Michael Hanslip Coaching

If you want to go faster, you have to pedal harder

January 2026
Writing | December 2025

Pro bike garage ride count

31/01/26 16:58 Filed in: Gear
I've been using Pro Bike Garage as my maintenance record and scheduling app since the Feedback Sports maintenance app was sold to another vendor who decided to take it US-only. PBG has some great features that I really appreciate. This entry is about a specific feature that I only noticed the other day. Ride count. If you tap into a specific bike you can head one level deeper and find a whole screen of data, most of which are greyed out for me as someone who paid for the app but doesn't subscribe for premium. But ride count is there.
It prompted me to go into Strava and unretire my old bikes, just to see how many rides they went on.
The numbers weren't that big, really. Peak is my old Madone nearing 1000 rides.
But my DH bikes hardly get any use at all. The old V10 recorded 39 rides in Strava - I think there were a handful not in Strava as at least at first I had no computer on the bike. The newer Sender is only up to 29. I couldn't believe it at first, but if I get in 10ish visits to Thredbo each season and spend half of them on my Enduro bike and half on my DH bike that's only 5 rides per season. And I don't take it out much (at all!) when I have to push it up the hill. So four seasons and 29 rides is correct.
Where it all started to go wrong for me was when the thought of dollars per ride cropped up. My advice - don't go there. Sure, the old Madone and my Checkpoint are both sitting around $6/ride. The price of a cup of coffee for each ride to get coffee? With so few outings, the two DH bikes don't add up. They're in the territory of premium bike hire at resort prices. Sure I could have had someone else's hire bike and never worried about maintenance, but also never having a choice about tyres, grips, position - anything really. I'll stick with my own bike.
 
Reminds me that my dad used to like talking about how people could save money by taking taxis instead of buying their own car. And for a lot of people that's probably true. But like hiring a bike, taxis remove a lot of choice and freedom. I notice my dad never opted out of car ownership for a taxi. And I don't plan to opt out of bike ownership for a string of hire bikes.
 
Two of my retired bikes didn't have nearly enough rides on them for expectations: my old commuter Cannondale only had 100 rides and a couple thousand kilometres - I used it for daily commuting for 14 years (around 7000 rides) and my Superfly XC race bike had barely more than 100 rides on it - I probably rode it 100 times just in races. They are clearly missing out on some Strava data. A quick look at old Strava files shows no bicycle associated with each old ride - I don't know when Strava added that feature but clearly not back in 2012 when I first started using the app (and both of these bikes pre-date that).

Speed & Skill don't develop at the same pace

27/01/26 18:43 Filed in: Riding
I have seen this in early teen riders who get the racing bug. Usually the speed comes a couple of seasons before the skills develop. I won't name names, but several who went on to compete at pro level got their turn of speed around 15 years old, but didn't really learn to control a bike until more like 17 years old. Those were a scary couple of years to be riding beside them. Not quite an unguided missile. Worth mentioning that by 19 all these guys were capable of amazing feats on a bike. Teens learn quickly.
 
Mostly these days I coach older riders. Some have been riding for decades. Others are quite new to the whole cycling thing. But perhaps neither has experienced a bike at speed. It is tough to learn the skills to handle a bike going fast when you aren't fit enough to make that bike go fast. So the speed really has to come first. I've had some success with descending to obtain speed, I've also seen some crashes where the person thought they were faster than they were. The main problem with learning a skill at 50 or more kmh is the margin for error is smaller. Yes the skills you learn descending will set you up for success in a criterium race at 44 kmh, but you have to survive it first.
 
The take-away from this is be patient. If you are early in your riding you might want to descend like Tom Pidcock, but he's been at it for 20 years to develop those mad skills.

Viking's Spring Novice Program (number 26)

14/01/26 21:30 Filed in: Riding
A quick count reveals that last Spring's two novice classes were my 23rd and 24th programs for the Viking's Club. That's a lot. After several years of running 3 classes per year, and then several more years of running 2 classes per year; this year a decision was made to modify things a bit. I admit apprehension at first - why change what works? Except maybe it wasn't working as well as it should. More coaches. More students. One class.
 
And it is brilliant. Three "head" coaches and three more "assistant" coaches means that individuals can get some one-on-one help while a bunch of up to 30 people can practice proper bunch riding skills. We took them out on the street last week and it turned out there were only 21 persons present - AusCycling limits on road coaching are 7 students per coach. Perfect. Each group had an assistant coach too, so the ratios were actually lower than needed. We took 3 bunches out based on people's experience and did 20 minutes on the road.
 
I love seeing people who came through the course turning up for racing. I think most of the assistant coaches came through the novice program in past years too.
 
CCC - my club actually - had a novice program but for whatever reason does not do one currently. That leaves the Viking program as the only game in Canberra if you are interested in getting experienced instruction and practice for bunch riding/race skills. Starting every September - you're too late for this one (it's well over). But there's always next year!

Online shoe sizing

04/01/26 16:11 Filed in: Gear
There are many brands of shoes - I am specifically talking cycling shoes in this entry, but it could just as easily apply to running shoes or dress shoes too (there are many, many brands out there). A few of those brands have local dealers, who have some of their offerings. But there are way more choices than there are places to try the shoes on for fit.
I recently used the Trek 30-day trial for a pair of Trek shoes. My local Trek shop didn't have them in stock. They got me the pair I wanted to try. They were too big. Trek does make 1/2 size shoes, but Australia only gets whole sizes. A full size smaller would have been too small. I got my refund (shoes had barely been out of the box so I hope they get sold to someone else as new) and continued looking.
A few brands know they are poorly represented in physical stores, so they have online sizing guides to walk you through the process of selecting the correct size. Northwave, my usual cycling shoe brand, is one of them. I followed their steps and the suggested size puts me right on the line between the one I wear and the same size in "wide". Which is right on my experience with wearing them - about OK for width, could be a tad wider.
Armed with the knowledge that my self-assessment of shoe sizes is OK, I went to the Lake website and ran through their 4-step process for selecting the correct size and model (that latter bit is a realisation that they use different lasts at different levels and the optimal fit might be a specific shoe and size, not just a size). It gave me a size in wide in a specific shoe that is currently not in stock. Since my kangaroo crash in May, I've been looking for new shoes as the ones I had on that night got beaten up by being dragged along the ground.
 
Meanwhile I did the same fitting process with my partner's feet. She has been in some shoes for the past years but lately they've been hurting her feet. Feet change and what was once good is now less good. Lake has a model that seemed appropriate for her feet. I sized. She ordered. They fit well. Given the price and the fact that returns are OK until you place cleats on the shoe, I wanted to make sure she was happy before I put the cleats on. Turns out they were a good choice.
Thanks Lake. Your system works.
 
Sub-story. Why no more Northwave? With a few diversions into other brands, I have been wearing Northwave shoes most of the time since 1997. That's a long time in one brand. They had basically flat soles. A couple of years ago they wanted to make their shoes both stiffer and lighter. To get a stiff flat carbon sole requires a certain thickness. But if you make the sole shaped like a boat hull, you can use less thickness of carbon and still get stiffness from the shape. Except that bit I mentioned above about being on the cusp of the wide shoe - in the boat shaped sole I never got comfortable. They only produce a select few shoes - in one colour that I can see - in the wide model. Whereas Lake seems to make all their shoes in narrow, standard and wide widths. The Lake shoes are $50 more than the Trek shoes were, but $50 less than the Northwave shoes would be.
 
Hopefully they get some in stock soon.

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