Anatomy of a Photo: Cornering on Cobbles

The look says it all. Keep it clenched, sir.

A lot of things taken for granted in Cycling go swiftly out the window when cobblestones are introduced to bicycle and rider. The notion that your wheels should both be pointed in the same direction at any given moment, for instance, or that that they should in some way be in alignment with the direction of travel of the rider/bicycle unit, such as it is. Not true, in fact. As it turns out, wheels can move wildly in any maner of directions and not greatly impact forward motion. Another misconception is this notion that one needs to have their handlebars reliably in hand while whisking through a corner or that the direction the handlebars are pointing should be in the direction of travel. Also untrue.

Riding cobbles is a matter of going full gas over the secteurs, no holds barred. The faster you go, the more your bike cascades over the tops of the stones; as the bike flails along, the rider links together recovery after recovery to stave off the imminent crash caused by any of the above conditions going catawampus. Riding the pavé is basically like a toddler learning to walk: always one step away from a face-plant.

For me, though, the biggest challenge is recuperation during those intense efforts. Over the years, I have gotten good at faking it and stealing a few deep breaths during short windows of opportunity, like when the pressure comes off the pedals briefly when cornering. On the cobbles, however, this matter is complicated somewhat by the bouncing wheels, jackhammering of the bars and saddle, and the certainty of an imminent crash.

Which leads me to conclude that while endurance, strength, and interval training will all form critical elements of my training for Keepers Tour 2013, I’m going to also make a point of learning how to take recovery breaths with a tightly clenched bunghole as I try to keep from shitting myself. That’s going to be a differentiator for sure.

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72 Replies to “Anatomy of a Photo: Cornering on Cobbles”

  1. @mxlmax When you pedal it’s inevitable that a crank gets *stuck* at the bottom every half-pedal revolution. I agree that it looks more likely he’s coasting than pedaling but we don’t know, which was my point.

  2. Did some offroad driving yesterday. Yes, driving. I know. That aside, similarly to riding the cobbles, after I finished driving this part of the course I said the same thing I did when I came off the first section of cobbles: “Oh, it can handle that. I don’t need to worry about all that other crap I do with this thing.”

     
  3. @Buck Rogers

    @Dan_R

    @scaler911 i had an opportunity to practice some of those turns with a coach last year…really opened my eyes to what can be done to maintain speed in a turn

    That’s the thing: I never rode a single cobble until the day of the cyclosportif and I wonder if I had tried to maintain a little more speed in the corners if it would of helped? Probably not. Most likely just would have crashed really hard!

    We have 100 year old cobbles in Seattle and had them in St. Paul where I grew up. I thought I knew what cobbles were.

    Not so much.

    The issue with cornering on cobbles as well is that you can’t stop pedaling because you pretty much come to a stop after 2 seconds.

  4. @frank – is it just me or is there something wrong, just wrong, posting this image from this poster on this site???

    Discuss….PLEASE!

  5. @The Potato Man

    @frank

    How about this photo. Inside knee inside of his elbow. Looks like he is using the “lean your bike more than your body” technique here.

    That’s a great shot. Those rims/tires look so tiny for his gargantuan form.

  6. @mxlmax

    @The Potato Man

    @frank

    How about this photo. Inside knee inside of his elbow. Looks like he is using the “lean your bike more than your body” technique here.

    Also refer to this shot for the front skewer position. But keep knee pressed inward.

    Front skewers usually get fucked up during wheel changes. Though, even if he likes it that way, it wouldn’t be his only Rule violation. Check out those shorts!

  7. @Rob

    @frank – is it just me or is there something wrong, just wrong, posting this image from this poster on this site???

    Discuss….PLEASE!

    I’ll also submit I was doing that instead of riding the Cogal.

  8. @frank

    @mxlmax

    @The Potato Man

    @frank

    How about this photo. Inside knee inside of his elbow. Looks like he is using the “lean your bike more than your body” technique here.

    Also refer to this shot for the front skewer position. But keep knee pressed inward.

    Front skewers usually get fucked up during wheel changes. Though, even if he likes it that way, it wouldn’t be his only Rule violation. Check out those shorts!

    The shorts are suited to accommodate the legs. His own set of Rules.

  9. @frank

    @Buck Rogers

    @Dan_R

    @scaler911 i had an opportunity to practice some of those turns with a coach last year…really opened my eyes to what can be done to maintain speed in a turn

    That’s the thing: I never rode a single cobble until the day of the cyclosportif and I wonder if I had tried to maintain a little more speed in the corners if it would of helped? Probably not. Most likely just would have crashed really hard!

    We have 100 year old cobbles in Seattle and had them in St. Paul where I grew up. I thought I knew what cobbles were.

    Not so much.

    The issue with cornering on cobbles as well is that you can’t stop pedaling because you pretty much come to a stop after 2 seconds.

    My local cobbles are gravel. C’est dommage. Donc, I ride the cx bike more often now that it is fall.

  10. Boy, oh, boy. The hairnet. The awesome, huge windshield, er, shades. The Daisy Dukes bib shorts. The white Belgian booties. The white bidon cages. The steel machine. The black rims + silver spokes + silver hubs. A lot goin’ on there! And, the awesome tricolour hat of the gal in the dress in the background!

    And then, then we get to the final two sentences from Frank. Ha! Amazing. I actually like to work on taking quick sips from my bidon during training rides when I’m out of breath as practice for races & rides. Nothing like cobble and clenched bodily valves, but along the lines of trying to practice for certain conditions.

    I generally hate replays of bad injuries or photos but gotta say, I love that photo of Gustav Larsen. Hoping he wasn’t too badly hurt, but it’s just such a goddamn shocking moment captured forever.

  11. @frank

    @Rob

    @frank – is it just me or is there something wrong, just wrong, posting this image from this poster on this site???

    Discuss….PLEASE!

    I’ll also submit I was doing that instead of riding the Cogal.

    That’s what our best roads look like over here

  12. @Ron

    Boy, oh, boy. The hairnet. The awesome, huge windshield, er, shades. The Daisy Dukes bib shorts. The white Belgian booties. The white bidon cages. The steel machine. The black rims + silver spokes + silver hubs. A lot goin’ on there! And, the awesome tricolour hat of the gal in the dress in the background!

    And then, then we get to the final two sentences from Frank. Ha! Amazing. I actually like to work on taking quick sips from my bidon during training rides when I’m out of breath as practice for races & rides. Nothing like cobble and clenched bodily valves, but along the lines of trying to practice for certain conditions.

    I generally hate replays of bad injuries or photos but gotta say, I love that photo of Gustav Larsen. Hoping he wasn’t too badly hurt, but it’s just such a goddamn shocking moment captured forever.

    A pedants writes – Gustav Larsson

  13. @Ken Ho

    Actuall, leaning your bike more than your body is a well established technique for cornering of road. It allows you to load your tyres more vertically for better grip and lets you stay on top of the bike should it start to drift (something I believe Kelly was renowned for). It is equally applicable to cornering on the road.

  14. On a different note, I feel much better about our roads here now after seeing the pics of the cobbles.  Our A roads are often nice, B roads are a mix, with lots of really coarse chip seal, C roads are rubbish though often smoother as the chips have sunk into hot tar over many summers.

    However, I’m never going to complain ever again.  If I were to do a Pave tour, I would prepare by looking for the roughest crap I could find.

  15. @frank

    Here’s Gustav Larsen doing it wrong.

    There is something about that picture that instantly made me think, “I don’t remember Fronk crashing….”

    For good measure – some random punter

  16. @The Potato Man

    @Ken Ho

    Yes, my thought was that he was on a curve, not a corner, and that he was pedalling to keep the power down.

    Sure, I’m an internet expert, but have done a few ride days and a couple of Keith Code Superbike courses as well as watched a lot of motorbike racing, and got to hang out with Paul Smart for a day once at Miisano. Cycling races are not won or lost on corners, the way that motor-bike races are, so perhaps there is less attention paid to the finer art of it.

    On COG, the bulk of a rider +bicycle combo is the rider. If anything, it makes more sense to get the riders weight as low as possible, even more so than on a motorbike. Having the rider weight hanging on the outside of the bike makes no sense at all.

    Mostly though, it’s about front end grip. Being a good passenger is also critical to good cornering and Keith Code has a bit to say about that.

    I think The Potato Man is right on this one.  I recall an article written by Bernard Hinault (no less) from Winning Magazine in the late ’80’s that describes the correct cornering technique.  He was unequivocal that it was not the motorcycle technique with the leg out, but rather the push the bike down across your shoulders technique.  The reasons for this were explained thus;

    On a motorcycle, you have the motor driving the wheels.  This acts by creating more force (centripital?) on the contact patch in a more horizontal (outward) direction.  The suggestion is that by leaning the leg out toward the inside of the turn, you are more effictively loading the contact patch in the direction the tire is wanting to go.

    On a bike, the wheels aren’t ‘self accelerating’ and so the prime contact patch is more in a vertical dimension.  By pushing the bike down and across your body, you are weighting the contact patch more efficiently in a vertical dimension.

  17. Proper cornering technique shouldn’t change based on terrain… Weight the inside arm & outside leg, countersteer into the corner and leave enough extension in the outside leg to compensate for a slide. Whether you’re tearing up the DH course at Mont-Sainte-Anne or blasting through the Arenberg, you’ve got the maximum of traction and control working for you following that technique.

  18. @sthilzy

    @sthilzy

    Caulfield cobbles for my post above. (Can Google Maps, Street View link be posted?)

    Since seeing this in Winning back in 1985, this image of cobble rash has been imbedding in my mind;


    Yvon Frebert on the descent from the Intelvi in the 1985 Tour of Lombardy won by Sean Kelly – 171 starters, 32 finishers.

    Another interesting point about this picture versus the Larsson one is that modern, strapless pedals have the advantage of releasing spontaneously in a crash. The Larsson pic being a fine case in point. Look at the Frebert picture; both he and the other rider have crashed and still have feet strapped in. This could not have been good for one’s knees as well as increasing the danger of being clattered by one’s bike as you tumble.

  19. Yeah, but if you hit hard enough, your feet come out of your shoes. When you crawl to the roadside, they’re still conveniently strapped to the pedals. I only used this tactic once.

  20. @mouse

    Back in the past when I rode a motorbike, someone told me the knee down technique was used by bike racers for two reasons, one to feel the edge of the track and secondly to actually decrease traction on the back wheel by pushing against the tarmac and allowing the rear (driven) wheel to keep spinning faster in the turn then once back upright on the straight there was no real need for acceleration – hence the wheelie popping on the way out of corners… Not sure how true all of this actually is but clearly that makes dropping the knee on a non-motor bike purely a matter of style as neither of these would play into riding.

    Keeping the bike more upright and shifting weight around though allows much greater traction at speed in the corner because more of the tyre is actually gripping in the direction of travel because more of the force is going down through the road and providing greater grip. When I did ride motor bikes, the weight shifting technique actually allowed for less steering and leaning, and therefore faster cornering to get round the same curves – and for Joe Blow riders like me was far more useful than trying to lean the bike right over and get the knee down. But it did rely on stabilising the bike by pushing as hard as possible on the highside leg – which is a technique someone alluded to here a while ago (can’t remember where) when cornering. It also seems to work quite well at slow speeds as well.

    On a bicycle, I reckon the weight shift technique works, as does countersteering (when at speed) but whether they originated in motorcycle or bicycle racing, who knows!? Would love to see pictures of a tophatted dude on a penny farthing with his knee down, proving that we the riders of the bicycle are the mothers of invention…. 

    I hated Physics at school, but I reckon if I’d listened a bit better I might just trust my bike in the corners a little more……

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