seth davidson bike injury attorney | Cycling in the South Bay

To cast or not to cast?

September 25, 2017 § 45 Comments

One of the best things about writing a mostly-regular blog is that it keeps you in shape. One of the worst things about writing a mostly-regular blog is that it looms over you each day until it’s finished, like a giant safe suspended over your genitals, ready to be dropped should you fail to bang out the requisite half-baked thought or meaningless musing.

Of course as a friend pointed out, “You don’t have to do it,” but that’s mostly like telling a drunk “You don’t have to take another drink,” when it is very much in the nature of being a drunk that yes, in fact, you do, else you will no longer be one.

A while back a different friend called and suggested I do a podcast. I was dismissive. “Where the fuck am I going to get the time for that?” [Side note: It’s weird that friends don’t call me up very often.]

Anyway, my eldest son started a most excellent podcast dedicated to Magic the Gathering in Austria, and it warmed the cockles of my heart to see that my offspring had decided to focus on a microcosm within a niche within a microfissure that was, if anything, potentially more narrowly focused than delusional profamateur avid recreational cycling in the South Bay of Los Angeles.

“Have you ever thought of doing a podcast?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, but didn’t add the “Where the fuck am I going to get the time for that?”

I listened to his podcast and liked it and thought I would give it a try. “It can’t be any harder than blogging,” I thought, “and it can’t be any less interesting.”

Now I’ve completed my third Low Fidelity Podcast and can say that podcasting isn’t any harder than blogging, but it isn’t any easier, and it sure takes a lot more equipment. You also don’t get any do-overs unless you have that thing called “time,” and those things called “editing skills” and that thing called “patience.”

Several people politely said they like the first two Low Fidelity Podcasts, and several people politely said they didn’t, but since only a couple of them were actual $2.99 subscribers, I took it all with a rather large grain of IDGAF. Going forward, I’ll try to do a little of both paying great attention to those who pay and studiously ignoring the deadbeats. The variety of talk/write is easier on my brain, and switching from broadcasting to blogging and back again takes my eye off the dangling safe, if ever so slightly.

So here’s Low Fidelity Podcast #3: World champions? (Please don’t pay attention to my stomach gurgling noises, thank you.)

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For $2.99 per month you can subscribe to this blogcast, or podblog, and get none of the news that’s fit to print but all the news that’s fun to read. Click here and select the “subscribe” link in the upper right-hand corner. Thank you!

PS: Don’t forget the Wanky’s. As if you could. And I may have forgotten to mention that there is free food and beer for the first 300 guests, so get there early.

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Low fidelity Podcast #2: Pumping

September 23, 2017 § 9 Comments

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away … bike pumping! Click on the above link to listen. Extra special high quality equipment and boss recording techniques approved by sound technicians used in the recording, editing, and post-production of this broadcast.

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For $2.99 per month you can subscribe to this blog and get none of the news that’s fit to print but all the news that’s fun to read. Click here and select the “subscribe” link in the upper right-hand corner. Thank you!

PS: Don’t forget the Wanky’s. As if you could. And I may have forgotten to mention that there is free food and beer for the first 300 guests, so get there early.

south_bay_cycling_awards_poster_2017_final

Low fidelity Podcast #1: NPR!

September 22, 2017 § 67 Comments

Click the bar above and listen to the podcast.

You can click the link in this sentence and see video of the September 19, 2017 NPR crash.

Podcast recorded from the comfort of my bed, spoken into my iPhone.

END

One foot in the grave

September 20, 2017 § 45 Comments

After finishing that very long bicycle ride back on September 9, all 243 miles of it, I have been very tired and very hungry. At least one of my co-conspirators has also felt like, how shall we say it, shit?

Falling asleep at weird times, eating compulsively, general mental and physical malaise … it’s obviously going to take my fragile old skeleton a while to get back to its normally fragile old state. This has caused me to reflect about the toll that this kind of effort takes in a big picture way, not in a “When will I feel good enough to hammer the Donut?” way.

There is a lot of sciencey evidence that says long-interval endurance sports aren’t particularly good for a whole particular bunch of people. Basically, your heart has a finite number of beats. How do you want to spend them? Because riding your bike hard for long distances will get you less mileage out of your heart, not more.

One friend has answered that clearly. She went from suited-up, middle-aged hammerhead to helmetless, floppy shorts-and-flipflops on a beach cruiser. She still gets in 100 miles or so a week, looks great, goes super slow, knows everyone on the beach path, and doesn’t get any closer to a Fartlek than I do to cigar bar.

If you think that lots of hard exercise is good for you, and you believe in science, you have a problem. A study recently came out that says triathletes’ hearts stop a lot more often than other people’s, to the tune of about 1.74 times per 100,000. If you’re over age 60 and for some incredible reason still trying to do three sports badly, your risk skyrockets to 18 per 100,000.

That is crazily out of whack with ordinary Americans, who are the world’s fattest, least active, least healthy people on the planet. In other words, if you’re a couch-sitting, Cheez-it scarfing, beer-swilling slug, there are about .5 heart attacks per 100,000 people. If you sell the couch, swear off the beer, burn the Cheez-its, cancel your 24/7 NFL subscription and start your fake middle-aged-wanker bikeracerunswimming career, your chance of having a heart attack skyrockets to 1.74 per 100,000. If you are in the leaky prostate division, it’s 36 times higher.

[*Note to people who don’t believe in global warming: Since all of the above is based on science and numbers, the same things that drive your Strava account and Garmin, you can ignore it. Please pedal harder for longer.]

It’s easy to understand why all this activity is bad for you. Your heart is a muscle and it wears out. It’s also easy to understand why this would be the same for other activities that require your heart to be more or less pinned for hours at a time, like my ride to Santa Barbara. The effect of extended exertion on the heart has been well documented in an article by Leonard Zinn, published a couple of years ago in VeloSnooze.

We all have sat up after a particularly nasty effort and laughed, nervously, while we said to ourselves or out loud, “This can’t be good for you.”

Well, it’s not.

To which I say, so what? Or better yet, to which I say, listen to this song and get back to me.

END

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PS: Don’t forget the Wanky’s. As if you could. And I may have forgotten to mention that there is free food and beer for the first 300 guests, so get there early.

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Don’t get hit and then what?

September 15, 2017 § 24 Comments

There are a lot of dark stories in the world today about the cager v. biker wars. And they are wars. The bikers get killed and maimed and the cagers get a speeding ticket. The bikers put in an imaginary magic protection road stripe and the cagers rip it out. The bikers say “You’re killing us!” and the cagers say “Exactly!” Cf. Jennifer King and the troll triumvirate of Garrett Uno, Cynthia “the Beast” Uno, Robert Lewis Chapman, Jr., and the unbearable heaviness of cager hate and stunted lives of those who wage it.

Maybe I will get around to expanding on this article by Peter Flax, but I doubt it. How do you expand on the universe? Read it and bleed.

However, on September 21 from 6:30 PM to 9:30 PM at Performance Bicycle in Long Beach, I will be expanding on my own tiny little universe of how not to get killed while riding your bike. If you’re in the neighborhood I hope you can make it.

Performance Bicycle, Long Beach

Cycling Savvy, led by Big Orange’s own Gary Cziko, has been instrumental in the last two years teaching people the very best in Bee Gees riding techniques, i.e. “Stayin’ Alive.” Gary’s techniques work. There are two parts of the Cycling Savvy curriculum, however, that are either ignored or lightly addressed, kind of like not enough vinaigrette on a mountain of salad, and I’m going to talk about them at the event in Long Beach.

What to do if you’re a victim or witness to a bike-car collision.
How to protect yourself and your family if you or they get hit while cycling.
How not to get hit through insane use of over-the-top lighting, day and night.

Performance is supporting the seminar with some killer deals on, guess what, lighting. There will also be covfefe to keep you awake. However, I can promise that you won’t need it, or you’ll get your money back at this free event.

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PS: Don’t forget the Wanky’s. As if you could.

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Sugar blues

September 12, 2017 § 28 Comments

I once had the prettiest girlfriend named Kerry. She had red hair, she was Irish, and she was from the County of Kerry. She was also a ranked tennis player and a really good triathlete. I don’t know what she saw in me and eventually she didn’t either.

One evening I noticed a book next to her bed called “Sugar Blues.” Maybe the fact that I was in her bedroom and checking out her books was part of what was ultimately missing. It was such a good title though that I couldn’t help opening it up. Maybe the fact that I was in her bedroom at night and reading her books was the other part of what ultimately was missing.

The book was all about how sugar was the reason for the downfall of every civilization since the beginning of time, and ours was next. It was a wacky book but attention grabbing. “Hey, look at this!” I excitedly told her as I browsed through the part about Babylon. I still remember her sitting on the edge of the bed in a negligee not looking especially excited about me being especially excited about the role of sugar in ancient Babylon.

“Oh,” I thought, and threw down the book. But it was too late.

I did later buy a copy of the book and read it. It was nutty except for its premise, that refined sugar isn’t very good for you. I tried to quit eating sugar for a few days but, uh, no fuggin’ way.

A couple of months ago a good friend of mine got Keto religion. The Keto diet is like the Paleo diet except even less fun, which is like being depilated with an electric iron, except less fun.

Every time I would check in on my friend, she would report on her Keto diet. Leaving aside the fact that she looked fantastic, the diet had been good for her. Blood sugar had dropped from pre-diabetic to normal, etc. So I was glad for her but also insanely jealous, mostly because I knew there was no way in hell I could ever do a Keto diet. My last foray into weight mismanagement had been several years ago with the infamous kimchi diet, self developed in the laboratory of Seth Davidson, Bicycle Injury Lawyer, and it resulted in significant weight loss accompanied by world class flatulence, notable even for a blogger and bike racer.

So I knew the Keto diet wouldn’t work for me, not only because I’m a Capricorn but also because, at 153 pounds and 5’11”, I’m already what the World Health Organization calls “malnourished.” Yes, we may ideate Jeff Konsmo’s 132 pounds of bone, translucent skin, and subcutaneously visible gristle, but recent data suggest that even he won’t be racing the Tour this year, so, no Keto diet for you, old feller.

But, but, but …

I did like the idea of no refined sugar and I am a touch competitive and what if?

So a couple of months ago I quit eating sweets. And if a thing obviously had sugar added to it, I quit eating that, too. And I haven’t missed any of it. In fact, when I dug into my wife’s blueberry cobbler on Sunday after the Big Day ride, I was done after one small piece. She uses very little sugar, but it was so cloyingly sweet I could barely choke it down. Here’s what I’ve found after this little experiment:

Your sense of taste gets much more acute, just like when you cover your eyes for a few minutes and your hearing immediately sharpens. I think sugar overwhelms all other taste perceptions, and once it’s gone, you actually start to taste more.
Naturally sweet things are sweet beyond belief. Bananas now are almost too sweet to eat. Half a banana sweetens an entire bowl of oatmeal, and I do mean “sweetens.”
No weight loss. Sorry.
I had my one and only physical about 30 years ago, so no idea what effect it’s had on my blood sugar, but I’m guessing it’s less sugary.
No more sugar spikes followed by sugar crashes.
On our Big Day on Saturday, I took a few squares of bread and unsweetened peanut butter. It did just fine. When I finally ran out of gas at Cross Creek, 30 miles from home, I drank a small bottle of whole milk and washed it down with a can of Starbucks espresso. Yes, it had sugar, and yes, I got a quick spike, but the fat in the whole milk is what got me the rest of the way home. Plus I was fuggin’ desperate and Surfer Dan was actually eating a foot-long Subway.
You realize that everything is flavored with sugar.
I enjoy the taste of things that were previously inedible without sweetening, and it reminds me of when I was in Iriomote-jima, where the only vegetables available were tropical vegetables. Tropical vegetables are to vegetables what British cuisine is to cuisine. At the time I couldn’t believe how bad everything tasted. But now I realize that all of those strange things simply had their own taste and if you didn’t spend a lifetime salting and sweetening everything, you’d probably learn to like it. Especially if you were hungry.
Diminished hunger.

There you have it.

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PS: Don’t forget the Wanky’s. As if you could.

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The skinny

September 5, 2017 § 25 Comments

Back in April I was reading Steve Tilford’s blog and came across one of his musings on air conditioning/heating and whether or not it caused weight gain. He thought that being hot and sweating burned more calories than sitting under the AC.

It makes sense. So I thought about it as a general proposition. Maybe the solution to trying to stay warm when it’s cold out, or trying to stay cool when it’s hot out, starts with foregoing as much clothing as possible and letting your body do the regulating.

I chucked my hoodies and knit caps and started going around in a t-shirt full time. Of course in Southern California that’s no great feat, since the weather here is pretty much perfect year-round. But if it’s so perfect, why do so many people wear so much warm clothing in the winter? And why do they wilt any time it gets over 90 degrees?

The obvious answer is that no matter how balmy the weather, when you depend on clothing and climate control to make things perfect, anything less than perfect sends you scurrying for a jacket or howling for an air conditioner.

My experiment is about four months in, and I can assure you that it hasn’t caused any weight loss. But what I have noticed, especially during my recent jaunt to Las Vegas, is that my body quickly, almost instantaneously, adjusts to the ambient air temperature. I could go from the frigid casino to the outdoor inferno and acclimate right away. I could re-enter the air-conditioned environs and within a minute or two be sufficiently warm to not even think about putting on a jacket.

The only time during my three days in Vegas that I had to wear a dress shirt and sport coat, I was unbearably hot. I’m not claiming that I could easily walk around in the extreme Vegas heat, either. One day I spent about thirty minutes on the Strip mid-day, and I took a pounding. No natural acclimation in the world will accommodate 110 degrees.

But upon returning to the South Bay in the midst of a horrible heat wave that saw (gasp!) temperatures in the high 90’s, I had no problems at all. It was hot but far from unbearable, or even miserable.

We’ll see how this fares when we hit the frigid winter temps that will certainly dive down into the low 60’s or even high 50’s; brutal stuff. In any event, I’ll save on winter clothes.

END

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PS: Don’t forget the Wanky’s. As if you could.

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7 reasons I love Kayle LeoGrande

August 30, 2017 § 30 Comments

When USADA issued the official death certificate for the profamateur racing career of Kayle LeoGrande, it listed the seven banned substances found in his pee-pee. They were: Raloxifene, ostarine, ibutamoren, GW1516 sulfone, RAD140, LGD4033, and andarine.

The news came down about the same time I was lying in bed wondering how I would ever win my first Telo World Fake Profamateur Training Crit Championship. I had a host of fourths, a couple of thirds, but victory proved elusive, even with Frexit out of the picture.

It was 3:00 AM. The phone rang. “Hello?”

“Hello,” said a heavily accented voice, which I instantly recognized as Stanley O’Grande, the infamous doping Chihuahua. “You wanna win the Telo?” he said.

“Yeah,” I admitted quietly. “I do.”

“It’s gonna cost you.”

“I’ll pay anything.”

“You test positive I don’t know you, okay?”

“Anything.”

“All right,” he growled. “Get ready for the dark side.”

An hour later I was in a dark alley behind the PVE faux estate of palm frond manager Robert Lewis McButtchaps, Jr. It was silent except for the babysitting service which had come over to McButtchaps’s home to burp him and change his didy. I spied Stanley O’Grande next to a bush.

“You got the stuff?” I asked.

“Here,” he said gruffly, thrusting out his paw. I took the large plastic sack, tucked it under my arm and dashed away.

The next day was Telo. Before rolling up to the start I opened the plastic bag. Inside was the miracle tunic! One of Kayle LeoGrande’s old jerseys! I quickly shucked off my Team Lizard Collectors kit and squirmed into Kayle’s jersey, which was strangely damp.

At the bottom of the sack was a note, written by Stan: “This is the only miracle tunic left from the batch we custom fitted Kayle with. Straight from Shanghai. Zip that baby up and let the ointments in the fabric do their thing. Chapeau. Or sombrero, as we Chihuahuans say.”

As the form fitting garment clung to my skin I could feel the magical elixirs begin to soak in. In seconds I went from meek, compliant, fearful Wanky McWankster to Kayle Jr., a/k/a Cabbage. As the chemicals from the soaked jersey coursed through my veins, I knew it was indeed my day to win Telo.

Destroyer sidled up to me. “We’re on the same team now,” he said. “Me and Smasher will get you the win today. With that tunic, everything is possible.”

“Even for me? I thought you can’t turn a donkey into a racehorse, even with drugs.”

“A donkey, no. But a Wanky? Maybe!”

The race was off. Destroyer, Buckwheat, and G3 rolled and opened a massive gap. I sat easily on Smasher’s wheel, knowing that my new teammate would do anything to help me win. Eventually the break disappeared, but I never worried. Why?

Because the 1st reason to love Kayle was taking effect, i.e. Mr. Raloxifene. It immediately began selectively blocking estrogen uptake receptors, resulting in immediate flows of extra testosterone that would have otherwise been converted to estrogen. My legs were pistons of steel.

Once the break was reeled in, a series of counter-attacks took place. In kicked Reason to Love Kayle #2, Mr. Ostarine. I easily went with the counter as my ostarine, which research has shown to have fewer androgenic properties, exerted less influence on the development and balance of my male hormones, including testosterone. While not yet approved for human use, ostarine did away with the negative side effects of steroids and effectively helped me avoid muscle wasting diseases such as osteoporosis, cancer, and hypogonadism. The peloton had greatly thinned. Thanks, Mr. Ostarine!

Now we were halfway through the race and there were a flurry of unsuccessful attacks. It was my time to launch, and thankfully I had Mr. Ibutamorin at my disposal. Reason #3!!! This non-peptidic, potent, long-acting, orally-active, and selective agonist of the ghrelin receptor and a growth hormone secretagogue, mimicked the growth hormone (GH)-stimulating action of the endogenous hormone ghrelin. By sustaining activation of GH-IGF-1 Axis and increase in lean body mass but no change in total fat mass or visceral fat, it allowed me to attack so hard that none could follow.

Soon I was brought back and would have been decimated were it not for Reason to Love Kayle #4, GW1516 sulfone, or Endurabol. This PPARδ receptor agonist, although abandoned in 2007 because animal testing showed that the drug caused cancer in several organs, brought my dead legs back to life much as the 2007 research showing that high doses of GW501516 given to mice dramatically improved their physical performance. Endurabol might cause cancer in lab rats, but Kayle and I were no lab rats, we were sewer rats, and I hung tough.

Catching my breath I attacked and bridged up to Hector Morales thanks to Reasons to Love Kayle Nos. 4-6, i.e., RAD140, LGD4033, and andarine. These three SARMs kept my testosterone hugely massive, better than Obama’s, and the break stuck for twenty minutes. Unfortunately, the race had twenty-one minutes left.

Buckwheat, Smasher, Destroyer, Rudy, and others hunted us down despite my best doped efforts, but proving that drugs are stronger than pan y agua, I miraculously outsprinted everyone but Buckwheat for second place with the help of a massive leadout by Destroyer.

Was it worth it? How did I feel about cheating my friends? What about my incipient ovarian cancer? Would I feel like an idiot when USADA put me on its Most Wanted list?And most importantly, could I keep the miracle tunic?

I don’t know the answers to those things. But I know I’ve learned to love Kayle.

END

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PS: Don’t forget the Wanky’s. As if you could.

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Just a fun ride

August 28, 2017 § 30 Comments

Have you ever wanted to do a gravel grinder? Have you ever wanted to know what one is? I did my first one on Saturday and it was different from what I expected. This ride was called the Chatsworth Chain Crusher and it was sponsored by Velofix, the mobile bicycle fixer-uppers. I should have known that anything with the word “crusher” in the title was going to be difficult, but it wasn’t difficult, it was brutal.

“How much dirt is there on this thing?” I asked before we started, sipping on a exceptional cup of covfefe brewed up by Matt Michaels of Gear Grinderz.

“About thirty percent,” said a fellow, thus teaching me a very important lesson about gravel grinders, which is that if you haven’t read, memorized, and Strava-checked the route you are going to be fucked, because when he said “thirty percent” he meant “eighty percent.”

“Everyone here looks pretty hard core for a fun ride,” I commented to another gentleman.

“Nah, it’s just a fun ride,” he said.

“Who is that fellow in the Giant kit riding the Giant bike who appears to be sponsored by Giant?”

“Him? That’s Ryan Steers.”

“The pro?”

“Yeah.”

“Ah, yes. Just a fun ride. Of course.”

The “just a fun ride” split up immediately as the just fun riders pedaled at a very just fun pace that smashed everyone into just fun pulverized bits. After some endless fun climbing we hit some nasty just fun dirt and then I was by myself because even though I am terrible in dirt I can go uphill pretty good and since it was just a fun ride why not murder myself?

On the descent all of the just fun riders I’d dropped came whipping by and I learned something else about off-road riding: Climbing has two parts, an uphill and a downhill, and unlike road riding, they are equally hard. It doesn’t matter how fast you go up if you are a granny with a hip replacement going down.

I rode along on some just fun single track for a long time, hoping that one day I would find the gravel grinder on wide fire roads that was just a fun ride, but instead all I found were technical, twisty, nasty roads whose every inch spelled potential calamity. After a while I encountered my friends Bjorn, Lauren, and Mathieu, who were walking. Bjorn’s right arm was hanging lifelessly at his side while Lauren and Mathieu pushed his bike. We were a thousand miles from anywhere.

vf59

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I took a header and did something to my shoulder,” said Bjorn.

Another cyclist rode up. “Hey Seth, can you help me pop his arm back into the joint? I’ve seen people do it on TV.”

“Sure,” I said. “What could possibly go wrong? A couple of men pulling hard on a dislocated arm out in a dirt field. You know how to do this? You’ve seen it on TV, right?”

Bjorn shook his head. “I’ll wait for a doctor.”

Since he was in good hands I continued on. My rear disc brake was rubbing, which was annoying until I popped out of the endlessly fun dirt section to find a Velofix van waiting with food and a mechanic.

Jim popped my bike on the stand and fixed the brake while his wife Hilda proffered the world’s finest p.b. and banana sammich quarters, which I scarfed. I got back on my bike and got lost, returned to the van, but everyone had taken off. Jim pointed me onto the trail, which went up a midget Mt. Everest. I could see the riders far away clinging to its side in a cloud of dust like fleas on a white dog’s belly.

I rode just for fun until my guts spilled out my mouth, caught the other fun riders who were having so much fun they were pinned and gasping, passed them, got passed on the short downhill, then passed them all again, just for fun of course. After a long time I was having so much fun that there were only two riders still with me. They dropped me before the next-to-last sag stop. Then I had some more p.b. and rode on by myself, luckily missing the turn to the Millenium trail, which everyone said was the worst and hardest trail of the day.

I got lost some more and ended up doing an entire just fun section of dirt again before finally reaching the finish. I drank a lot of water and ate some delicious, fiery hot tacos that got my bowels quaking in a flash. As people arrived in bits and dribs and tatters and drabs, they all looked as horrible as I felt, but after a few minutes sipping fresh beer from the tap of Hand Brewed Beer, they started to come around.

Now that I’ve done a gravel grinder just for fun, below is a handy guide to this new and exciting type of fun bike ride.

Q: What is a gravel grinder?
A: It is endless pain smothered in dirt and perhaps blood.

Q: Do you need a special bike for a gravel grinder?
A: Yes. And a special brain (to disregard terror such as falling off cliff sides).

Q: When they say it is “just a fun ride” what does that mean?
A: It will be a just fun before the start and after the finish, but in between it will be a full-on race.

Q: I heard that gravel grinders are done on fire roads, which are unpaved, wide, not technical, and fun.
A: Yes, except the fire roads are disguised as single track that plunges down impossible lines with infinite chances to have a bicycle falling off incident.

Q: I heard that you don’t need a mountain bike or MTB skills to do a gravel grinder. Is this true?
A: No.

Q: The idea of a chill bike ride with coffee, sag, tacos, and beer sounds great. Isn’t that what gravel grinders are all about?
A: Yes. But in between the coffee and the beer is about five hours of hell.

Q: How does a gravel grinder compare to a ‘cross race?
A: Harder. Longer. More technical. Instead of crashing and limping 200 yards to your team tent you will crash and hike five miles cross country with a broken femur.

Q: Will gravel grinding help my bike handling skills?
A: Yes, if you ride in war zones.

Q: Would you ever do another one?
A. Never again until September.

END

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PS: Don’t forget the Wanky’s. As if you could.

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Train ’em up

August 26, 2017 § 11 Comments

Last Sunday we were fortunate to have Brian McCulloch and Joy Duerksen-McCulloch come to the South Bay and put on a riding clinic. Brian just finished the Tour of Utah and earlier in the year raced the Tour of Taiwan. Joy is a long-time pro racer on the SoCal and national circuit. They run Big Wheel Coaching in Redlands, and are absolute professionals in the realm of coaching and teaching.

The clinic was in two phases. First we practiced various techniques for riding in a paceline. Later we simulated bike-to-bike contact on a grass surface at a local park. The clinics were geared to beginning-intermediate level road riders, but there was excellent instruction and practice that proved useful no matter what your riding level. The bumping and rear-wheel contact exercises created numerous breakthroughs for almost every participant.

Does your club offer training clinics? I belong to Big Orange Cycling, and in addition to the Cycling Savvy classes that we offer free of charge to members throughout the year, we also offer skills clinics that focus on various aspects of riding. We draw on the expertise of our members and we also hire private coaching for these clinics. The next clinic will feature Methods to Winning on September 30, a racing clinic put on by Rahsaan Bahati and Charon Smith.

If your club doesn’t offer ongoing education and skills training, please consider doing so. It helps new members get comfortable with the rules of road riding, improves intra-club communication, attracts new members when the clinics are open to the public as ours are, and it is perfectly in line with the mandates of most 501(c)3 organizations. Most crucially, it educates riders about how to become safer riders.