Training

bw181 said:

I was wondering what's average in terms of miles and amount of time spent training for TT's and Crits. I am starting bike racing and thought I was in fair shape but can't seem to do well even in the "slow" classes. I usually train (mostly riding) hard about an hour a day. Thanks.
Brian

hey brian, im from kokomo, where are you located? anyway. the best trianing i can think of for TT's is to get into your aero position (whatever that may be) and spend some time at lactate threshold. how much time depends on your ability i thinnk. although i know nothing about you, you need time close to your LT for a period of time.
for crits, i think a good training regimen would to ride for a while at LT, then burst into a a moderate sprint (simulates riding hard, then coming out of a corner) then go back down to LT. repeat several times. again how much and how often is a trial and error thing. and get into a hard groupride and a few crits. racing will quickly educate you.

I'm in Mooresville and have done a couple of races in the IRS series. Thanks for the response. I'll look into the LT.

vio765 said:

hey brian, im from kokomo, where are you located? anyway. the best trianing i can think of for TT's is to get into your aero position (whatever that may be) and spend some time at lactate threshold. how much time depends on your ability i thinnk. although i know nothing about you, you need time close to your LT for a period of time.
for crits, i think a good training regimen would to ride for a while at LT, then burst into a a moderate sprint (simulates riding hard, then coming out of a corner) then go back down to LT. repeat several times. again how much and how often is a trial and error thing. and get into a hard groupride and a few crits. racing will quickly educate you.

Fitness gains come very slowly, especially as you get fitter. And, fitness gains are cumulative from one year to the next. So the fittest cyclists have been at this for years.

While we've all read about the prodigies who cat. up from 5 to 3 in one season, for most of us the process is much slower.

Looked at from another perspective, how would you like it if you trained hard for 4 or 5 years only to learn that some newbie could catch up to your level of fitness with only 4 or 5 months of hard work? It doesn't work that way.

So the best advice I can give you is to be patient and stick with it. You will be amazed at the ever-higher levels of fitness you will attain. But those gains will come in small increments over time.

Second, get your hands on a training book so that you can create and follow a specific training plan instead of just riding "hard" every day (which isn't much of a plan, actually).

A great book is Joe Friel's Cyclist's Training Bible. He starts with helping you do an evaluation of your strengths and weaknesses (race your strengths, train your weaknesses). Then he helps you set up a year-round training program based on how many hours you want to invest (200 per year, 300 per year, etc.)

If you set up a long-term training plan and stick with it, you will eventually become a very competitive racer. If you just ride every day making up your training plan as you go, you will likely end up getting whipped up on by the cyclists who train with a plan.

The most important thing is not to get discouraged at first. Let your early losses be your motivation to train smarter and do better.

Bob

bw181 said:

I was wondering what's average in terms of miles and amount of time spent training for TT's and Crits. I am starting bike racing and thought I was in fair shape but can't seem to do well even in the "slow" classes. I usually train (mostly riding) hard about an hour a day. Thanks.
Brian

The time that people will have to train will vary from person to person. For the vast majority of people, it's the time that is left over from their other more important activities (e.g., work, school, family, etc), and can vary from less than an hour a day to many hours per day.

The time that you have available appears to be 1 hr/day (i don't know if you have more at the weekends etc). Thus, irrespective of what other people have, you have to come up with the most effective training to improve your performance with the time you have available.

If you're "slow" (and by that i'm thinking you mean average speed as opposed to sprint speed at the end of e.g. a crit) then it's a question of improving your sustainable TTpower (also called FT) and your VO2max/MAP.

Your lactate threshold is correlated with your TTpower, but isn't the same thing (and by definition you'd need to have blood drawn to ascertain LT). It's approximately 10 - 15% lower power than your ~1hr TTpower.

Your VO2max is the rate limiting mechanism, and you can think of it (if this analogy works you) as the size of your engine. your LT and TTpower are your sustainable rate and you could think of this as your red line on your rev counter. In other words, if your engine is very small it doesn't make much difference whether you can ride at 80 or 90% of max, you'd need to increase your engine size.

Your TTpower/FT/LT is the more trainable of the two, but your VO2max is about 50% genetically determined. Your MAP is highly correlated with VO2max but is slightly more trainable.

What next? Have a search on the forum for threads about increasing LT/TTpower/FT as well as VO2max/MAP. Designing a training programme which increases these metrics will directly help your bike performance and make you 'faster'. If you don't want to design it yourself, or you want to take the uncertainty out of it, or want to progress at a likely faster rate then getting a coach will help you. As the forum sponsor, we'd be delighted to help you with coaching (check us out at www.cyclecoach.com).

cheers
ric

Thanks for the advice. I just ordered the book and will have to put a real training plan together.

Bobby Lex said:

Fitness gains come very slowly, especially as you get fitter. And, fitness gains are cumulative from one year to the next. So the fittest cyclists have been at this for years.

While we've all read about the prodigies who cat. up from 5 to 3 in one season, for most of us the process is much slower.

Looked at from another perspective, how would you like it if you trained hard for 4 or 5 years only to learn that some newbie could catch up to your level of fitness with only 4 or 5 months of hard work? It doesn't work that way.

So the best advice I can give you is to be patient and stick with it. You will be amazed at the ever-higher levels of fitness you will attain. But those gains will come in small increments over time.

Second, get your hands on a training book so that you can create and follow a specific training plan instead of just riding "hard" every day (which isn't much of a plan, actually).

A great book is Joe Friel's Cyclist's Training Bible. He starts with helping you do an evaluation of your strengths and weaknesses (race your strengths, train your weaknesses). Then he helps you set up a year-round training program based on how many hours you want to invest (200 per year, 300 per year, etc.)

If you set up a long-term training plan and stick with it, you will eventually become a very competitive racer. If you just ride every day making up your training plan as you go, you will likely end up getting whipped up on by the cyclists who train with a plan.

The most important thing is not to get discouraged at first. Let your early losses be your motivation to train smarter and do better.

Bob

Thanks for the advice.

ric_stern/RST said:

The time that people will have to train will vary from person to person. For the vast majority of people, it's the time that is left over from their other more important activities (e.g., work, school, family, etc), and can vary from less than an hour a day to many hours per day.

The time that you have available appears to be 1 hr/day (i don't know if you have more at the weekends etc). Thus, irrespective of what other people have, you have to come up with the most effective training to improve your performance with the time you have available.

If you're "slow" (and by that i'm thinking you mean average speed as opposed to sprint speed at the end of e.g. a crit) then it's a question of improving your sustainable TTpower (also called FT) and your VO2max/MAP.

Your lactate threshold is correlated with your TTpower, but isn't the same thing (and by definition you'd need to have blood drawn to ascertain LT). It's approximately 10 - 15% lower power than your ~1hr TTpower.

Your VO2max is the rate limiting mechanism, and you can think of it (if this analogy works you) as the size of your engine. your LT and TTpower are your sustainable rate and you could think of this as your red line on your rev counter. In other words, if your engine is very small it doesn't make much difference whether you can ride at 80 or 90% of max, you'd need to increase your engine size.

Your TTpower/FT/LT is the more trainable of the two, but your VO2max is about 50% genetically determined. Your MAP is highly correlated with VO2max but is slightly more trainable.

What next? Have a search on the forum for threads about increasing LT/TTpower/FT as well as VO2max/MAP. Designing a training programme which increases these metrics will directly help your bike performance and make you 'faster'. If you don't want to design it yourself, or you want to take the uncertainty out of it, or want to progress at a likely faster rate then getting a coach will help you. As the forum sponsor, we'd be delighted to help you with coaching (check us out at www.cyclecoach.com).

cheers
ric

bw181 said:

I was wondering what's average in terms of miles and amount of time spent training for TT's and Crits. I am starting bike racing and thought I was in fair shape but can't seem to do well even in the "slow" classes. I usually train (mostly riding) hard about an hour a day. Thanks.
Brian

my brother-in-law just started road riding a couple years ago, and he has passed me in endurance and speed already, and i've been riding for decades.

how'd he do it? faster bike---no.

he trains with a local club at least twice a week, and i've ridden with them a number of times when i've visited him. I ride by myself almost all the time, so i'm in a rut--i keep in shape, but with no specific training, it's just miles.
but this season i'm going to join a local club and ride with them at least once a week, hopefully twice, to get my speed up.
so, my brother-in-law's club---they ride long rides, for sure, but they never drop their riders, they stay together, and still average higher mph than if one were riding alone. in addition, they do work on sprints, time-trialing, and enter local races (in denmark everything is 'local' pretty much, so lots to choose from there)
you can also wear the fancy electronics...but train with a group or at least one other person, so you can push each other more than whilst riding alone.
cheers mate

My training has been in a rut also, just logging miles with no real plan. Finding other riders to train with sounds like good advice. Thanks.

Eilert Pilarm said:

my brother-in-law just started road riding a couple years ago, and he has passed me in endurance and speed already, and i've been riding for decades.

how'd he do it? faster bike---no.

he trains with a local club at least twice a week, and i've ridden with them a number of times when i've visited him. I ride by myself almost all the time, so i'm in a rut--i keep in shape, but with no specific training, it's just miles.
but this season i'm going to join a local club and ride with them at least once a week, hopefully twice, to get my speed up.
so, my brother-in-law's club---they ride long rides, for sure, but they never drop their riders, they stay together, and still average higher mph than if one were riding alone. in addition, they do work on sprints, time-trialing, and enter local races (in denmark everything is 'local' pretty much, so lots to choose from there)
you can also wear the fancy electronics...but train with a group or at least one other person, so you can push each other more than whilst riding alone.
cheers mate