At the Aussies, we saw the best under 15's, or at least, the best that came through the state teams.  We saw them ride flying 200's and make poor pacing choices.  Read this article on it that I wrote.

http://youtu.be/gnq_d_FWhNE

At present there's no standard for riders who lob up on Friday nights at the Blackburn DISC sessions I'm running for the club as the senior coach present.  This is a problem, there's a culture of "just show up, you'll be right".  This is NOT acceptable - we've had a number of close calls and some crashes resulting in injury due to this problem. 

I don't whinge about things, I fix them.  Here's a fix.  A set of skills a rider must demonstrate before they come :

Skills required to attend Friday DISC sessions run by Blackburn Cycling Club

• Ride sprinters lane solo at ~30km/h

• Ride blue line solo at ~30-35km/h

• Ride the fence solo at ~35-40km/h

• Competently display 1/4 lap RAC (Rolling acceleration/Powerjump)

• Competently display solo flying 100

• Competently display held start and gate start

• Competently roll turns in a bunch at 30km/h

• Follow motorbike at 50cm distance or closer

• Follow motorbike for motorbike acceleration

• Roll turns behind motorbike

• Roll turns with motorbike

• Change own gears

• Accelerate out of saddle in bends

   

On its own, that's not enough.  Here's a rough syllabus to teach these skills :

Progression for attendance at DISC sessions

Eash session is ~30 mins, small groups – no more than 4 riders per coach, coach to ride with riders as a demonstration, leader, pacesetter etc

Anywhere

• Change gears

• Understand appropriate equipment for DISC – tyre selection, range of gears, warm clothes for winter.

• Recommended tyres for DISC : Vittoria Rubino Pro-lite, Vittoria Rubino Pista

• Expressly not permitted at DISC : Michellin Pro-*-race, Michellin Lithium.

• Default warmup gear 82" (49x16)

At BBN on 82" (49x16) or relevant junior gear if J15 or younger

Session 1

• Ride sprinters lane 30km/h 82" gear (49x16)

• Ride blue line 30km/h

• roll turns in small group

Session 2

• Held start

• Gate start

• 1/4 lap RAC15 (powerjump)

• Accelerate out of saddle in bend

• Flying 100

Session 3 :

• Motorpace 50cm from motorbike

• Roll turns behind motorbike

• MAC

• Roll turns with motorbike

At DISC on 82" (49x16) or relevant junior gear if J15 or younger

Session 1 :

• Ride the sprinters lane at 30km/h

• Ride the blue line at 35km/h

• Roll turns in small group

Session 2 :

• Consolidate rolling turns in small group

• 1/4 lap RAC15

• Accelerate out of saddle in bend

• Ride the fence at 35-40km/h

• Flying 100

Session 3 :

• Motorpace 50cm behind motorbike

• Roll turns behind motorbike

• Roll turns with motorbike

• MAC

Let it be known that I am volunteering to teach this, but NOT AT DISC ON FRIDAYS DURING THE SESSION (6:30-9:30pm).

http://maaml.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/ideas-for-visualisations.html - have a read.  For us, as sprinters, we're not THAT dissimilar to martial artists.  We have skills that we need to master, moves and countermoves that use those skills, and then "tactics" which is essentially the application of the right moves at the right times.  Very similar to martial arts.  I think we can learn a lot from them.

How Anna won in London ....  Vicky's the best chaser in the world.  Anna didn't want to lead her out.  Watch ... I can't embed it here, but you can go to youtube and see exactly what happens

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkmmXSs-ooQ&feature=player_detailpage#t=371s

Last Saturday afternoon (juniors) and evening (J19's and seniors) Brunswick ran the first of their "DISC-O" night Saturday racing.  I'd had a little input into their race format.  As anyone reading this knows, my big beef (apart from actual beef!) is that there's never enough racing for sprinters and we wanted to redress that a little.

The format had some of the usual enduro stuff, but it had abbreviated flying 200's (two lap windup) and lots of baby keirins.  This is a format that I nagged Max Stevens about until he capitulated for the NJTS for this summer, and I can say, it works!  It works really well.  The baby keirins were 3 laps (kids) and 4 laps for the seniors (and we'll make them 4 laps for everyone from now on I think), with the bike swinging off with 1.5 laps to go.   This is a pure sprinters keirin on little gears.  Seniors were restricted to 90". Just about everyone was buzzing about how much fun it was, and how close most of the racing was (and no crashes in any of the sprint events). It was great to see how many of the guys learned and practiced keirin tactics in a low pressure, but very close and intense, format.  Everyone got three keirins in the racing.

I got to have a bit of a look at some of the juniors and see if any showed any spark too, so that was handy.

Tick that one off as a win, a big thanks to the guys at BWK for having the courage to run it, in particular Cam McFarlane and David Morgan who made it entertaining and kept everything moving along well.

I'm going to show you two photos :

  Jae Castles and John Cochrane at the Junior Vics in 2011-2012.

Now look at this one :

Sagen and Greipel at the Tour de France, 2012.

Could Sagan have won?  If his throw was an instinct, if he practiced it every time he crossed a finish line ...