It’s cold here in Central Virginia.  Now I know those of you living up north may scoff at our idea of cold, but it was 20 degrees last Saturday morning when we headed out for our ride.  Yes, you read that right, I actually got myself out for a ride well below my usual cutoff of 32 degrees and dry.  And yes, I did come back with all my digits and other body parts neither frozen nor frostbitten (though it was touch and go for a bit there with the toes and nose). In all seriousness,though, I was quite comfortable, especially by the end of the ride when it warmed to a balmy 25, mainly because the ride was mostly on gravel roads.

I love riding on gravel roads for several reasons — lack of traffic, often spectacular scenery?, but most importantly is that you can get a great workout at slower speeds (and therefore less windchill) than on a road bike.  Take today’s 2.5 hour ride — we only averaged 13.3 mph, but the norm power needed to maintain that nearly pedestrian pace was 204 watts, which for me is a strong endurance/ tempo effort.  At the end of the day, I had racked up something like 175 tss and yet I rarely broke 20 mph.

In places the gravel itself contributes to the mismatch between speed and effort.  Especially on a newly graveled section, the rocks can be so deep that it takes added effort just to keep the bike moving forward in a (relatively) straight line. Going downhill on a newly graveled road can be something of an adventure.  I’ve never actually crashed on a gravel descent, but I have gotten both wheels sliding through corners a number of times.  I think of these moments as an added bonus, sharpening up those handling skills.  Do enough gravel descents at speed and those technical corners in next summer’s crits will seem easy by comparison.

Of course, before you can enjoy that wild downhill ride, you need to go up, and here again gravel roads present a great training opportunity.  The hills themselves are often steeper than you find on a paved road, and the loose surface adds an extra element by forcing you often to climb seated on grades you would normally be standing. These efforts, along with the overall higher effort required to ride on gravel even on the flats , really help make a gravel ride an excellent workout.

You can tackle the gravel roads in central VA on a road bike, and I have done some rides on mine, especially when I have on some extra-wide, winter tires such as the Vittoria Open Pro Paves, but I prefer a cross bike for these days, usually with ?a semi-slick fat “city” tire on the back and a cross clincher on the front.   The fatter tires and easier gearing of the cross bike make it ideal for these rides, and the fact that mine is an older, aluminum Redline helps with my peace of mind– I’m not nearly as worried about rocks flying up and pinging the cross bike as I would be on my carbon road machine.

Beyond the appropriate bike and tires, the only other change I would make from a regular road ride is to pack more food and drink.  Some of these roads are pretty isolated. — you’re not going to come across a convenience store on most of these rides. But aside from the refueling issue, gravel roads can be a cyclist’s best friend, especially at this time of year when you need to be getting those long, base building rides in? and the weather makes four hours on a road bike a freezing proposition.

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I‘ve written before about the value of a coach having a coach him or herself (here), but I want to expand on that a bit today by thinking about the advantages (and potential disadvantages) about being able to race with your coach.

Last Tuesday, my coach (Gary Hoffman) and I drove down to the weekly Bryan Park training crit in Richmond, VA.  Since I moved up to the “A” category (Pro, 1,2,3), this has always been a tough race for me.  In fact, for a long time I considered just finishing with the bunch as a strong result.  Because this is a training race, I often race it “stupid” and jump after early breaks, try to bridge up to breaks made, and generally burn my entire matchbook by midway through the race.  This week the goal was simple – don’t get dropped and if at all possible mix it up in the sprint.

To that end, I sat in the entire time, even as the winning break developed right in front of me (that sort of rankled, but if I’d jumped after it, there was no guarantee I would have survived).  I was in the 2nd group on the road on the last lap, sitting 3rd wheel.  A teammate jumped past me on the downhill and someone behind us shouted “go with him”; without thinking, I did.  He did a monster turn on the backside and pulled off and there I was on the front with a little less than half a lap to go.  I took a short pull, pulled off, hoping to jump on a wheel for the sprint, and then as absolutely swamped by the onrushing pack.

From my perspective, I thought I was on the front too early and needed a wheel to follow, but because my coach was in the same race, we were able to dissect the finish and figure out what went wrong for each of us.  In Gary’s case it was pretty straightforward — he miscounted the laps and sprinted with 1 to go.  In my case it was a tactical mistake — what I didn’t realize was that the race was strung out behind us and if I had jumped all out when my team mate pulled off, I would have had a much better shot — I probably wouldn’t have won the bunch sprint, but would have had a respectable finish.

It’s that chance to conduct a post mortem on a race, especially the opportunity to see the race unfold from another perspective that makes racing with a coach valuable, especially one with Gary’s experience.  But even if you don’t have a coach, conducting that kind of post mortem is valuable; just some team mates getting together and talking can provide valuable insight (of course, each rider’s individual goals may make conducting the discussion objectively more difficult).

The ability to be objective is another advantage to racing with your coach, but there are some potential disadvantages.  From the athlete side, you might feel as if you’re under constant scrutiny.  For some that might actually be a benefit — a sort of constant reminder of accountability.  For others it may lead to additional pressure that can compromise performance.  From the coach’s perspective, racing with an athlete requires some juggling of roles or wearing different hats as you’re concerned both with your own success as well as that of your athlete(s).

But as a coach and as a rider, I find the experience quite helpful and that I invariably learn something both when I’m the athlete and when I’m the coach.

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The race started out well — I jumped across to what I thought was a dangerous break (with 2 NCVC guys in it.  NCVC had something like 1/4 the 80 person field), and I was up the road when the crash happened.  I was surprised at the effort it took to get across.  I guess these MABRA races are harder.  We were caught and I was recovering deep in the field when the surprise bell lap happened and was nowhere in position to sprint, so I rolled in.

But it gets better.  When Jake had been taken care of, there was an announcement that we’d restart and that the person who won the sprint  in the previous “race” was awarded only a prime.  We were given 10 laps and sent on our way.  Again, what I thought would be a dangerous break went and I killed it jumping across.  But although we kept a gap for a few laps, there was no real cooperation and once again we were caught.  My biggest mistake was letting myself drift too far back while recovering and not checking the lap card when we went back into the field.  The result was that the bell came as a surprise to me (again), and I was woefully out of position.  I managed to move up a bit, but could only manage 19th out of 80ish.

But I wasn’t too upset — all my thoughts were with young Jake. Here’s hoping he recovers quickly.

The one positive is that my form is coming around; now all I have to do is put the tactical pieces together.