In this very special episode of Bicycling’s Bike Shop, Deputy Editor Tara Seplavy chats with Yasmin Boakye, winner of Bicycling’s “Race Your First Crit” member contest. She won a new Pinarello F5 105, entry to Easton Twilight Criterium, and a training program with Daniel Holloway from Team EF Coaching.
We talk about how Yasmin got into bikes, her training with Daniel, and her new Pinarello race bike. Then, Tara and Daniel talk about how racing (or even watching!) a criterium helps you develop useful skills for your everyday rides.
We talk about how Yasmin got into bikes, her training with Daniel, and her new Pinarello race bike. Then, Tara and Daniel talk about how racing (or even watching!) a criterium helps you develop useful skills for your everyday rides.
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00:00 Hey, Azzar. Hey. Welcome to Easton. Welcome to Bicycling Magazine. Thank you. So tell me about a
00:06 recent ride you've done. Yeah, so I was in Nashville for work all last week still trying to get my
00:11 training in. So I found an abandoned air park where cyclists apparently do intervals there.
00:15 That's good. Airfield's a great crit training. Yeah, it was awesome. Yeah, I'm super excited to
00:20 be here in Easton now and getting to ride this Pinarello in a few days. Yeah, new Pinarello F5
00:25 and that's what we're going to dive into is Pinarello F5 and Easton Crit. Welcome to Bicycling's
00:31 Bike Shop. Each week our experts bring you the inside line about everything cool, new, and fun
00:38 in cycling gear. From unfiltered takes on bikes to setup trips and everything in between. So in
00:43 today's very special episode of Bicycling's Bike Shop we have Yasmin Balachi here who was the
00:51 winner of a contest that we had on bicycling.com in partnership with Pinarello. Awarded her a
00:59 Pinarello F5 to race here at the Easton Twilight Crit. She has a great story. She's been actively
01:06 training for the race and we're going to talk a little bit about the training she's been doing
01:10 and getting herself ready for Easton. So again, welcome to the Bike Shop. Yeah, thanks for having
01:18 me. So tell me a little bit about your riding background and how long have you been riding?
01:23 Yeah, so I had ridden on and off for years and like many it was a typical pandemic cyclist. Oh
01:28 yeah. What can I do? I actually started in triathlon so I did my first try in 2020.
01:34 Designed it myself, rode around Baltimore, super fun. Oh cool. And ended up discovering I love
01:40 cycling and then from there have gotten really into the gravel scene, do road riding in Baltimore
01:46 with a team and just love cycling. So this is your first attempt at a tricerium, right?
01:53 But you've been doing mainly you said triathlon and gravel. What, I guess we could say,
02:01 what is your favorite discipline so far and what has drawn you to that? Yeah, I mean I fell in love
02:07 with gravel cycling. I got involved with All Buddies on Bikes which is a great organization
02:12 and so they brought a team to SBT Gravel. So I rode my first gravel century there a few years ago
02:17 and then from there kind of fell in love with long distance not just on gravel but also road. So I
02:21 just love endurance riding. So this is your first crib, right? You haven't done a crib before. No.
02:27 So there's quite a difference between a criterium. So for those folks who don't know, a criterium
02:33 is a short course style race. They're usually about between 30 minutes, hour, hour and a half
02:40 sometimes on a circuit that's anywhere between like you know three quarters of a mile, mile,
02:47 mile and a half at the very longest. And it's quick, it's fun, it's action, action-packed.
02:52 A lot different than a hundred mile gravel race. So what is drawing you to try criterium? Yeah,
03:00 to be honest when I saw the opportunity to apply to train with bicycling I had just finished
03:05 Mid-South Gravel which I'd done the year before. It's super fun. I love that event. It was kind of
03:09 like what's next? Like you know I want to do something different. So a different aspect of
03:13 cycling. Very different, yeah, complete opposite. And so I just I like training a lot and the idea
03:19 of getting to train in a really focused way for eight weeks was very exciting to me and I figured
03:23 I could figure out the racing part. Very cool, very cool. So you've also, part of this contest
03:28 is you've been training with Daniel Holloway, right? So you know that wasn't the, you know,
03:34 the bike isn't the only part of this prize. It's also a training program with a professional
03:40 criterium racer. So I guess, you know, what is the first thing you kind of notice working with
03:47 a professional criterium coach and getting yourself ready to race a career? Yeah, I mean I learned a
03:52 lot. I always thought I did intervals. I thought I rode hard and Daniel had access to like my full
03:58 training pieces. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And so he's like you never really rode above zone three.
04:03 And I was like oh well I thought I was doing some really intense stuff. So learning what intensity
04:09 really is was a huge part of the training. I had never trained, I have a trainer at home,
04:15 but I had never trained on the road with power pedals until recently. So seeing oh wow this is
04:20 a big difference, seeing what it feels like to go up hills and accomplish different terrain with power.
04:24 Yeah, seeing the power numbers. So huge. So you spent a lot of time on gravel bikes. Yes. And
04:30 now you're on a crit bike. Yeah. You know, what are some of the differences that you've experienced
04:35 there being somebody who's new to a crit bike or a more traditional road racing bike versus your
04:41 gravel bike? Yeah, I mean it was an instant difference for me. Baltimore is extraordinarily
04:46 hilly. People sometimes don't know that. So yeah, I've raced cyclocross down there. Okay, so you know.
04:50 I know that hill well. Yes, you know. So you know, immediately I was like killing all my PRs on every
04:58 hill in Baltimore. So it's really satisfying going on Strav and every ride I've got like, you know,
05:02 top five, top five, top five. I just never had seen numbers like that before. So instantly like
05:07 the bike was so much more responsive, so much lighter, easier to handle. Yeah, so is your
05:12 gravel bike, is it a one by bike or a two by bike? It's a two by. It's a two by, okay. So it's not
05:17 that much of a switch over. You're not having to learn that much different when it comes to
05:23 shifting. I will say it always had a hard time coming out of the big ring and small ring. So
05:28 even just like the electronic shifting on the Pinarello, fabulous. I never have to worry about
05:32 getting stuck in a gear. It's just the ultimate level up for a gravel rider. So you know, I'm
05:36 sure you're riding a lot wider tires with lower pressure on your gravel bike. How has that
05:42 adjustment been for you? Because I also do tries. I do have a tri bike that I ride from time to time.
05:47 So I had an experience going from there, going from one to the other before. But to be honest,
05:54 I just feel more nimble on the road. It's just a nicer feeling. So honestly, it hasn't been
05:59 like everything's just been positive on this bike. Once you got your new Pinarello F5,
06:04 obviously it was an adjustment from the gravel bike and your tri bike. What were some of the
06:11 fits that you had to do? Did you have to go get a professional bike fit to get this all set up for
06:17 you? And what was that experience like? Yeah, so I actually got fitted before I even got the bike.
06:22 I've been fitted for a tri bike and a gravel bike before and I gave those numbers and they were like,
06:26 you need a whole new fit. So that was actually a really special experience. I learned a lot about
06:30 my body's geometry. I was between several frame sizes and ended up going with a larger frame
06:35 just so I would feel more comfortable and confident on it. Did your position on the
06:38 bike change at all? And how did that make you feel? I was already riding apparently very aggressive
06:42 position is what the fitter told me on my gravel bike. I guess I just like being kind of hunched
06:47 over. So that was nice that this doesn't feel terribly different and that I get to feel very
06:51 comfortable on this leg. So switching gears a little bit and talking about your coaching experience
06:56 with Daniel, right? You know, the big thing is like there's so many aspects to coaching. We don't have
07:02 enough time to dig into all that. But what are a couple of the key things that you really picked up
07:09 from working with Daniel and working with a coaching plan for Eastern Creek? Yeah, so I had a
07:14 lot of experience doing triathlon training plans. Yeah, totally different. And so in my mind I thought,
07:20 oh, well, I'm used to a lot of TSS. I'm used to multiple workouts a day. So when I first started
07:24 with Daniel, I was trying to keep all my other, you know, running, cycling, and then adding
07:29 Pilates and strength training. And Daniel was like, whoa, you need to chill out a little bit with that.
07:33 And so just learning how to incorporate more true rest days, more single workout days. Yeah,
07:39 I've anecdotally heard that you're not a big fan of rest days. Truthfully, not my favorite thing,
07:45 but I'm learning to go for walks. I have a dog. That's always nice. So just and then chilling out,
07:49 taking care of the bike is another thing. So like some other, you know, when you're racing
07:53 criteriums, it's quite a bit different than like if you're training for a gravel race. And there's
08:00 things like, you know, your cadence drills, sprint drills, things like that. How did that help you
08:06 versus some of the other training you've been doing? Yeah, I mean, when I first started,
08:09 I literally didn't know what a sprint was. That sounds ridiculous. But, you know, I just figured,
08:14 oh, you just pedal faster and harder. So the idea of actually getting up off the seat, positioning,
08:19 being in the drops, these are all completely new skills to me. So that was new. And then cadence
08:25 drills, I just always thought they were sort of for fun. Like if you want to change your cadence,
08:28 you can. But now I understand the importance of being able to work at a wide range of cadences.
08:33 That's also been a really impactful piece of the training. So I guess another thing is like this,
08:39 it's not one race you're doing this year. What's some other stuff that you're planning to do
08:44 as the season goes on? Yeah, so I have a big goal of doing the West Fjords Way Challenge in
08:50 Iceland in a couple of months. I'll be switching gears entirely to do a stage race that's 150
08:55 miles a day for four days. But I'm also going to keep road racing. I did discover I really love
09:01 circuit races, which is what I've tried so far. So there's a local circuit race in DC that I'll do.
09:05 Yeah, no, that whole mid-Atlantic DC scene is huge. So what do you think, you know, Baltimore,
09:11 you know, for people who come from a cycling background, you know, we have our Charm City
09:15 CX there. That's a big deal. What do you think about racing some cyclocross? I am spectating hard.
09:20 So, you know, you've gotten into racing now over the last couple of years. What would you recommend
09:30 if a bicycling member wants to get into racing, they're a little maybe timid or shy about it,
09:35 you know, what would you recommend to them? Yeah, I would say start local. For me, my first
09:40 circuit race that I did, it ended up being on a course where I'd done a duathlon before.
09:44 So I felt really confident out there and actually ended up doing really well. Yeah,
09:48 you know those roads. Yeah, exactly. So don't feel like you have to do some giant unbound or
09:52 mid-south, even though those are super fun. You can just start with your local racing community
09:56 and support people there. Yeah. And you can even, you know, another way to do is you,
09:59 if you want to try racing a real simple way is, you know, just jump on your computer, jump on
10:04 Zwift. Yeah. And you can get in there. And you know what, if you got to pull out of that race,
10:09 you know, none of your friends are going to see you jump off the bike and go downstairs to the
10:12 fridge. Not everybody wants to go out and race a criterium or race a bike race, but there are a lot
10:19 of skills that you can pick up from whether it's jumping into your local training crit or even,
10:24 you know, being at home and watching it online. A lot of skills, tips and tricks that you can see
10:30 happening in criterium that can help you on your local ride, your local group ride, the coffee
10:35 ride, whatnot. So today, as I said before, Daniel Holloway, so we have professional criterium
10:41 racer, Daniel Holloway, who's here with us today, internet celebrity, professional crit racer.
10:48 He'll be racing Easton crit. And we'll just talk about some of these tips. So, you know, you've
10:55 been doing this for a while and, you know, obviously you're riding your bike a lot more
11:00 miles than you're racing your bike. You know, what are a couple of things, key points that
11:04 will help you on your local ride that you pick up from criterium racing?
11:09 Yeah, I mean, criterium is right at city centers. It's four corners, six corners, eight corners,
11:13 depending on the courses you're on. And so every day riding, you're at stoplights, you're making
11:17 turns, you're in the mountains, you're going down descents. And so when you're on a closed circuit,
11:21 like a crit, you get to experience corner after corner for 30, 45, 60 minutes. So you get corner
11:27 after corner to just practice those skill sets. So when you get into the real world, you're going
11:31 down a descent that maybe you haven't seen before. You can kind of use the yellow lines at the center
11:36 of the road as cue points on how to set up for that turn and make small adjustments that, oh,
11:40 this looks like a 90, but it's really a 110. And how do you make that adjustment at 40 miles an
11:46 hour and, you know, get through it successfully? Yeah. And a lot of times that a thing that's
11:50 common for especially newer cyclists to do is they go into a sharp corner. They're going to
11:54 try to pedal through it. They're going to go through and they're going to have that inside
11:57 pedal down, you know, by watching, you know, a criterion happen, you'll see, you know, riders
12:04 are going to keep their inside pedal up, or they're going to watch their lean angle to keep from,
12:08 you know, striking their pedal on the ground. Nobody wants to auger into the earth, you know,
12:12 hitting a pedal on the ground. So, you know, another thing is breaking points, you know.
12:17 You know, we talk about riding and people a lot of times will forget, like, hey, I got to scope
12:23 some speed, scrub it before you get to the turn, not like in the middle of it, right? Yeah, very
12:29 much so. Like, breaking is very technique driven. It's very, like, experiential. And I mean, even
12:33 for me, like I raced up till 2019 on the road and that was still, like, very much rim brake for me.
12:39 And, you know, my time retired was like when disc brakes and large falling tires really took over.
12:44 So I had a big learning curve moving from rim brakes to disc brakes, even in the last couple
12:48 of years myself. And so they're much more powerful if you really wrench on them, but they modulate
12:54 super, super well. And, you know, like you said, you want to scrub, go down to your minimum or
12:59 your maximum cornering speed, and then kind of coast to the corner. And it's about getting that
13:04 speed right. So you carry momentum out rather than being in the middle of the corner angled,
13:08 right? And you hit your brakes and you have more chance to lose traction, whether it's the front.
13:13 It's efficiency and traction through the corner. So efficiency out of the corner,
13:17 and traction while you're in it. So, you know, when you're racing a crit, you're racing with
13:22 a pack of rockets, right? So, you know, what are a couple of things that you've picked up,
13:27 you know, because a lot of folks are going to be on their local coffee ride or their group ride
13:31 on a Saturday, Sunday, you know, what are some things that you've picked up that can help you
13:35 when you're in a group ride with your friends? Yeah. I mean, first and foremost, like body
13:39 language, right? Like figuring out if you, if it's all the common characters on the Sunday group
13:43 ride, it's like, oh, this guy typically acts like this. She typically does this. So on. So it's
13:48 body language tells a lot. And when I raced, it was a very big tell of when riders were accumulating
13:53 fatigue almost before that, when they were like about to attack, you could see guys just
13:57 kind of hesitated or make a small adjustment, right? The reach down and tighten the bow.
14:01 You're like, that's a tell, you know? So it's just paying attention to like really what's
14:06 happening around you and being comfortable in your bubble. That's like, we're just not fast
14:10 enough to react to anyway. So you kind of have to let go of like anything that's here is going to
14:15 happen. And I don't have much control, but six foot, eight foot, 12 foot in front of me, I have
14:20 time to process and make a really good decision. If somebody crashes to the right, okay, I'm going
14:25 left, you know, vice, vice versa. And looking at the front, if you're in the middle of the group,
14:30 right? Like, oh, that's slowing down. Okay. So I should, I still want to stay in the draft. So I
14:35 should start to like coast or anticipate that, or, oh, this is like the front slowing down.
14:39 I'm on the outside. This is gonna be a great time for me to move up with no energy expenditure
14:43 because it's coming to you and you just get to coast around to the front rather than it being
14:47 single file. And you're like, oh, I really want to be up there and just pull out to the wind
14:50 and do 120% more than what's happening. - Yeah. Cause on a group ride, a lot of times
14:55 you're going to see people who are sitting on the front, you know, and they're just out there
14:59 hammering just like a crit. Like a lot of times you'll be watching a crit and you won't see a
15:05 particular person on the front for the whole race. And then they're going to come across the line on
15:11 the podium because they've been sitting in the bubble the whole race and are fresh and clean
15:16 and ready to go for the end. So hopefully with some of these tips that they're going to help
15:21 you when you're out on your local rides, just watch these and crit online, watch other criteriums,
15:27 and you can get a feel for racing and how some of those skills are going to be able to transfer over
15:34 to ride scenarios that you have every day. It's not uncommon if you're getting ready for a race,
15:39 a big ride, to have some pre-race jitters. Are you feeling some of that when you're here in Easton?
15:45 - Definitely. I think the one thing that was kind of, I expected the corners that people
15:50 have mentioned, but I talked to a friend who did this race last year and I didn't know that this
15:54 was a downhill grade. So I am kind of curious to think about strategy in terms of going downhill
16:00 into a corner at high speed and just what to do there. - Yeah. I mean, it's tomorrow or Saturday
16:07 on race day, we can definitely walk the course, ride it potentially. But then again, they come
16:12 with brake levers. We learn how to use them efficiently. You mentioned brake points earlier
16:16 in an earlier segment. And so just finding it's this parking meter, it's this crack in the ground,
16:21 you know, and finding those things. So it becomes automatic. And on previous calls,
16:26 we talked about visualization. So you can walk the course today and get familiar with, you know,
16:31 again, parking meters, trees, buildings, and then you'll be able to go back to the house on the
16:35 couch or in bed, just kind of close your eyes and visualize all these things. So when you get there
16:39 on race day with a number on your back, you've seen it before. Like you've played this over in
16:43 your head, so it's not brand new and fresh. And you're startled by, "Oh my God, it's a white
16:48 building, not a gray building." Or, you know, somebody else's information that you're taking
16:52 on to be, you know, gospel. If you've seen it yourself to know what exactly it is, how steep
16:57 it is going down or how steep it is going up or where bumps are and things like that. Like you've
17:02 seen it firsthand. And then as you get more and more experience, you'll be able to show up closer
17:07 and closer to race time and do that visualization process and have it all in your computer, you know,
17:13 in your mental space before race time. So like I could got to a point where it's like I'd show up
17:18 45 minutes before race, take a quick lap, put it all together, right? And be on the start line
17:24 confident of, okay, inside here, outside there, you know, wind's coming from this direction,
17:28 all those things. So just over time, we've built that, that repertoire to be able to ease those
17:32 nerves, be able to walk to any race you've never seen before, have a quick look and be able to make
17:36 really good decisions about the race.