@David Grice & I spent the weekend riding as a pair at Top Naas 2-day fun trial, near Canberra. Great event! Allocated pairs, self observed. 2 minute start intervals, one pair head south, one pair head north. 15km figure-8 loop with 24 sections. 5 hours to complete. Day two - loops and sections reverse direction. The singletrack between sections was almost as much fun as the sections themselves. Walking 24 sections mostly on hills is seriously tiring. Getting through the first lap leaving time for the second is a skill in itself. We took nearly 4 hours on the first lap, leaving 1 hour for 24 sections. LOL. An exercise in speed trials riding and section memory. I largely failed both. So good to ride as a pair, both on the same line. DIfferent ideas about routes and tactics to discuss, and mostly taking turns to ride first. I'll have another post or two arising from this event, but for now: One of my weakest points really showed up - my very poor ability to remember sections from one lap to the next. How do people remember sections? * An internal "map"? * An internal "video" of the section? * A 3D visualisation? * Other? I'm generally very good with spatial stuff, but for some reason my section memory is shocking. I need some strategies to improve it so I can get through the later laps in a more timely manner.

Posted by Peter Mack at 2022-05-30 05:44:09 UTC