Ken Roczen kicked off the 2017 Monster Energy Supercross season last week at Anaheim 1 by doing what he does best — winning. The performance helped further establish the German-born Roczen as one of the top motocross and Supercross riders in the world.
While Roczen describes himself as a bit more old school in terms of his training, there are some pieces of tech he uses as tools to judge his riding.
“Obviously for riding at the highest level, you need anything you can get,” Roczen said. “On the other hand, training is training and if you’re working with somebody that knows what they’re doing, it’s really just a little bit of a guideline.”
One of the tools he uses is the Polar M400 watch, which is equipped with GPS and can be used to monitor heart rate. “A lot of our training is off the bicycle, and the watch is just easy to use,” said Roczen.
Ever since he turned pro at age 15, Roczen has been using a heart rate monitor. “Heart rate is just a guideline, it’s not exactly how you feel,” Roczen said.
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Thanks to his extensive use of heart rate monitors over the years, Roczen says that he can pretty much know “to a tee” where his heart rate is at without even looking at the monitor.
Another piece of tech that Roczen has used is something called a LITPro. “It’s a device that goes onto your helmet that has GPS, and basically they can take a drone and take a screenshot of the track you’re riding,” Roczen said. “What you can do is take outside lines, inside lines or whatever you want, and then you can compare it.”
LITPro, which Roczen used last year during Supercross races, allowed him to further breakdown his performance. If you find that one lap was faster than another, the device allows you to compare the two and see where you lost time. “Let’s say you do three laps and the one time you hit a rhythm section different than you hit the other laps, or you go outside on a turn and then the next lap you go inside,” Roczen described. “You can really compare to see what is quicker.”
While Roczen has used devices like heart rate monitors and the LITPro, he’s very adamant in relying on his instinct. “I’m a big person of how I feel on the body,” he said. “I just ride and put in 100 percent effort, and in the end, that’s all you can really do.”