Triathletes and Bike Handling

Published on Friday 16th of June, 2006

In general, triathletes are harassed by roadies for their poor bike handling skills; descending, for example, is one of them. At IMC 2001, I was lucky to be behind a guy who seemed to know what he was doing, and I took that loong descent down from Yellow lake by following what for me was a pretty hairy line.

Looking back, I wonder if that was done with good judgement, that being the end of the last difficult climb and 6+ hours into the race.

The Skillz

When we're talking about bike handling, we can be talking about several different things (this is my own list; I'm sure I'm missing things here):

  • Descending
  • Cornering
  • Climbing
  • Drafting (in a draft legal race)
  • Manoevering in a crowd
  • Eating/drinking on the bike

Knowing how to do each of these skills well will not only help your time on the bike, but also make you a safer rider and allow you to have a safer ride.

Descending

Of all of the skills, it's worth singling out descending, because from a time standpoint, there is potentially a lot to be gained from improved descending skills. Just ask Tom Danielson of the Discovery Cycling team:

What made the difference between Landis and Danielson [in the 2006 tour de Georgia ITT] was the way in which each dropped down into downtown Chattanooga off of Lookout Mountain. "I think I lost the race on the downhill because I could not go as fast as Landis could," Danielson said. "Seriously, in the morning I was training on the descent and I was going as hard as I could but Landis came flying by me like a rocket or like I was standing still! He is the best bike handler in the world -- I knew him back when we were mountain biking and he was great back then too."

Read up on bike handling

The following links are some of the articles that I have been able to track down around the web that cover bike handling. A full, always-updated list will be kept on the bike handling page.

Cycling on Wet Roads
A story and some advice about how to deal with rainy race day risks.
Descending by Dan Empfield
A lengthy look at descending, including diagrams, and a short blurb on how to defeat the high speed death wobble.
Time to practice those handling skills
A little more advanced, this article looks at working your bike in a crowd by practising drills where contact is made with other riders.
Bike Handling Skills for Triathletes by Andy MacDonald
A tip dense article that looks at cornering and climbing techniques.
Bicycle Descending Skills
This article explores descending and cornering while descending, advocating experience, relaxation and technique.

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