I have this one fantasy where I am fabulously wealthy, live in an architecturally elegant yet not too big house, and have a live-in housekeeper who motorpaces me on the weekends. She’d wear a French maid outfit even while driving the scooter and she’d have the French accent too.
Well, Herriott Performance Sports doesn’t have the more fantastical elements, but they do have the motorscooter tricked out with a Kreitler roller. The roller is a safety device in case the front wheel of your bike should get too close to the scooter. Why would you want to motorpace, as in ride in the draft of a motorized vehicle? Because a bike handles far differently at 30mph than 20mph, and to really be competitive at the upper levels of cyclesport, you need to be able to handle a bike properly at that speed. Plus the effort of turning a big gear at high speed can’t quite be replicated at a slower speed. To become skilled and strong at speed, one needs to ride at that speed.
Professional cyclists spend much of the season racing at these speeds, but most cyclists rarely spend enough time training that fast because they don’t have enough opportunities to ride in fast groups. But a motorscooter never gets tired of leading out a drafting rider, and it’s much easier to find a road big enough for a scooter and a cyclist or two, compared to a group of cyclists big enough to sustain those high speeds. I think Herriott does motorpacing at the velodrome in Redmond, though.
If one is serious about racing at the top levels of amateur or professional cycling, then motorpacing can be a valuable tool.
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More importantly - Motorpacing is probably the most “fun” workout you can do. It’s usually really tiring and hard, but it’s awesome to be able to ride 30-32 without being completely on the rivet.
My motopacing experience with Herriot was not fun at all! First one his assistant warmed us up at like 33 mph and I was ready to hang my bike up for good, right then, and there. Of course, none of us were man enough to say, “hey, slow the f down.”
After some self-reassurance (“I’m good enough, smart enough, and gosh darn it people like me”), did another one and it was very hard. We were on the track with swirling, whipping winds. One corner you were in the draft, coming up on the scooter and the next corner, gapped and off the back. We also had *the new guy* with us, whose strong, but not yet smooth, and I just was terrified of his wheel.
I imagine it was more like being in one of those gyro machines they put astronauts in at the track then on the open road.