An unofficial guide to biking in Beer Bike

Introduction

This guide is designed to provide bikers with a quick introduction to Beer-Bike: the various procedures, equipment and training notes, and some discussion of race strategy. If you've already attended a Beer-Bike race, a lot of this will be review for you, but if you haven't actually ridden the race, some of the notes on strategy and training will almost certainly be helpful.

How the race works

1. The basics

Beer-Bike is a 10-by-1-mile relay. The race takes place on a 0.33-mile track which has a "pit" area on one side:

             .--======================--.
           .      -======pit========-             .
          .          +++++++++++++                   .
         .              +chug/setup++                       .
         .           +++++++++++++                    .
          .                                                        .
           .                                                      .
             .                                                   .
              --=======================--

Each team consists of 10 riders and 10 chuggers. Each person starts from the pit, rides a certain number of laps (2 for women, 3 for men) and then pulls back into the pit. As soon as a rider from a given team pulls into the pit, a chugger from that team starts drinking a beer. When the chugger is finished, the next rider from that team can start. The team that completes the race first wins, voila.

The pit area is divided into lanes, one lane for each team. Each team has to start and finish its riders within its own lane. In addition to chuggers and riders, each team also has a pit crew, composed of "throwers" and "catchers". Throwers are responsible for starting fresh riders: when the team gets the green light to start a new rider, the pit crew physically pushes/shoves the rider to give them a running start. The catchers' job is to receive riders when they pull into the pit after completing their ride -- typically this involves extracting the exhausted rider from his/her bike and carrying the bike (and possibly the person as well) out of the pit and into the chugging/setup area.

2. Fouls, crashes, etc.

Fouls can be assessed if a team makes a minor rules violation during the race. This can be something like a "wet" chug (i.e. the chugger attempts to drink beer but winds up emptying the container on his/her chest instead), or a lane violation (i.e. a rider cuts too close a corner on one of the turns and goes inside the white lines). Typically a foul results in some number of seconds (usually 10) being added to the team time.

There are also a set of elaborate rules that deal with what happens if a rider should crash, omitted here for the sake of brevity. Suffice it to say that if a rider on a given team crashes, it's not quite as simple as just having that team start a fresh rider immediately.

2. Bike rules

The Beer Bike rules prohibit most devices on a bike which are designed to reduce wind resistance, i.e. tri-spoke wheels, fairings, etc. Other than that, pretty much anything is fair game. Most people ride standard road/racing bikes, needless to say. "Aero bars" are specifically not allowed -- anything that supports your elbows or shoulders is pretty much out. You are welcome to train with such devices, just so long as they aren't on your bike when race day rolls around.

3. Ambience

Beer-bike is a heavily attended event at Rice; the bleachers (opposite the pit area) and always packed with students. This is actually one of the more fun things about the race; when you are out on the track and you ride past the stands, you get to hear a couple of thousand people screaming their lungs out cheering for YOU -- it's quite an unforgettable experience.

Training for the race

1. Recommended Equipment

It really helps to have ten-speed road bike (as opposed to a mountain bike or hybrid) for this kind of riding. There are people who have competed in Beer Bike in the past using mountain bikes, but they tend to be very experienced (and usually slightly crazy) riders.

You should also strongly consider having toe-clips or clipless pedals, since this will allow you to pedal on the upstroke as well as the downstroke.

Something which really comes in handy both for training and for the race is a rear-view mirror. You can get helmet-mounted mirrors and eyeglasses-mounted mirrors -- it's really a matter of taste. These mirrors allow you to:

• look back to see whether your teammates are still with you during a training ride (oops, everyone's 50 yards behind me... guess I shouldn't be riding quite so fast)
• look back to see if there's a truck bearing down on you from behind, getting ready to ride you off the road
• look back during the race to see that guy who's about to overtake you -- better get ready to speed up and catch his wheel as he goes by...

You get the idea. A lot of riders out there poo-poo mirrors initially and then once they've tried them wonder how they did without them (I personally fall into this category).

A final piece of gear which is very strongly recommended: a cycle computer. These little gadgets are not very expensive ($20-$40 at a bike store) and they REALLY help you to train. Riding without a cycle computer is like running track without a stopwatch. Most bike computers will tell you the duration and distance of your ride as well as your current speed; many models will also include functions like average speed, cadence, etc. They allow you to hold a steady speed, and by using them you'll gain a much better intuition about what your limits are and what you need to work on.

Cycling skills

1. Pedalling

Most competitive bikers advocate pedalling at a higher cadence than that used for recreational riding. If you look at the best riders, you'll find that their cranks are turning at 90-120 revolutions per minute, as opposed to the 40-60 that your average recreational rider or bike commuter uses. This style of riding is generally referred to as "spinning".

Of course, cadence is largely a matter of personal preference. Some people like high cadences, others are more comfortable with lower rates. A really low cadence, however, will probably put you at a disadvantage when it comes to quick acceleration, however; if you are grinding away in a big gear, it's pretty tough to speed up in a real hurry, as you would expect.

2. Drafting

Drafting is when you ride close behind another biker so that the person in front of you makes a path through the air for you, reducing the amount of work required to keep moving. Drafting is an absolutely essential skill if you want to do well in Beer-Bike race (unless your name happens to be Miguel Indurain or Tony Rominger). Failing to take advantage of drafting opportunities is the number 1 mistake that most new riders will make when they are out on the track. Luckily, drafting is not a hard skill to pick up.

Beginning riders tend to scoff at the notion that air resistance is important, and they sometimes wonder whether it really helps to draft. Believe me, it helps. Wind resistance is an *exponential* function of speed -- drafting is not typically all that important if you are riding at 15 or 16 miles an hour, but once you get up to competitive speeds (25-30 miles per hour) it makes a HUGE difference.

Opinions differ as to how close you should be to the rider in front of you to get a good draft. The most experienced riders probably leave at least a foot or so between their front wheels and the wheel of the rider in front of them. This is not a hard and fast rule, however. You'll want to stay farther behind if conditions are windy or wet, if the rider in front is acting unstable, or any number of other reasons.

Woe be to the drafter whose front tire touches the rear tire of the rider in front of him. At high speeds, one or both tires will often shred, dumping both riders quickly to the pavement. As a result, you should keep two things in mind: 1) if you know that someone is drafting you, don't put on the brakes suddenly, and 2) if you are drafting behind someone else, be prepared when the rider in front of you slows down or changes course. Typically when you are at the front of a paceline or a pack and you need to slow down, the thing to do is to pull to the side and then slow down, as opposed to slowing down in place. It's also helpful to your hand to indicate that you are slowing.

3. Cornering

There are some race courses out there with bends that are sharp enough that the riders have to stop pedalling when they make the turn. The Beer-Bike track is not one of them. The track size and the length of the race are such that you really can't afford to stop pedalling at any point, and in addition, the turns are shallow enough that you aren't really forced to ease up. However it takes a little practice to get used to pedalling hard in the turns. This is something you can work on during your training sessions.

4. Training rides

Most people will agree that training together with other riders is a good idea. It allows you to work on your drafting, and it lets you get accustomed to riding in a group.

When training, it's probably best if you keep to the shorter distances, especially later in the training season. Riding 100 miles the week before the race is probably not going to do you much good. One helpful trick is to alternate "leads", with each rider leading the pack for some set distance (usually a mile). An example of a good training session might be 4 riders each taking 3 one-mile leads, for a total of 12 miles.

Later in the season you'll want to spend some time on the actual track itself, getting accustomed to the turns, doing sprinting drills, etc.

5. Speed

For the men's beer-bike race (where each rider covers 3 laps, or a mile), competitive times tend to be in the range of 2:10 (2 minutes 10 seconds) to 2:20. To put these numbers in perspective, consider the following chart:

Last year ('94), the average GSA rider rode a 2:17, which comes out to 26.3 miles per hour. Our best time was 2:06, which corresponds to 28.6 miles per hour, yow.

You obviously don't need to duplicate these times during your training sessions, but you should be thinking in these terms. For your training rides, try to work up to a level where you can do one or more "lead" where you are riding at 24mph or above.

Seriously bike competitors (people training for the Tour De France, the Olympics, etc) even go so far as to engage in an exercise called "motor-pacing", in which the cyclist drafts behind a car or a motorcycle, so as to get the feel for riding at really high speeds (40mph and above). I don't think we need to be concerned with things like this in our Beer-Bike training, but it is a good idea to keep your race-day speed in mind -- riding 30 miles at a steady 20mph is probably not going to do you as much good as doing 10 miles with 3 1-mile leads at 25 miles per hour.

Individual rider strategy during the race

1. The start

When the chugger on your team finishes, your "pushers" will start to heave you forward and will release you once they get close to the edge of the push zone. At that point you will be under your own power and you'll ride out of the pit and onto the track.

You should make sure that you are in an appropriate gear when you are lined up at the start. This means a speed that will allow you to pedal hard right from the start (you shouldn't be grinding too big a gear). Don't try to start pedalling while the pushers are still pushing -- you should be concentrating on keeping your balance. When you do start pedalling, you should be aware of what's going on behind you. The end of the pit is pretty close to the start of the turn, so you have to worry about starting into the turn without getting creamed by the guys who are already on the track. Also keep in mind that you're going to want to try to "grab a wheel" (i.e. pull in behind someone and draft) as soon as you get out of the pit, so you should be keeping an eye out for drafting opportunities.

2. The middle

Once you get going and establish a rythm, pacing and drafting are the two main things to worry about. Watch your speedometer carefully -- make sure you don't wind up riding 35mph for the first lap and then "bonking" on the subsequent lap(s). Don't forget that you have to ride 3 laps! [Yes, it has happened in the past that people have tried to pull into the pit too early...] Always keep an eye out for drafting opportunities, particularly fresh riders coming out of the pit that you can latch onto.

If you can manage to get a good draft on your first or second lap, then you should be marshalling your strength and getting ready to ride a killer 2nd and/or 3rd lap. If you aren't able to grab a wheel, then you'll want to pace yourself more conservatively and try to stick pretty close to your target speed.

3. The finish

A good finish is mainly a matter of making sure you don't make any stupid mistakes (like pulling into the wrong lane). Make sure you know where the "real" finish line is -- don't stop riding till you hit it. Also, be aware of where your lane is and try to pick out your pit crew as soon as you start to come out of the last turn.

Overall race strategy

1. The first few laps: keep with the pack

Beer-bike races feature a mass start: for the first lap, all of the people start at the same time. This means that for the first set of riders (and usually the second and third) there will be a big "pack" with lots of people traveling together.

Riding in the pack is a little tricky; everyone is squished together, jostling for position and trying to get an edge. Be very careful about what's going on around you -- statistically speaking, this is where most of the accidents happen, perhaps due to crowding or someone drafting too close. On the other hand, the drafting opportunities at this stage in the game are quite good. As a result, the first few riders for a team are typically people who are more experienced (i.e. they know how to deal with a pack) but they are not necessarily the fastest or most powerful riders on the team.

2. The rest of the race: crunch time

By the third or fourth set of riders, things have spread out enough that you have riders starting and finishing at semi-regular intervals. Here you just have to buckle down and give it all you've got.

by Nathaniel McIntosh February 12, 1995
Formatted by Fernando González del Cueto, 2005.