Riding a straight line
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Riding a straight line
Eyes at the far end, fingers on the levers.
1Thirty feet of chalk
Two chalk lines, a foot and a half apart, run away across empty tarmac. Ride in at one end. Halfway down, the front wheel touches the left-hand line.
No traffic and nothing dramatic. A drift of about eight inches over thirty feet, which on a road is the difference between your bit of it and somebody else's.
2The cheapest good drill in the course
The governing body for cycle racing describes it in one line: two rows of markers one to two feet apart, twenty to thirty feet long, and you ride between them. Half tennis balls, chalk, anything that will not hurt a wheel if you hit it.
It is worth asking why something that small gets taught by everybody. A corridor turns wandering into a thing you can see. You either stayed inside it or you did not, and there is no arguing with a chalk line. Nothing else in this section gives you that clean an answer about your own riding.
3What the standard actually asks for
The national cycle training standard puts four criteria next to each other and they are all about the same minute of riding.
Ride along independently for at least a minute.
Pedal steadily, using gears if it has them.
Control my speed.
Cover the brake levers while pedalling.
That last one has a criterion of its own and it is easy to skim past. Covering the levers means your fingers are already resting on them, so the only thing left to do is squeeze. It takes the reaching-for-the-lever part out of every stop you will ever make.
4Where you are looking
The one watching the front wheel is the one who wanders. You go where you look, which is a fact this course is going to use twice more before it is finished.
5Halfway down, you feel yourself drifting.
Pick one.
Yes, and it feels like the wrong answer. You go where you look, so the fix for a drift is to look at where you want to be instead of at the thing going wrong. Steady pedalling helps as well, because a machine with drive going through it sits down better than one coasting.
Both of those make it worse in the same way. Watching the front wheel puts your eyes about three feet ahead, so everything you do arrives late. Coasting takes the drive out and leaves you slower, and slow is the speed where a heavy machine wanders most.
6Slow is the hard part, and there is a reason
A machine is more stable the faster it goes, so the wobbliest parts of every ride you take are the first few feet and the last few. The corridor is deliberately run at the speed where holding a line is hardest, which is why it transfers straight to intersections, lines, and setting off next to a curb.
The racing body’s own coaching note for this is one line and worth stealing: maintain pedal pressure. Keep some drive going through the machine rather than freewheeling and hoping it settles by itself.
7Four runs, one corridor
A chalk corridor seen from above with a rider going down it, and two things you can toggle: eyes at the far end or eyes on the front wheel, and pedalling steadily or coasting. The line the wheel draws stays on screen after each run so you can compare all four attempts.
Do all four combinations. The two that keep you inside the lines are the two the coaching notes tell you to use, and now you have watched why.
8Which of these are part of holding a line?
Pick every one that is right, then press Check.
Find all 4.
Four. Eyes up, fingers ready, and the line comes to you.
Two of those are looking down. Watch the wheel and the wheel goes where you fear.
9Three words for the corridor
Say it out loud before you set off down it
Far end. Fingers on.
Two instructions, and they are the two that get dropped: look where you are going rather than at the machine, and have your fingers already on the levers rather than somewhere near them.
10Before you leave this page
Ride the chalk corridor five clean times.
Chalk two lines about a foot and a half apart and thirty feet long, and ride the corridor five times with somebody watching. They tick a run only if you touched neither line, your fingers were on the levers the whole way, and your head stayed up. Then ride a steady minute around the space without stopping.