Today's subject is team riding: for those of you who race/think you are racing our rides are similar to Road Racing and not Criterium/Time Trial racing. I saw a lot of surging on last week's Populaire. The common mistake is to ride fast for several miles then drop down to recover. Or, to race down the hills and slowly ride up the next hill. That is a very inefficient way of riding.

As I mentioned before these rides are all about energy management. You should be focusing on Average Speed. A 20 mph ave speed will give you a 5 hour century. If you can ride 25 mph down a hill with easy pedaling what is the use of pushing to LT to go 27 or 28 mph? Save your energy for the hills. You will do better in most cases if you ride the slower 25 mph down and then ride 17-18 mph up the next hill rather than pushing hard down hill and dropping to 12-14 mph for the next hill.

I'll admit that I'm guilty of it too. When people race down the hill I get pulled out of my ideal Heart Rate Zone. The question is whether to push to keep up and stay on someone's tire or to let them go and fight the wind by myself. The ideal solution is to stick with my teammate Dan and a few other people.

For the average recreational cyclists you are better off doing team riding. In a paceline you will save 30- 40% of your energy. Team riding is hard. A lot of people abandon a group they are riding well with to go 1-2 mph faster. Have you noticed Lance Armstrong spends most of his time in the paceline? So try some team riding the next time out.

Ride Schedule...

Indoor workouts have come practically to an end. We are still doing our daily core exercises but the evenings have been too nice to sit indoors. If you still want to workout indoors you should focus on stretching and core exercises with breathing (i.e. Pilates).

I'm still seeing a lot of people trying to ride without eating or drinking. Or they bring just plain water. RMCC rides are not beginner fun rides. You need fuel during the ride. The basic rule-of-thumb is one large bottle of sports drink and 1-2 gel shots per hour. Adjust to your specific conditioning from there.

For the newbies we use Cytomax, Sustained Energy, or Perpetuem. There are other sports drinks and you have to find the one that agrees with your stomach and taste buds. GUs can be too sweet so try Hammer Gel, Clif Shots, or some others. For the majority, you should forget about Gatorade. It seems to have too high of an osmotic gradient (makes us pee a lot).

Check out the free papers on the site. I haven't added any more this week.

I am holding a Women's Bike Maintenance clinic for a small group on May 7th. The agreement is that I will charge only $20/person if it is hosted at someone's house so I don't have a room cost. There is a second group forming so let me know if you are interested and I will put you on the list.

Unlike several other clinics this is a hands on exercise. We will review bike parts and how they work in the garage. We will also change the tubes several times. The we will go out for a road ride and change both the front tube and rear tube at random spots. The goal is to help you become more self- sufficient on rides.

Free papers...

Bargain items appear to be going fast now that riding season has started up. The process for using the store is to sign up and create your own profile. If you are an RMCC member I will verify that against our list and set your profile properly. If you are not an RMCC member then you can join online.

I don't have much merchandise on the store because there are lots of other places you can get great deals. But I do add a few items if I think they are of extraordinary value.

First item is Glucosamine. If you have joint aches this might help that. It is one of the few supplements that I think produces noticeable results. This is a liquid rather than the typical tablet you find in the stores. I believe it absorbs better.

Next up, our member Tom Fox, has supplied several models of his Optic Nerve sunglasses to us at a discount. You will not see the discounted price until you log on to the store. If you are an RMCC member then the price is 20% off. These are fabulous glasses for the price. I have two pairs with the prescription inserts. The shading is just right - not too light or dark. I haven't had any fogging problems on cold days. And I asked Tom to recommend models that specifically keep sand out of my eyes that is coming up from the tire in front of me. I have dropped mine several times and they seem to have minimal scratching.

Bargain items...

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