If you haven't already read the Curriculum Week 4-6 .pdf that I sent out Sunday, please do so; it will help make sense out of this week's Goals, and it's indispensable for Saturday's ride.

Our Goals for Week #4 are:

• Ride In A Straight Line
• Keep Pedaling
• A Relaxed, Athletic Position
• Modulating Speed
• Anticipate; Ride Proactively
• Uniform, Consistent Effort
• Smooth, Predictable Behavior
• Short Pulls/No Surging

You’ve no doubt been hearing the word Smooth kicked about by the SIG Leaders every week since the program started, but as it’s one of the foundational aspects of cooperative group riding it deserves a week all its own.

When we say Smooth it almost always goes hand in hand with “gradual”, “incremental”, and any other antonyms (opposites) of “sudden”. We said it last week:  Sudden is anathema to Smooth.

(Actually what we said last week was “surprise is the antithesis of smooth” but allow me a little poetic license, c’mon!)

And the reason we like Smooth/Gradual/Incremental – and abhor Sudden/Surprise – is 1) because it’s safer, and 2) because when you do something suddenly on the bike it becomes very difficult for the riders around you to Predict where you are going. Whereas if you do it Smoothly it’s very easy to follow along. And remember, Ride In A Straight Line is basically a form of Follow The Leader. So you want to make it very easy for other cyclists to follow your line and match your behavior, and the way to do that is to be Predictable and to be Smooth.

Any time you change anything – your speed, your direction, your intent – you should do it Smoothly and Predictably:

• Starting up from a dead stop at a traffic light? Start up Smoothly and Predictably; don’t stomp the pedals and get up to speed instantaneously, because you’ll either gap the group, or you’ll tax their fitness unnecessarily as they race ahead trying to stay with you. (To say nothing of taxing your own fitness!)
• Accelerating from a modest speed to a faster speed? Accelerate Smoothly and Predictably. Accelerate slowly and incrementally so that everyone else in the line can easily match your pace and Predicthow that speed is increasing.
• Slowing down? Slow down Smoothly and Predictably, gradually, incrementally. Sudden stops are worse than sudden accelerations, because while sudden accelerations can wear a cyclist out prematurely, sudden stops can turn a cyclist into road goo prematurely.
• Going through a turn? Turn Smoothly and Predictably…and don’t accelerate out of that turn until everyone in the line has gone through the turn. And only then, accelerate Smoothly and Predictably.
• Pulling the line gracefully around an obstacle? Pull the line Smoothly and Predictably. (Oh yeah, and gracefully, that’s always nice.)

Get the idea? Everything you do on the bike has to be a subtle, barely perceptible change, because for a paceline to be an efficient machine everyone needs to be in sync, locked in a rhythm, sharing a collective consciousness almost…and for that to happen everyone in the line needs to be able to Predict what’s happening. When you ride Smoothly and make all your changes (of speed, of direction, of intent) gradual, incremental, and subtle, it becomes very easy for everyone to Predict what’s happening. The paceline coalesces into a singular organism, a thing of beauty. It’s efficient, it’s graceful, and it’s Smooth.

And oh yeah, by the way: Smooth is Fast. (Remember that; that’ll definitely be on a quiz.)

Short Pulls/No Surging is the first rule of Rotating Pacelines.

The second rule of Rotating Pacelines is “Don’t talk about Fight Club!” (…wait, sorry, that’s not right, nevermind...)

The whole point of a Rotating Paceline is to conserve energy. The longer you stay in the front of the line, the longer you’re taking all the wind, the less time you’re spending shielded from the wind, so the harder you’re working and the less energy you’re conserving.

We don’t want you working too hard because we want you to still be fresh at the end of the ride. When we’re 20 miles from home after 80 miles of riding and it’s time to kick it into high gear and fly to the finish, we don’t want you suddenly discovering that you blew your wad by staying too long on the front, tiring yourself out, that you didn’t conserve energy, and that you’ve now become a liability to the rest of the group.

So take Short Pulls.

This week we’ll start out taking Really Short Pulls: 10 seconds. That’ll probably work its way up to 20-30 second pulls once everyone gets the hang of it. Perhaps by the end of this coming Saturday we’ll be up to ~60 second pulls.

But except for extenuating circumstances – and please do be sure to read the Curriculum Week 4-6 document because that lists some of the circumstances during which you might not want to pull off the front of the line – it’s rare that you’ll ever need to be on the front for more than 30-60 seconds at a time. 30 seconds is a nice Short Pull. Get up there, do your work, pull off and enjoy the fruits of everyone else’s work. If everyone takes Short Pulls the paceline rotates fairly quickly, which contributes to the in-sync, locked-in-a-rhythm thing I alluded to above, plus you get a nice long rest after very little work, which keeps you fresh through the very end of the ride regardless of how long it is.

And No Surging should become your mantra. Do. Not. Surge. Ever.

Surging, in the context of a Rotating Paceline, refers to that temptation to pick the speed up when it’s your turn at the front of the line. When you’re riding second wheel and the rider in front of you pulls off, now you’re the lead rider, you’re pulling the group, and so what do you do?

Show everyone what a bad mofo you are, right? Stomp those pedals just a little bit harder, grit your teeth, zip past that artist-formerly-known-as-the-lead-rider and start hauling ass, right? Right?

Wrong. BZZZT! I’m sorry, thank you for playing, next contestant please.

When you’re riding second wheel and the rider in front pulls off, what do you do? You MAINTAIN.

The goal of a Rotating Paceline is to have the entire line of cyclists maintain a (relatively) consistent speed -- and definitely a Consistent Effort -- even as the riders swap positions. Just because the lead cyclist is a different person every ~30 seconds doesn’t mean anything else should change; you want to maintain that cohesive sense of unity by having nothing else change except who happens to be in front.

There’s a pithy aphorism that we’ve embraced in the A-SIG: You don’t take the lead, you inherit it.

You don’t pass the formerly-lead rider as they pull off; you maintain your position and your speed so that the paceline simply continues. (It’s the responsibility of that formerly-lead rider, the person who just pulled off the front of the line, to get out of the way so that the paceline can continue.) Resist the urge to pass them; resist the urge to work harder than necessary to maintain the speed the line was going before you inherited the lead

…although note, you will have to work just a little bit harder in order to maintain that speed, because you just lost the draft when the lead rider pulled off. This is one of the few times when it’s necessary to notmaintain a Consistent Effort; you’ll need to compensate for the increased wind resistance when you get to the front by increasing your effort slightly. (But do so Smoothly!) A good trick for achieving this is to feel where your cadence is just before the lead rider pulls off, and then maintain that same cadence once you’ve inherited the lead.

See how many times the word “maintain” showed up in the preceding paragraphs? That’s the essence of No Surging. There should be No Surging when you get to the front, just continuing.

And so in summary, we’ve now got:

• Ride In A Straight Line
• Keep Pedaling
• A Relaxed, Athletic Position
• Modulating Speed
• Anticipate; Ride Proactively
• Uniform, Consistent Effort
• Smooth, Predictable Behavior
• Short Pulls/No Surging