A 'Coaches Roundtable' Question in Real-Life
Susan Hefler
Hefler Performance Coaching
Last week's GamJams Coaches' Roundtable question was about what tactics to use when outnumbere by other teams. I wasn't able to participate as I was in Fitchburg, coaching Nathan Wilson (Kelly Benefits Stragegy / LSV Amateur) through the race where he was outnumbered by other teams. His experience there are a real-life example of the Coaches Roundtable question.
My advice to Nathan was this: Do not be afraid to ride hard and push several attacks, just be aware that you must level the playing field. So, make sure that each of your efforts is actually tiring the big team that you are racing against. Do not attack and dangle 10 seconds off the front for 5 minutes. Do attack repeatedly and see if you can draw some other opportunists into your move- then control the move and get the others to ride hard with you. You may also expect some riders from a big team to latch on too, so, make their life hard- don’t just tow them to a sprint. Put them in the wind, on the shoulder, or apply pressure with your efforts. No free rides. Make friends with the other solo racers. They want results too!
At Fitchburg Lonjso, Nathan (Kelly Benefits/ LSV) was racing for G.C. Against EIGHT Riders from Hot Tubes- a very hard tactical situation. Nate followed what I have described above… It was hard, but it works very, very well. Nathan performed incredibly by getting in all the big moves with Hot Tubes, and
rather than just sitting, he pressed the attack whenever possible. He placed Second on G.C, wore the Points leader Jersey, and if there was a red number for “most aggressive rider” he would be wearing it! A Big Shout Out to Steven Kendall (NCVC) who applied some mad pressure to Hot Tubes to help both Nathan and Himself! Awesome.
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Next week, Nathan, Steven Black (NCVC), Ben Salibra (CRCA JR development), and Kevin Gottlieb (Squadra Coppi) will have the power of a full team with them at the UCI Tour of the Red River Gorge in Lexington, Kentucky. We also have a few bullets from Garmin/Holowesko to fire- but that’s our high altitude secret weapon! HPC U23 will be there in force! Stay tuned to GamJams for updates on these excellent Junior riders.
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Great post, Sue ... good luck in the hollers of Red River Gorge -- Jim (not a disinterested fan)
Posted by: Jim W | July 13, 2009 at 06:43 PM