back to portfolio | back to deepbrook home | by Jeff Dieffenbach Bob the J's Most Excellent Sprint Clinic - October 2012

Class in Session Rocket Fuel Base of Col du Radcliffe Star Pupils Nemo Sprints Yoda Sprints Debriefing

There's about as much likelihood that I'll apply the lessons learned from Bob's most excellent sprint clinic in a race setting as there is that I'd be applying the lessons Bob would share in a clinic on piloting the Space Shuttle. But I'd attend that clinic too--Bob's that good of an instructor. When the email went out a month or two back proposing the sprint clinic, I thought back to how much I enjoyed and learned from Bob's series of 4 sessions on bicycle maintenance and repair back in early 2011. I learned how to buy a Topeak bike repair stand. I learned how to buy a Craftsman torque wrench. I learned how to buy a Park Tools third hand. I learned how to buy shifter and brake cables and housings. Yeah, that's the kind of teacher Bob is. "IN," I responded immediately. We gathered at Bob's house in Wellesley on an October Sunday morning at 6:30am. Tom K, John L, Dave L, Pete L, Nathan S, Brad W, and me. Bob's in the midst of sprucing the place up, so we were shy a few amenities such as furniture and running water. But we had bagels from Einstein's new BakeSTRONG line. To forestall any chance of my steering an actual rider in the wrong direction, I won't try to convey any of Bob's wisdom. But it did use words and phrases like "gear topping;" "windup," "punch," and "draw;" "pry" and "lever;" and "Critical Mean Maximals." So you know it was good. The high point, no doubt, was learning about shifting during windup to "fuck with people." The classroom session complete, we headed outside, mounted up, and rode north up Weston Road to our training site on Radcliffe Road. Radcliffe has a flat "leadout" section before a moderate grade. Bob told us that the incline would allow us to get a sense of technique without worrying about running out of gear. I think that he just wanted to watch us work a little harder. I don't (yet) do power and I don't (yet) do heartrate (except in the binary sense), and I haven't used WKO+ or Golden Cheetah or Golden Banana, or even Strava, but those days are probably somewhere in my not too distant future. Yeah, in otherwords, I learned to buy a heartrate monitor. I learned to buy a Garmin. I learned to buy a Powertap. I learned to buy a Computrainer. Yeah, some things never change. Thanks, Bob.