With the Tour de France starting tomorrow (live report), I thought I’d do a little post relating cycling to fly casting. When I was road racing (i.e. when I was younger and faster), I paid a lot of attention to the more “advanced” aspects of things like pedal/cleat interface, body position, gearing, and of course, the fanciest Italian parts that I could afford. All of which did help me go faster, or at least take pleasure in my bike. Only one problem: I never had in-depth instruction on certain fundamentals and I never focused on certain fundamentals, either (“The basics? That’s for slow guys.”).

Then something happened. On a training ride, a rider I knew struck up a conversation with me about form. I don’t remember anything else about the discussion, but I do remember the key point. It was something to effect of “You’d be faster if you knew how to pedal better.” Huh? Know how to pedal? I thought I was already pretty fast. And what did he know about pedaling anyway? More than me, as it turned out.

Eventually, I got a lesson in pedaling. Yep, how to make my feet go in circles (and that was a big part of it—it’s a whole lot more than just mashing down on the pedals with youthful strength, trust me). Some might view pedaling as a no-brainer. Well my no-brainer training got me enough extra power throughout my pedal stroke to consistently get me into a higher gear. It changed my cycling forever, bringing me more overall speed and the ability to finally hang with faster riders (although it never quite got rid of the taste of blood in my mouth on grinding, big-wall climbs). I sometimes wonder about all my time spent with mediocre basics, and how much more I would have enjoyed my riding and racing if I’d known better (and been perhaps more willing to learn).

It’s sort of like fly casting. Get a bit of success fishing and suddenly working on one’s fly casting—especially the foundations—is for “noobs” and once-a-year “sports.” I say think again. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve practiced my foundations, and yes, I still do. You’d think that I would have sought real advice on my pedaling as a teen, having grown up with the concept of foundations being pounded into my fly casting. I didn’t, but I sure worked on my fly casting with some focus. And that focus really paid off.

People at my seminars and clinics often ask me what they can do to increase distance, or improve accuracy, or reduce fatigue, or…. The list is long. I’ll of course give my clients “quick fixes” which can help tune bits and pieces of the cast and garner some useful advances. But then, I tell almost everyone to work on their foundations—great casting comes from great foundations. If there are errors in one’s foundations, those errors can be magnified when extra skills are added. And errors in one’s foundations mean that one’s casting will never be as enjoyable and successful as it could be. Some people take the advice, some don’t. For those that do, it’s not an easy road to travel, since it requires altering possibly years of previous motion reenforcement. But, when the alteration does come, and the foundations are renewed, it changes things for people.

So whether you care much for cycling or not, at least take something from my youthful racing-days past. Give your foundation casting stroke some attention, and you may find that extra gear in your casting that you never even knew you had! (And if you are fan of “le Tour,” here’s to three weeks of the maillot jaune!)