able to take one hand off of the bars.
Eyework
Smart eyework will help you ride more efficiently and safer. What you want to be doing is looking far enough ahead and reading the terrain to plan for things like corners, gradient changes and other traffic users. You’ll also need to look a little closer to where you are, to avoid hitting things like pot holes, stones or drains. You should constantly be alternating between looking far ahead, and closer to where you are. Scanning the terrain.
Looking behind
Looking behind you is also key to keeping an eye on traffic or in a race, your competitors. The key here is to turn your neck to look backwards and not your shoulders. If you turn your shoulders, you’ll end up turning the bars and drifitng into the middle of the road.
Taking a hand off the bars
Taking a hand off the bars allows you to drink, feed or snap Instagram bangers, without stopping. It’s a little easier with your hands on the hoods or tops. What you want to do is tighten your core to stabilize yourself, have a firm grip on the bars, then lean down for a bottle, or reach back into your pocket to feed. Focus on holding your line so you don’t drift about endangering yourself or others. It also helps to shift a little more weight onto your saddle when doing this, or to freewheel, drop one pedal and shift weight onto that lower pedal. This is something you want to practice at home, in the passageway or in a car park, before attempting it on the road.//