Training New Riders

No one should be allowed to join a pace line if they have not first done a square and diamond drill at FCV (see “Squaring and Diamonding” in the Skills drills section).

When the group consists of a large number of new riders, place the new riders between more experienced ones and have the group start off changing every two laps. As people get comfortable, have them switch to changing every lap, then every half lap.

Stand on the infield at the start of turn 1 and teach the less experienced people how to change the lead properly. To begin with, get them to just go up to the blue. Make sure they are signalling and shoulder checking. Also make sure they are not taking too sharp a line up the track. Starting at the beginning of turn 1, newer riders should not rise to the blue before the mid-point between 1 and 2. At sharper angles, they risk losing speed and control. Above all, make sure that they are maintaining 30 km/h while up on the blue. When less experienced people are involved in a roll up, it is best to get the group moving at a higher speed. Inexperienced people will want to slow down to get to the back of the group. If the group is only traveling at 30 km/h, this can have unfortunate consequences.

As people get more comfortable, work on getting them to go up and down in the right places. Riders should ascend from the black to the red a few paces in front of the point where the black line starts to curve around the turn. This skirts the dip that the black line takes as it goes around the turn. They should then rise gradually from the red to the blue over the distance between the point where the red line starts to bend and the blue line midway between turn 1 and 2. While up on the blue, they should attempt to time their descent so that they come down just on the rear wheel of the last rider, but do so on the steep banking through the turns rather than the shallow banking in the straights to take advantage of the greater acceleration provided by the banking. This takes a lot of practice to master and most people do not appreciate that it is an important skill to have (it is what makes changing the lead an opportunity to rest rather than an effort finished off by a sprint to catch the wheel of the last rider). They need to be told that it is what they should be aiming for.

As people get yet more comfortable, work on getting them to go higher. With 4 or more people in a pace line traveling at over 36 km/h, riders should be touching the yellow line midway between turns 1 and 2 and then dropping either dropping down immediately onto the wheel of the 4^th or 5^th rider (as in team pursuit) or doing a half or full lap before dropping back down.

Even riders with a fair amount of experience may not be very good at dropping down right onto a wheel. And even those who are will eventually tire and open a gap in the pace line. Relief riders will commonly drop down into these gaps. The bigger the gap, the more likely it will be filled by a relief rider. This is a good thing. When a gap has been filled, the rider who was struggling to close it has less of a gap to fill. And the rider who closes the gap avoids the job of having to sprint behind the gapped rider to try to close the gap with them as well as the risk of getting dropped with the gapped rider. However, newer riders can find it disconcerting when a relief rider drops down into a gap they are trying to close. For this reason it is good to point out the newer riders to the group before the roll-up starts and ask the others to cut them a bit of slack. But also advise the newer riders that if they leave gaps that are too big, relief riders will drop into them.

Advise newer riders that when a relief rider drops down to fill a gap in front of another rider who is sprinting to close that gap, the second rider should shoulder check and move up the track towards the rider who is dropping down. The shoulder check is necessary because gapped riders may be being passed by stronger riders behind them. Moving up the track is wise because it slows you down (moving up the track is like putting on the breaks). Aim to rider up to the wheel of the rider who is dropping down the track and then drop down the rest of the way behind them. Experienced riders employ this as a race tactic when they don’t want to pull through in a pace line or want to get on a certain person’s wheel. When they are at the back of the pace line and they see a relief rider coming back on the blue, they ride up the track to get on the relief rider’s wheel and then follow the relief rider down the track. Then they do the same for the next relief rider. They try to make themselves invisible to the relief riders so they don’t even know they are there.

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