I’ve been cornering like shit recently. Bill told me this a couple days ago and I agree with him completely. There are a couple reasons for this and I know them, but that doesn’t change it.

The main reason is that I am pretty spooked about falling on my right shoulder. I’ve invested a good portion of my life into this shoulder repair and don’t want to screw it up by falling down. The 2nd is because there is a fair amount of sand left in the roads from the winter and you can never tell if there is going to be sand there or not. But that is the case every Spring, so it doesn’t really count.

I’m not sure when I’m going to put more effort into corning correctly. I’m turning left pretty good, just not right. It is bugging me, but not bugging me enough that I plan to go and try to corner at race speed training. It just isn’t “worth it”. That is so weird I write that because I hear that statement all the time when people are making excuses for a regret they have in a bike race and I hate it. If they didn’t think it was worth it, then they shouldn’t of started the race in the first place is my usual thought.

Anyway, it will come around when my arm works better. I don’t have the ability to compensate for something that might need a quick correction, so I’m just not messing around with it now.

But, I was thinking about what I’m doing wrong and why I’m cornering so horribly. It is mainly that I’m not putting all my weight on my outside pedal and turning the corner smoothly. I’m leaving some of my weight on my seat, making it nearly impossible to turn a tight corner at the correct angle. It is weird how I would change something that I have done most of my life, just to compensate for a bum shoulder.

I am looking forward to going out when the sand is gone and practice turning. I know that sounds amateurish, and it is, but I think I might do it anyway. It will be a first. I don’t plan on entering a race until I am positive that my shoulder is good and can do everything I want it to do it all circumstances. Right now I’m not even close. I probably could go and enter a tame road race, if it wasn’t windy, and ride alright, but there are way too many times, even in the most tame races where you have to do a quick movement, a jerk that I’m not close to capable of doing.

That is one thing I love about the sport of cycling, mastering something that seems nearly impossible. That is one of the reasons that I’ve switched around so much between road, cyclo-x and MTB racing. Each aspect of the sport has things that are unique to them.

The road is pretty straight forward, but not really. You have to be able to corner on dry cement, wet cement, dry asphalt, wet asphalt and do all these at various speeds. Not counting you have to be able to do it now, day or night, since so many of our races are night time criteriums.

Cross and MTB are so much different. Reading the ground is so important. Being able to identify, as you approach, the different kinds of mud, by sight is mandatory if you want to excel at the sport. Then riding on loose gravel, wet rocks, wet roots, wet leaves, etc. makes the learning curve huge.

Berryman Epic this past year is a good example. I was riding like hell. I was in a super physical slump. But, I got lucky that there was 6 inches of leaves covering the whole course. I got lucky because for one, I’d raced the race 3 times before and knew how rocky it was, but two, I can ride my bike relatively good over rocks covered with leaves. That was the difference there.

It takes years of bike racing to attain most the abilities that you need to be able to handle your bike well. I hate showing up somewhere and not having the exact ability to do what is needed. I hate having to take a chance to keep up, but I usually do. Then I go out and try to learn the skill I was missing, so the next time I don’t have to take a chance. I already have it in my quiver, so I’m at an advantage, thus faster.

This isn’t the best example of corning, but it is the only one I could find. My leg is pretty straight, but obviously, all the weight is off my seat on my left pedal, lowering my center of gravity.