A lot of the skills you need to race will become apparent when you ride your first events, even if that means making the odd mistake as you go along.

When we spoke to Elinor Barker, formerly of Wiggle Honda, at the Matrix Fitness Pro Cycling Team Launch, she told us she’d advise new racers to enjoy their sport, and accept mistakes happen – saying: “You’re going to make mistakes, the only way to get better is by making those mistakes in the first place. The more you make the quicker you’ll learn early on.”

However, there are some skills you can try to master by practicing before you get to your first event:

Riding in a group

Riding in close proximity to other riders when working as hard as you can to maintain the pace requires you to be comfortable and confident riding in a group. In this case – it really is all about ‘practice makes perfect’.

Rides with your cycling club are the good old fashioned way to learn, and many clubs run specific chaingang and race training sessions. Check out our guide on riding in a group and start training with friends and team mates.

Cornering in the group is a skill that can be a stumbling block for some riders, and it takes practice and know how. The key is never to brake on the corner, and to maintain your line throughout, moving to the left or right can cause disruption to those around you.

Make sure you are familiar with road riding hand signals – putting your hand in the air to indicate a puncture, pointing out pot holes and indicating out when passing obstacles, as this will ensure you can communicate effectively and there are no sudden surprises!

Clipping In

Another useful skill to master is clipping in quickly at the start of an event. When the call of ‘Go’ sounds, you don’t want to be looking down at your feet trying to get cleat and pedal to connect!

Starting with your strongest leg clipped in, at around the 3’oclock position should give you the best chance of a good push off, but practicing clipping in quickly, without looking down, is a good idea.

Drinking and eating on the bike

Drinking and eating on the bike when you’re riding at an easy pace needs to be second nature before you’ll feel comfortable doing it in the middle of a race. You definitely don’t want to find you aren’t confident doing so five laps in when cotton mouth has hit.

Make a note to regularly practice drinking and eating on the bike – ideally when you’re working quite hard, riding uphill – basically find ways of making something that is generally very easy to do in training more difficult, to replicate how it will feel in a race.

Tactics

You’ll pick up your own racing tactics over time – and your first races should really just be about having fun, and not putting too much pressure on yourself.

However, if you want to make a go at being competitive, try to stay in the first third of the group during the race. The pace will probably accelerate in the first few minutes, but hold on, and concentrate on keeping well within the group, where the effort required to keep up is less due to the benefit of drafting behind other riders.

5 Ways to Increase your Average Speed

If you do find yourself close to the front, be careful not to give the entire peloton a tow around the course until the final sprint, and flick your elbow out to make it clear you’re moving off the front before positioning yourself in the safety of the bunch, where you can conserve some energy.

To the contrary, if you find yourself out the back of the group, you have two choices: time trial around on your own for an hour, or find a group of other stragglers and work together to get as close to the bunch, or the front of the race, as possible. The latter will probably be much more fun, and gives you an opportunity to practice skills in a smaller group.

There are some specific women’s skills training days available that may help – check out the Racing Chance foundation for upcoming dates.

Whatever you do, take the advice from Elinor Barker – and have lots of fun during your first season!