Hillingdon ‘Ladies’ Training Day - Report

[thePinkDreamMachine]

Bridget and I braved the weather last Sunday morning to attend John Leitch’s women’s training day at the rather delightful Hillingdon. Wow, west London really knows how to impress with it’s architecture!

But what an awesome little track and session…we covered the standard bike handling skills through cones, down the hills into sharp bends, hill sprints to the finish, through and offs as well as tactical skills and tricks.

The only problem was we were all too polite.. in a rather Jane Austin / group theory style manner of encouraging each other to go first and clapping when we all achieved something - making a few of our laps very slow.

John was great at gently introducing new things: He began with a group of very nervous girls and within just a few minutes he had us looking like a pro-American cheerleading squad as 8 of us did a full lap in unison, one handed with the other arm on the shoulder of the person to our left. At this point I’d like to point out that, until Sunday, taking your LEFT hand off the handle bars was a really BIG deal …let alone achieving such an acrobatic feat!

We really got into the swing of things when we started the handicap races. The competitive edge came out a little as we started to work together to take down the faster girls putting together little teams and unleashing each other particularly up the final stretch … although we would all apologise for it at the finish line (Please excuse my naive excitement of this but to us girls this was the first time we had been exposed to this sort of riding and team power, I can’t wait to ride with Michelle like this one day).

I really enjoyed the session and it was a real pleasure to ride with such a friendly and courteous group of ladies; particularly after being sneezed on by Mr Tunnel once on the club run and putting up with some of your shocking kit - you moan about my shorts, but at leased I’m held in place and mine don’t have holes in that would get you arrested in the USA!!!! (you know who you are). Needless to say it was rather refreshing to be amongst 12 girlies.

I must have smiled all day and learnt tonnes, surprisingly about my strength as well as my weaknesses. My bike handling, you’ll be pleased to know has greatly improved and I would recommend it to anyone as there were girls there of all shapes and sizes, fitness levels and standards.

I’ll certainly be signing up for the Surrey league next summer

Chloe

[Michelle]

Great I am really pleased you braved the weather and that you enjoyed yourself so much. I did quite a few of these last winter and they were certainly useful.

Though NOT ONCE did we applaud each other

Thank you for the report, it's nice to get another female on the forum. All we have to do now is getting you and Bridget posting more regularly, it needs more than one woman to keep all these ACC boys in line.

[Andrew G]

Glad you both enjoyed it, John is a nice bloke and a good coach.

Some of your "after you" politeness comments made me chuckle. It's not just "girlies" either Chloe, some blokes were like that when I did some training sessions with him a couple of years ago. Quite a few people had never ridden with a group before, and from memory a number of the "girlies" were moving across from triathlon so had never ridden with even one person before and were very nervous in a bunch to start with. You'll soon be elbowing each other out the way .

To me that is one of the big things when you start to race, it is a race and not a faster club run where you all take turns etc. Some early season 4th cat races can be a bit like that too. I remember in my first race (which was always going to stay as a bunch without a breakaway), early on I went to the front to help out on a straight in to the wind because I felt sorry for the bloke flogging his guts out up there . Soon realised what I was doing and moved back in to shelter and just watched whoever was up front suffer without a guilty conscience .

[Mike I]

[quote]The only problem was we were all too polite.. in a rather Jane Austin / group theory style

[Toks]

[quote="thePinkDreamMachine"]I really enjoyed the session and it was a real pleasure to ride with such a friendly and courteous group of ladies;
Chloe

[quote="Toks"][quote="thePinkDreamMachine"]I really enjoyed the session and it was a real pleasure to ride with such a friendly and courteous group of ladies;
Chloe

[Toks]

[quote="-Adam-"][

but yeah, remember once your racing, a race is a race. sounds obvious, but not a lot of people get that.

[quote="thePinkDreamMachine"]The only problem was we were all too polite.. in a rather Jane Austin / group theory style manner of encouraging each other to go first and clapping when we all achieved something - making a few of our laps very slow.

[Andrew G]

[quote="Sean Hogan - 何祥"]I want my mummy

[mrP(Boonen)VT]

[quote]particularly after being sneezed on by Mr Tunnel once on the club run

[Monica]

Hi Chloe and Bridget,
Glad you made it to Hillingdon. It was in my diary for ages but I've been off sick with the flu. I hope to make it to the next session on 7 December. Maybe see you then.

Cheers, Monica

[thePinkDreamMachine]

Hey Monica..

hope your feeling better,

it was great.. but there is a Go ride session on sunday (30th) that will have similar skills by the sound of things, I'm doing it, just let them know if you can come along.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=8122

see you soon,

[quote="Toks"]As the bunch cruised past completley unfazed this guy shouted out "you stupid ff'ing Kunt!"

[mrP(Boonen)VT]

Swearing is something that we are trying to stamp out as it does not do the sport nor the rider any good, and is totally unnecesary.

As a commissaire, if a rider was identified in such a public situation, I would have no hesitation but to disqualify him (or her by the sound of things!!) and raise a disciplinary issue with BC Board.

DON'T DO IT.

So says the Guru.

[Nicolas]

Thanks Chloe for sharing the story, and congrats to both of you for attending the session, sounds like it was a great day on this ugly Hillingdon circuit!

The content of the training session seems awesome as well, so many things that are hard to learn on one's own! Do you know if John does something similar for us blokes this winter? Would be nice to use winter to learn some techniques, and my own crappy riding skills would certainly greatly benefit from it, before I show up at any sort of race and prove Tony's comment about "anarchistic" riders right

I'll try to do Sunday's GoRide as well but the weather seems really awful this weekend!