Hell and High Water said:
I AM! Every time I ride, it's fantastic! I've truly fallen in love
with the bike!
Thanks for the excellent advice! I will continue to cherish my rides,
and try to watch the 'avg speed' indicator a bit less.
-Bob
I think there are some 'tricks' that you can use. Most of these won't work
for very experienced riders, but they've worked for me.
1. find a longish straightish road with a slight grade - a false flat. Do
intervals on this road, on both the uphill part and the downhill part. When
you do the downhill part, you should already be slightly breathless. Push
your speed so that you're seeing >24mph. IOW, if you can do 21mph on the
flat really pushing, here you're getting 3mph faster. If the grade is a bit
too much, this won't work as well - it should almost look flat. For me this
gets me used to riding at a faster speed than I'm used to and I can keep it
up longer, because you can grab nanoseconds of recovery it being a very
slight downhill (at least that's my theory). Don't get me wrong, it
shouldn't be easy, in fact it should feel harder than your hardest flat
interval in some respects. Use the 'uphill' portion to tire you and get you
breathing hard before you start the downhill portion. Do at least 5 - 8
repeats.
2. motorpacing. Same kind of thing. Find somewhere that you can have a
trusted and skilled partner drive in front of you so that you are riding
pretty hard to catch up to him, and using the lack of wind resistance,
really get your speed up. This takes some practice and skill on both parts,
but it can work - just be very careful and don't be tempted to ride too
close - 10-12 feet back is plenty. When you get your speed up, at a
pre-designated location, you pull out from around him and try to keep up
that new speed as long as you can. He should of course drop off and let you
by - be very careful doing this!
3. parkinglot Crits. I've found that I -really- give myself a workout by
finding a large empty parking lot that has some hills and a lot of tight
turns. Go out and ride a dozen or so laps pretending like you're in a real
criterion. Jump on the turns, stand to pedal, pick a "finish line" and go
for the sprint win on each lap. This teaches you like no other method how
to get tight fast turns, how to keep your speed up right after slowing for
the turn, how to find a good 'line', how to jump and pedal and so on. Since
the layout of the course dictates your tactics, you'll really give yourself
a good workout. I get more 'toasted' doing one of these than a hard fast
ride. The point is it's hard to 'tell yourself' ride harder. But a parking
lot crit, I find, -makes- you ride hard because of the lay-out. These can
be so tough I only do them once a week.
4. wear a somewhat bulky jacket. Go ride your regular course. Of course the
jacket will catch the wind, and it will tend to slow you down. Don't let
it. Try to forget you're wearing it. Now I don't mean you need to heat
stress yourself. A light jacket that's a little too big for you that
catches the wind is just as good. After about two weeks riding with the
jacket on your normal route you'll be doing the same speed you normally do.
Rest a day or do a couple day recovery rides, then take off the jacket and
do your course. I almost guarantee that in two weeks you'll add a mile or
two per hour to your average speed. Problem is, heh, is this is a somewhat
temporary effect - you'll be fast as [censored] for a few rides. If you go back
to riding your regular course in your regular cycling gear, in a couple
weeks, usually, you'll be back at your old speed - if you're not careful.
5. ride with a faster partner. This is one of the best methods, but I'm
putting it near the end of the list because most people realize this.
Obviously if you can find a group to ride with, that's even better. Learn
to draft. Use your partner to do 'jump sprints'. IOW, he drags you along
and you jump out and sprint past you. He then jumps on your tail and drafts
-you- and then jumps -you- and you draft for a while, then jump him again.
Rinse, repeat. Be careful - find an experienced partner and work up to
proper drafting methods. This is one of the more enjoyable tips, imo, but
since it's hard to find a good drafting partner, chances will be rare.
6. find a course where there's something that you can find to race, such as
a transit bus. (Be careful!) Try to beat the bus from point A to point B.
You don't have to be riding the same route, btw. You just have to 'barely
lose' to the bus and then 'work' to win over time. This is pretty fun too,
especially if you're not on the same route, but can see the bus here and
there on the way to the finish line. Pick an easy, slow lumbering vehicle
at first. Harder than it seems, since you're in traffic. Avoid taking
chances to 'win' - you want to win on speed, not cutting traffic lights,
obviously.
7. string together intervals where you used to rest. If I'm doing a one
mile interval and then turn off a side street to recover, after a couple
weeks I'll try and eliminate that turn off as a 'rest' street. Same thing
doing hills. Where you used to keep your speed up going to the top of the
hill, instead pick a point just past the crest and pick a speed you want to
reach as you pass that point. WHile it's pretty easy to sprint up my
favorite hill at 14mph, it's -much- harder to do that -and- keep my speed
up over the crest and hit 16mph 100 yds past the crest on the downhill, b/c
you're really tired, but being a downhill, it's mentally easier, I think.
8. find a hill that you can do ok. Alternate riding it various ways. Ride
up it slalom some days. Other days ride up it keeping up your speed no
matter what it takes - stand to climb, slalom a little, spin an easier
gear. Try to set a speed that's just a little too vast, but do everything
you can to reach that speed. Once you're pretty speedy, then apply trick
#7, and string together the hill climb, keeping your speed up over the
crest and getting up to a nice fast speed just past the crest, say 100
yards - a telephone pole or something. Somedays ride the hill 'easy' -
break it up.
9. Find a course with rolling hills that's a bit of a challenge. Learn it
for a couple weeks. Then go ride it but try to expend as little energy as
possible. IOW, 'flatten it out'. When you ride the hills, slalom, stand,
spin, do any and everything to make that ride feel like it takes -no-
energy to ride. Because you're mentally and technically 'flattening it out'
you'll end up some days with a faster average speed than usual because
you'll have learned to 'parcel out' your energy better. (hope this makes
sense - it's really -neat- when it works).
10. Realize that your improvement come during -rest- not training. So after
each ride, do a recovery drink (home made is fine). Get that 1:4 mix of
protein and carbs in those muscles within 30-40 minutes post ride -
immediately is best. Get plenty of sleep, consider taking an after noon nap
on weekends or whatever your hardest day is. Always work in some
excrutiatingly slow (HRM=108bpm) recovery ride. I can usually tell when I
need one of these because my legs are starting to get a little sore when I
tense the muscles.
There are -lots- of other things you can try but I figured you'd like the
'active training tricks' best.
As you can see these are mostly 'mental' things, but they're ways that you
can get that bike moving faster than you can by normal pedalling. Obviously
don't do them all at the same time, and find the ones that work for you, be
creative, find other similar ways. Above all be careful. Don't run into
your motorpace car (actually a motorbike is better - I have a friend with a
Vespa that I do this with!), don't strain something. You're mainly working
on your lungs not your leg muscles.
HTH.
That's good for now. Bear in mind, these are things I've tried myself and
for me they work. ymmv. ;-)
jj
