Anna Simbirtseva: from the couch to road racing and the first women's team of St. Petersburg

Guest

Useful from the issue

1. First, define your goal

   Health, company or sport — everything else depends on it. Do not compare yourself with experienced racers at the start of the journey.

2. Consistency is more important than one-time exploits

   Progress is given only by a regular training process. Really estimate how many hours per week there are on the bike, and use them as efficiently as possible.

3. Money is for the coach, not for hardware

   A beginner will have enough of a serviceable basic bike. Coaching support protects against haphazard intervals and overtraining, after which many quit.

4. Learn sports, not just pedal

   Read the channels about the tactics and device of racing, watch professional racing. To immerse yourself in the atmosphere, Anna advises the Netflix series about the Tour de France.

5. How to understand that the coach is yours

   He understands your goals, you see progress in numbers, the feedback is adequate, and you don't have to do training from under the stick. It's normal to change the coach when I've grown up.

6. Bicycle riding technique

   Even a few technical trainings with an MTB trainer show what road riders lack in bike control.

7. In a serious race you need a team

   Against teams with tactics and roles, a loner doesn't solve much. Teamwork starts with a briefing and a plan, even if there are only a few of you.

8. The moral side decides

   It should be comfortable in the team and with the coach. Support after a fall or an unsuccessful race affects progress no less than the training plan.

The first race in sneakers and with a broken knee

Ilya starts with a joke about the anti-record: there has never been a guest with such a short experience in the studio. Anna says that she was engaged in dancing as a child, after a spinal fracture she switched to drawing and design, then there was a corporate career. At some point she left the office, time was freed up, and the search for hobbies began — theater, dancing, percussion.

Everything was decided by the post of a friend who drove a road race without a sporting past. Anna caught fire, took a slot for the August "La Strada" and decided to assemble the bike herself, but the frame never arrived. A week before the start, she found a Bianchi suitable for a small loan, fell on the embankment two days before the race and eventually went to the first race with a blue knee, in sneakers and without riding experience in a group.

How to roll into cycling from scratch

The main thing, according to Anna, is to understand your own goal: someone rides for health, someone for company, someone for sports. You shouldn't look back at experienced riders and think that you don't belong here. If the goal is sports, two things work: consistency, that is, regular training at the time that is actually in the week, and the effectiveness of using this time.

The most effective thing, Anna believes, is not to save on a coach: independent intervals without understanding often end in overtraining and disappointment. The third point is to immerse yourself in theory: read channels, watch races, understand tactics. She calls amateur sports a smaller copy of professional sports, and for the first acquaintance with the atmosphere, she advises the Netflix documentary series about the Tour de France.

Separately, Anna talks about hardware: a beginner doesn't need a top bike, it's largely marketing. A serviceable basic bike is enough, and it's better to spend money on training.

Goals, Highways, and coach search

Anna's goals from the very beginning were athletic: to race and see her own progress, without illusions about the absolute in two years. Now she already rides the full distances of group races and team time trial. Her first coach was a specialist from the MTB school, and even a few technical classes showed her how much mountain bikers are better at cycling than road riders. But there is not enough time for everything, and Anna deliberately keeps her focus on the highway so as not to be mediocre in several disciplines.

Her criteria for choosing a coach are simple: he understands your goals and leads to them, there is visible progress, including in numbers, adequate feedback and convenient communication. Training should not be done from under the stick. Changing a coach when you've grown up is normal: This is what professionals do, and Anna remembers how Pogachar grew up after the change of coach.

Etalon and leaving the team

After the first season and trips to the races in Moscow, Anna saw how well the Moscow teams were working and realized that there was nothing for one rider to do in a serious race against them. When the Etalon team was revived in St. Petersburg, she joined its headquarters: she led social networks and projects with sponsors and organizers. During that year, several more teams appeared in the city, and Anna considers it a healthy competition.

She speaks about the reasons for her departure with restraint and only about the sports side. The corporate part did not work out, and she first left the headquarters, remaining an athlete. Then it became clear that the female part of the team had no development: at the Moscow La Strada, the men had a briefing, tactics and roles, and the four girls rode each by themselves. After a heavy fall at that race, when no one missed her at the finish line, and then reproached for the lack of training two days later, Anna left the team and paused work with the coach. She was not going to give up cycling at the same time.

Queenz — Women's sports team

The idea of the team remained, and Anna gathered like-minded people. She calls Queenz the first women's cycling team in St. Petersburg: not a club, but a sports team where girls systematically train and race. The team appeared at the end of the season, and organizational work is still underway. Ilya notes that the team, which was assembled by the amateurs themselves without a coach or sponsor, is a more complicated story, but also more valuable.

Teamwork, according to Anna, is needed to implement tactics in the race, and not to go as a side dish. It is more difficult to assemble a large squad in the women's peloton, but there are more girls, and the team wants to help them enter the sport more easily.

Sexism and the female peloton

There is sexism in amateur cycling, Anna says: when the team announced itself, they immediately started labeling it. She hears that women are slow and it's not interesting to look at them, although they compete in separate competitions at their own level. Inequality stretches from professional sports — sponsors, salaries, airtime.

Another barrier is technical complexity: the bike needs to be understood and maintained, and girls are often given to understand that they cannot figure it out. Anna is sure that this is nonsense, and wants to talk more about women's cycling and show what girls are capable of.

Why there is "nothing" in St. Petersburg

There are almost no group road races in St. Petersburg: there was a "Gran Fondo" with one stage in the region, mostly time trial takes place. Therefore, the team plans to travel to Moscow for the season, where something happens almost every weekend. Anna regrets that amateurs in the city are scattered: there is no training base, there are security problems, and no one represents the interests of amateurs before the authorities. She was waiting for such a role from notable coaches and team leaders, but so far this is not happening.

At the end, Anna remembers a trip to Novgorod and the beautiful roads around the city. Ilya offers to come for a weekend ride in the summer, and the arrangement sounds mutual.

Timestamps

1. 00:00Anti-record by length of service
2. 00:31Cycling from the sofa
3. 05:20How to get into cycling
4. 12:43About goals
5. 15:09Why only the highway
6. 17:16How to find a coach
7. 19:22Etalon and the teams
8. 24:15Ani's new team
9. 27:03There are almost no races in St. Petersburg
10. 28:30Sexism
11. 34:13Why she left Etalon
12. 40:50Disunity of lovers
13. 45:30The moral

Mentioned in this episode

Queenz · Etalon · La Strada · Gran Fondo · Bianchi · Netflix