Maximize Your Performance with the Racing Line in Cycling
A Guide by Allen Santiago of GAS Coaching
Most of the time, working hard and smart is treated as an either-or case. In cycling, working hard means doing a lot of riding to get faster and acquiring technique along the way. But to be efficient, hard work should be accompanied by smart work. And I will talk about one way to do that so we can push your performance in the right direction.
During races, it is common and normal for athletes to focus on exerting power on the pedal, effort management, and nutrition, among many other things. Many lose sight of reading the course and zeroing in on the corners to determine the optimum racing line for faster cornering. So what is the racing line?
The racing line is the largest possible radius when traveling from your turn-in point, through the corner, and out to your exit point. This is easier to understand by looking at different lines in the diagram below.
Tight Line – This line observes you as you approach the corner on the inside of the track to stay on the inside throughout the whole corner. Because the inside of the bend is a smaller radius, we need to turn tighter to stay on the inside of the track, which also means we have to scrub off a lot of the potential corner speed to stop ourselves from shooting off the other side of the track on the exit.
Wide Line – Things start to get a little faster on a wide line. By staying on the outside of the track throughout the turn, we can now take more speed into the bend because the radius of the turn is somewhat larger than the tight line. This sounds good, but because we’re effectively taking a long way around, the extra speed doesn’t make a massive difference time-wise because we have to travel a greater distance to complete the turn.
The Racing Line – This line through the bend sees a combination of both the previous lines. Starting on the outside of the track, turning in to meet the inside, and then naturally moving back to the outside creates the largest possible radius for the turn, meaning even higher achievable speeds.
The two most common corners in bike courses are the Hairpin or U-turn, and the 90-degree (left or right) turn. Approaching a U-Turn or Hairpin corner would require entering at the outside edge, tapping the brake, touching the “apex,” a point on the inside edge, and then exiting the turn by returning outside for a 90-degree turn.
It would be best to use slalom courses to practice proper cornering. Do it in an open space, like a parking lot. The adage “practice makes perfect” works. Do repetitions of these turns until you get the hang of it. The more you know how to approach the corners of a bike course, the faster your travel time and bike split will be. Do it frequently, and you will get better and better at it. Work hard and smart.
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