Bicycle racing for almost anyone

It's good to just amble along, ride when you feel like it and maybe race occasionally. But guess what? If you get away with it you are very lucky. Just "ambling along" will not boost your fitness, and riding when you feel like it will not build endurance or power. You have to have a dig - test yourself against your maximums - to make improvements. And you have to do it regularly enough that what you gained one day is still there to build on today. Even if all you want to do is a recreational ride, you are better off getting regular sessions in place than 'starting all over again' every time you ride.

I'm not a coach, a nutritionalist or a physiologist - but I do ride, and I'll tell you what I believe.

• You must ride 3 times a week - minimum - to maintain your condition
• If you want to safely and comfortably race 30km then you must train for 3 times that distance every week for a month (so 90km a week for 4 weeks is the bare minimum for a 30km crit)
• Whatever you do in excess of that rule of thumb will give you the endurance and power to compete more comfortably (to counter attacks, even make attacks) - it's up to you how much more you can do!
  
• Intervals on top of base miles will build speed and power
• Train your weaknesses, not just your strengths
  
• Whatever strength you gain in one session will be 90% gone within a week, so do regular sessions to maintain that power (ie the torque you can apply through those cranks)
  
• Your endurance probably declines more slowly, but after 2 weeks you'll get that "starting all over again" feeling, so avoid long gaps between rides
  
• Regular miles not only help you build endurance but also ward off injury.
  

To get more technical about it, a focused training program can - indeed will, if you stick at it and don't get sick or injured - increase your VO2max by 15 to 30% over a 3-4 month period . If you stick at it consistently for 2 years or more you'll see up to a 50% improvement. Consistency is the key. Think about it - you learned to crawl, then to walk and it took years to really get the hang of it. And once you did learn to walk yyou kept at it, day in, day out. So why would you expect to jump on a bike once in a while and just go fast? In fact you need to train your mind as well as your muscles, and to build firstly the endurance and pedalling skills before getting the most out of your cycling. You do that with a plan - a plan to do ride regularly!

Labels: bike racing, Tips, training

Is more always better than less? Up to a point, sure. Ride LOTS! But yes, there is a limit. It's hard to say what's too much but listen to your body. If you feel bad, especially if you are putting in the miles and not improving, or if your heart rate is staying up when it should go down (at rest, say), take a break, lower the intensity and see if that helps. Another clue is when you can't get the heart rate up - like you used to hit 192bpm but now a maximum effort still feels like a max effort but you only hit 182. It would be nice to correlate that with workload - maybe you aren't actually working as hard as you thought- but if true then you may indeed have overtrained.

But don't kid yourself. If you have built up a base level of miles over a few months - say at least 100-200km a week - and then do some hard interval sessions on top, it is unlikely you have overtrained. Maybe. But not likely. Sudden intensity without base miles may injure you, but not overtrain you. However if you were doing 500-700km a week and laid on more on top of that then yes, overtraining is a possibility. Take a break, just in case. A week of slow riding won't hurt you!

To be a bit more scientific about it - and I'm not a coach, this is just my somewhat informed opinion - optimum training intensity varies by just a few percent between individuals, so there are some rules of thumb we can all follow to keep us improving. Such as:

• It is generally believed for example, and we have ample evidence to justify this belief, that maximum aerobic improvement occurs at around 85% VO2 max, give or take a few percent
• That's about 90% of your max. heart rate. So regular training above this level will increase the potential for injury without a corresponding lift in your cardiovascular adaptation - which is to say you are trying too hard, could become overtrained or injured - so back off a bit
• Now lower levels of exercise - say 55% max HR for 60 minutes or even 65% max HR for 45 minutes - may modestly improve, and at least maintain, your overall conditioning... but...
  
• Whilst that may be enough for you to stay in C grade, what if you want to get better, faster? Long steady distance training, say 50 to 70% of max HR for hours on end, will do little more than maintain status quo. Yes, it could burn off fat - a good thing. Yes, it will build endurance...
• But if you are looking to increase your top end (maybe to avoid being dropped in your frenzied local crit, or to attack and break away, win and go up a grade) you need to hit the high notes. That's the 85-90% max HR mark.
• It's finding a balance between too much high-intensity training and not enough that's hard. And why you pay big bucks to the experienced coaches to get that sort of result.
  

Of course we don't want to spend big bucks, so it's down to YOU. Hopefully in the above are some clues to improving your condition without injury.

Labels: Tip 1, training

SMART. Let me think... without looking it up... Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Repeatable and Timely (or something like that!!). Goals should be something valuable to you - an achievement, but not so easy as to be almost worthless, and not so hard that you never get there! Goals should also be measurable, although how you do that is up to you (quantifiable. My goal here is to write about goal setting, and I measure that by successfully posting... but that doesn't mean that my post is relevant or useful.

Anyway, in cycling terms it's a bit easier - or more explicable. I'm in the (sob!) Masters 5 category now so I can look up the world masters records and see how close I get. Hmmm. 50-54 year age group, 500m in ... yikes! I've a bit of work ahead of me!

Here's a useful track resource, by the way: Fixed Gear Fever.

Labels: cycling, records, track, training

Bike racing - the type of wheeled sport where your body represents the engine - is just like running, swimming, golfing, sleeping, fishing or any other activity. In fact it’s just like anything in life. Put the time and effort in and you’ll get better at it. It’s a simple equation, really, limited as much - or perhaps more - by your own motivation or commitment than by any theoretical potential you may or may not possess. If you are looking for easy fitness and a sport that won’t take up a lot of your time, stop now - it doesn’t exist. But don't let that put you off, either. The degree to which you invest your time and effort will pay dividends, no matter how small that investment. It's finding your personal balance that's important.

Multiple Australian and World Point Score medalist Gary Sutton was once reported to have replied to the question, "What’s the secret to success in bike racing?", with the statement: "Ride lots." Of course the greatest cyclist of all time, Eddy Merckx, reputedly said exactly the same. Perhaps Eddy was quoting Gary.

In any case it's a simplistic statement, sure, but not a bad thought either!

In the modern lingo of sports science "ride lots" equates with training specificity. But we won't get too scientific about it here. Instead let's keep it simple. By riding "lots" we adapt our bodies and our minds to what we want to do: ride. And the more highly adapted to "riding" the better at it we get. Of course someone may adapt even better than you (Lance Armstrong or Eddy Merckx spring to mind, amongst many others) but you can only do your best, so let's not get down about it.

And don’t put it off, thinking that you won’t do well, or that you don’t have the time. This is a multi-level, multi-discipline sport with a niche for everyone. You won’t know if you don’t try. Maybe you are a Lance Armstrong waiting to happen.

Labels: bike racing, bikeracing 101, bikes, training