The Coaching Pages Ray Minovi

Training articles from the LVRC’s Veteran Leaguer, 1999 – 2006

Note Most of the pieces in this collection were originally written for The Veteran Leaguer, the quarterly journal of the League of Veteran Racing Cyclists. There is therefore a bias towards older riders (over 40), but the general principles remain the same for all riders and if you’re a 25-year-old then it’s easy enough to do a bit more or ride a bit harder. One or two pieces (Road Race Tactics, for instance) were written for Cycle Coaching, the journal of the Association of British Cycling Coaches. The originals were intended to fit on to a single page of A4 but some have been expanded slightly for this collection. Some of the pieces remain exactly as they were when first published. This is why they refer to previous issues, or a growing or shrinking readership. Others have been modified to fit better. We’ve also added a few pictures just to make it all look prettier.

Contents Basic Training

4

The One-pace Rider

6

Getting the miles in

7

Train your weaknesses, race your strengths

11

Warm front: the importance of warming up

13

In the Off-season

14

Good servant, bad master: heart rate monitors

15

Racing yourself fit

17

Recovering

19

Warm-weather training in Mallorca

21

Mallorca: technical regulations

22

You crazy thing: don’t overdo it at the training camp

23

Interval training

25

15 – 30: very short intervals

26

Interval training: other methods

27

How to ride in road races

29

Getting in the line: how to ride in road-races

30

Road Racing: Tactics

33

Improving your finishing sprint

39

Weight and power

41

It’s Magic: the secret of success

42

Tapering: the finishing touch

43

Sitting comfortably: position

44

Fitting it all in: when to do your training

46

Chance favours the prepared mind

48

Riding on feel: another look at RPE

49

How to win a road race

50

Strong but shelled out on the hills

51

How I suffered!

52

The cost of exercise

53

Base training – what next? John Bettinson

54

Winter draws on

55

Turbocharged

56

Everybody has to start somewhere. This is the basic primer for all riders. If you base your training on these principles you may not become a world champion, but you will definitely improve.

Basic Training IT’S

A GOOD IDEA to repeat some basic training advice from time to time. After a couple of years there will be enough new people who are coming to this stuff for the first time – and in any case ideas may have changed, at least a little bit. So here goes: no apologies if you know all this already – somewhere, somebody doesn’t.

cyclists race far too often. You can only expect to be at your very best for about four important events, so the other events should have secondary aims. Write down your plan. When you’ve got a fairly clear idea of what races you want to compete in, then you can develop a clear idea of how you should train in order to maximise your results in those events.

Training: general principles Progression When you train hard you overload the various systems of your body with an effort that is just too much for it. The heart has to beat very fast, the muscles fill up with lactic acid, the muscles and liver give up their stored glucose to provide energy. When you rest and eat, the body begins to recover from this violent assault you made on it, and says to itself: ‘I mustn’t be caught out like that again – I must prepare for future efforts’. So it over-compensates for the effort you made by building up muscle fibres, improving the ability of your heart, lungs and blood vessels to carry oxygenated blood, training itself to eliminate lactic acid, taking on even more glucose for energy, and so on. So: Training should be planned Training should be progressive Training should be specific Training should be differentiated You must allow enough time for recovery.

Planning

You need to know what you’re training for, so the first part of your planning is to decide on your goals for the season. What competitions do you want to take part in? what type? what duration? at what level? with what result? Will you be satisfied with setting personal bests or do you want to beat other people, i.e. win? Go through the calendar identifying your goals and pencilling in a competition programme. Don’t include too many events: many

If you went out every day and rode for three hours at 15 mph you’d get used to doing it and find it easy. But you wouldn’t develop the ability to race at 25 mph, to accelerate rapidly, to maintain a strenuous effort for several minutes. As you get fitter your body gets more able to withstand strenuous efforts and therefore your training has to get more demanding – either longer (in-

crease in volume) or faster (increase in intensity). Or, of course, both.

Specific

Some people think that all exercise of any type is good for any athlete (cross training): according to this theory, cyclists will benefit from running, swimming, rowing, skiing and so on. It’s a good idea to do other things from time to time, especially in the off-season, to introduce variety and stop yourself getting mentally stale. Other activities will also work your heart-lung system hard, which is good. However science has shown that cross-training doesn’t actually improve your ability in your specialist sport. If you regard yourself as a specialist racing cyclist, once the season starts all your training should be on the bike, except for daily stretching and a few free exercises.

Differentiation

You shouldn’t train always at the same level. If you always try as hard in training as you do in races, you’ll exhaust yourself and become chronically fatigued. On the other hand, if you always ride at a steady pace you’ll find it difficult to cope with sudden changes. If you always potter, then you won’t overload your system and the body won’t overcompensate: there’ll be no training response. Another reason for training at different levels is that your muscles are made up of different types of fibres which are brought into use at different intensities. Fast-twitch fibres are used in sprinting, and ‘born’ sprinters start off with more of them, but they tire quickly. Endurance riders need a higher proportion of slow-twitch fibres. But you still have to train them, so each ride has to have a different purpose. The intensity (how hard you try) and volume (the time you spend) will differ. Long, steady rides will be the foundation of endurance and will encourage the body to use its fat reserves for

energy. These will be done in the early part of the year, but you should include a longer ride say every ten days throughout the year. Short, fast rides will overload the heart, lungs, and oxygen transport system and the body will make them bigger and stronger. You will do one of these per week in the off season, about 20 minutes. When you’ve got in the foundation, then you will do more shorter, fast rides, while at the same time you cut down on the long rides. Intervals are very short, fast rides (1 - 2 minutes) repeated a number of times in a session without allowing complete recovery. You’ll only benefit if you already have a good level of basic endurance fitness. Fairly short, very slow rides will be used for recovery – keeping the body working very gently helps it to recover quicker than just sitting about, because it enhances blood flow in the muscles. A road-racing cyclist will need a great deal of variety: long, hard steady

stretches, climbs, sprinting, etc.

Recovery

It’s vital to allow enough time for recovery. Doing too much day after day will result in fatigue, and you risk arriving at the competition day tired out. Depending on the intensity and volume of your training you’ll almost certainly need one or two days off each week. One way to organise your training is to work on a four-day cycle: a day’s easy training, a day’s hard training, a longer ride, and then a day off. If you feel tired, don’t train. Always do a little bit less rather than a little bit more. However, if your training is organised properly, you shouldn’t need more than two consecutive days off except in special circumstances (e.g. after a very hard stage race). Lastly, enjoy – we’re supposed to be doing this because we like it.

How make yourself into a one-pace rider to long rides, 4 – 6 hours at an unvarying 15 mph (or a bit slower, if you can manage it), with plenty of hills up which you grind as best you can. Keep your pedalling rate well below 60 rpm. If you can get down to about 28 rpm, that’s ideal. CONFINE YOURSELF STRICTLY

Never, under any circumstances, accelerate. If you have to, accelerate as slowly as possible. If your companions leave you behind, don’t be tricked into trying harder: maintain your pace. They will either give up, or if they don’t, then you’re better off without them. Avoid doing short sprints, or any kind of interval training – these can improve your acceleration, and before you know it, you’ll be sprinting up to breakaways and bridging gaps – not what you’re looking for at all.

Carry a saddlebag or panniers with a few house-bricks in them. This will make sure you become a work-horse suitable for pulling a milk-float, not a potential Derby winner. A frame made of gas-pipe and fat, soft tyres are good, too. Hill intervals (a minute on, a minute off) are particularly bad. Exercise of this kind, unwisely taken, can result in an improvement to the heart and lungs which you definitely don’t want if your aim is to become a one-pace plodder. Don’t ride 10-mile time-trials in the season. Or out of season. Or ever. Don’t ride team time-trials – they can help make you seriously fast. Don’t go on the weekly chain-gang. That 30 miles flat out once a week will produce a noticeable improvement in your fitness and performance, the last thing you need.

Avoid that 20-minute ride at 90% or so once a week on the turbo through the winter. Riders who follow the above rules will find the benefits are many. Not only will no-one expect you to ride at or even near the front of the bunch, they’ll tell you to go to the back. You won’t be tempted to attack or chase breaks if the effort leaves you sick and dizzy. When you get dropped (and don’t worry – you will get dropped) you can enjoy the scenery as you plod gently back to the headquarters, stopping for a little ornithology and taking drinks from the spectators. But make sure that they know that this is part of your philosophy, not a result of mechanical trouble. V

Back in the winter of 2000/2001 we asked a representative sample of LVRC riders for their goals next year and what they plan to do in order to reach them. These are some of the responses.

Getting the miles in Roly Crayford, (E cat)San Fairy Ann CC, tries to do something different each year: ‘… but I’m running out of things to do. This year I did 2.33 in the World Masters 2000 metres pursuit – after six silvers I finally got a gold. It’ll be one of my aims for next year – and I want to do better in the LVRC ‘E’ cat road and crit champs.’ Roly’s work as a carpenter ‘makes you too tired to train sometimes, all that running up and down ladders, carting scaffolding about’; but he reckons his job helps build up stamina. In November he has a good break. Then sporadic club rides, hour-and-a-half sessions at Calshot track Wednesday evenings for speed work with Harry Jackson. A fair bit of mountain biking, which increases after Christmas: ‘We’ve got plenty of woods round here. One year Roy Manser and I did the South Downs Way, 113 miles in two days with an overnight stop. Bloody hard.’ A few evening rides, not many. ‘April this year three of us did 90mile rides to build endurance, 30-mile stretches with two half-hour café stops, three times in about ten days.’ Then Herne Hill Saturdays, 2½ - 3 hours, the odd organised trip to Manchester and Calshot. So, not a high mileage, but all quality work, plus racing three times a week, on the track and criteriums. ‘I found this year I was a bit lacking in stamina, such short races, so I rode the Surrey League handicaps, where the fields include elite riders, 40-50 miles. In three weeks I was coping, in four I was getting placings. Keith moves you back as you get better. Hard training suits me, and racing against better and younger riders pulls you out. Sometimes we take a day trip to race in Belgium. I used to race five times a week, but it’s too much. About six years ago I used to do 3-up 10s, twice a week, with Anthony Wallace and Roy Manser. They’re phenomenal for developing your speed –

we’d do 19-minute 10s.’ Roger Iddles, D, prolific winner of road races and time-trials: Winter is in three sections. Mid-October to end November I take my holidays, stop riding the bike, get a physical and mental break from cycling. My weight goes up, but I can withstand a consistent heavy training programme through the year. Start again in December. I used to do all my winter work in the gym (multigym, rowing machine, turbo), but now I work part time I can do all my training in the daytime and on the road. Normally 2 – 3 hours twice a week plus 3 hours on Saturday and 4 hours on a Sunday, all at a steady 17.5 mph. 1st January to 1st April: training every day, building up mileage/speed progressively, 1½ - 3 hours per ride, 15 hours per week, building to 20 hours per week by the end of March. Most of this is done alone, increasing my average to 19 mph for 2 – 3 hours. The weekend runs with the Stourbridge over the big hills allow the kids to get their own back on this big old man. For the fourth year running I’ll be on the Ideal Travel training camp in Majorca for the second half of March. If you go there with a reasonable level of fitness you can take full advantage of two weeks of full time training in warm, usually dry, weather where you can mix it with riders of all ages and levels – and most important, you can get the correct type of rest. I do 850 to 1000 miles in the fortnight but increase my average speed to 22 – 23 mph on some rides. I’ve found that my power output increases significantly during this period. Once I start to race I get into my normal weekly routine. This usually is: Mon: 2 hr steady, flattish. Tue am, 3 – 4 hr even tempo, fairly hilly. Tue pm, 2 hr Stourbridge bash around the perimeter of the local airfield, 3.3 miles circuit, six laps flat out. Wed am, 2-3 hours even tempo, flattish.

Wed pm – Club ‘10’ or open TT. Thur 2 hrs even pace, flattish. Friday - Rest Day. Sat am – I hour warm-up ride. Sat pm – Race. Sunday - Race Naturally this routine varies according to my racing calendar, but I expect to concentrate on LVRC races until August then full time on time trials; but I’ll have to fit in with the Stourbridge CC for the short distance TT champs. Hugh McGuire, 1998 E cat champion, rides all through the winter, longish group rides 50 – 70 miles on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, maybe a couple of shorter rides on two other days. ‘Plenty of volume is the thing. None of this interval training. People have got the idea that because Chris Boardman only did 8 hours a week when he was preparing for Barcelona that that’s enough for anyone.’ In February he’ll go to Mallorca for a month, during which he’ll aim to average 75 miles a day for the whole period, weather permitting , usually with a lunch stop, and plenty of big climbs, over 2000 miles in the month. This year he only missed one day, the last of the trip, out of 28. B cat National Criterium Champion Chris Singleton switches to cyclo-cross at the beginning of November and aims to ride one cyclo-cross every weekend until the end of January. ‘I get in a 30minute cross-country run three, sometimes four times a week, and go out on the Wednesday dole run, usually about 70 miles. I do one specific cyclo-cross training session per week, about an hour, and do an hour’s fast road ride for speed. I enjoy cyclo-cross and I value it because it helps my road season, which is what I reallylike, and it gives me a focus to keep my weight down through the winter. Last season was a bit disappointing in some ways, so next year I really want to do well in the Pe-

I train hard. Mid-March I start racing, and when the lighter nights come I up the miles and go harder, but never more than 250 miles a week. When I’m fit I do interval sessions, one or two a week depending on the race, long sprints, varying between high and low gears on a 3mile circuit. Very good for building power and improving my sprint, which isn’t naturally very strong. I’ve been a vegetarian for the last four years, and I feel better for it. This year I want to keep my 1st Cat BCF licence, try to win their Vets title, generally enjoy my racing.

The basis of all cycling training was set in the early days. Here the Pelissier brothers Henri (left) and Francis (right) in the early 20s. ter Fryer races and the LVRC championship events. George Bennett (E) won the ICF 60+ World Road title at Eastway in August. End of season I took a 15-day holiday totally away, with my cousin in Atlanta. After that I couldn’t wait to get back out on the bike. In winter my routine, as in summer, is to ride to cafes. Wednesdays I ride 24 to 33 miles from my home to Catterick, depending on the weather, and how I feel. An hour in the cafe, and the last 26 miles ridden 2 mph above our capability. Total: 76miles at 18 mph, get home knackered. Thursday off – I must have rest days between hard rides nowadays. At 62 I feel that above all I want to enjoy my cycling and make it fun not hard work. Friday, 60 miles with a café stop, tired but not worn out. Saturday rest day again. Sundays with the club, 60 miles before Christmas, 85 miles after, 40 riders averaging 18 mph. Mondays and Tuesdays are rest days until after January when I may do 40 miles steady on a Tuesday. My usual weekly mileage in the winter is 200 to 220 miles. This year I had the last week in March in Mallorca, doing 560 miles in six days, averaging 19-20 mph. Very tired when

I got home, but it clearly prepared me properly for the season. I’ve never done any other kind of training except cycling – weight-training just adds muscle you have to carry. I also think that to do well in one area you have to concentrate on it to the exclusion of all other forms of racing. My season will be based entirely around road racing next year. I do take my diet seriously and try to eat a good athlete’s diet. My aims next season? To enjoy my cycling and racing, to defend the ICF World Champs jersey, have a go at the UCI event too, and to win my club’s vets trophy. This was my first season back and with it under my belt and the improvement in my form, I should, with luck, be going better next year. Rob O’Connor, third in A Cat championships, doesn’t do much this time of year: ‘80 to 100 miles a week up to Christmas, I do a fair bit of walking and running. I don’t like going to and from work in the dark on icy roads. In January/February I do 30–40 minutes twice a week on the turbo, plus 50–60 miles Saturdays and Sundays, sometimes in a group, with a cafe stop. I need more recovery time nowadays. I’m not very scientific, do it on feel, but when I train

A cat rider Nick Yarworth led the Peter Fryer series most of the season: Now I’m older that I don’t really stop in the off-season, take 2 to 3 weeks off, but even then I do some running. I don’t work shifts, but with in the police I never know what I’ll be doing, so I go for quality rather than quantity. I’m a slave to the turbo-trainer, really, even in the season. Certain workouts tell me when I’m getting fitter, or I’ve reached a plateau, and I can tweak the training accordingly. If you train the same way all the time, after a while you stop improving. I don’t record miles, just time spent, and I use my pulse monitor. Weekends I get out, perhaps 5 hours for the weekend, mostly steady. 90% of my training is done on my own, it’s mostly the geography of where I live. I generally try to avoid getting involved in tear-ups – they can be harder than races: after some my average pulse rate can be higher than after a Peter Fryer event. At the moment I’m doing two workouts a week on the turbo, 45 minutes or so, steady, just boredom really. In the season it’ll be three, doing intervals, really hard. My favourite is one minute on, one minute off, on the rivet, a maximum of twelve. That’s only fifty minutes with a warm-up and warmdown. I’m not faddy about diet but a lot more careful than when I was younger: low fat, no chocolates or biscuits, plenty of fruit and veg, red wine I quite like. I can see from a 10-year-old photo that I’ve lost a lot of weight, and the increased power/weight ratio has made a big difference, especially climbing. I religiously keep a training diary, it’s good to go back over it and see where you were doing the right thing.

Next season I really want a crack at the World Masters pursuit, I’ll be doing some time-trials, filling in with races. I haven’t written down my aims yet, but you definitely need them. Neil Mar tin, BCF Veterans Road Champion. During the Winter I ride to the weather, but I love riding my bike so a day off annoys me! I try and complete my 2-hr set circuit most mornings pre-work. Weekends I get out with the local group, a steady state ride of 3½ hrs. with a cafe stop. All my pedalling from October to early January is on a 42x16 freewheel for ease of maintenance and souplesse. Mid Jan. the gears go back on for some serious bit and chunk with the local gang on a Sat. and Sun. up to the first racing, usually for me the first w/e in March. Weekly mileage around 200, building up to 300/350 in the season.All my winter bike work is on a road bike. Around mid- October I start running Tues. and Thurs. evenings, 30 min building up to 45 mins. by December. We go swimming as a family on Fridays where I do a non-stop kilometre. Christmas week is a good time to get some solid miles in, 400+ would be good, generally on my own as no-one else wants to know. Next year will be the first year for a while that I won’t be going to Mallorca in April; I’ve decided to attack the season a little differently next year with a few targets later in the year i.e. the National road champs and the Worlds in Austria in August. Early season I’ll be supporting the LVRC events in most cases. The Fryer series has minimal attraction compared to events like the Abberleys and the LVRC road champs that I didn’t ride in 2000 due to the location. Main targets for 2001 are the two National road titles; LVRC and BCF; the LVRC 2 and 3 days throughout the year and the Masters road champs. Roll on 2001! Steve Davies, Darlington CC, will be a B Cat for another year. I’ve only been back on the bike for three seasons, having had twelve years away from the sport. The differences are turbo-trainers and heart-rate monitors. I only obtained an HRM earlier this year (2000) and feel that I have still to get the best use our of it. I will certainly do more structured interval training next year. I use the turbo pre-sea-

Fifty years after the Pelissiers Eddy Merckx and his team-mates were still doiug the same thing. son on a limited basis. I have never done anything other than ride the bike and have often wondered if I would have benefited from weight training. My goal for this season (and the reason I started riding again) is a Master’s track championship, and my season is structured around this and the National track champs. The Vets National road race (BCF) is my next priority – this year I will be eligible for the over-50s, but I will ride the over-40s too, just for the crack. Next on the wall planner are the LVRC road and crit champs. I try to ride our open club time-trials and support the local SPOCO series. In the past I stopped in September and rode only Sunday runs until January. Nowadays I keep myself fairly active, no actual break from the bike, but no structure until January. I do perhaps 80 miles with the club on Sundays, two hours on Saturday every other week, half an hour on the rollers, Tuesdays at the Velodrome track league. In January it’s: Sunday runs, two hours building to three on Saturdays, 1½ building to 2½ on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Steady miles, but Tuesdays is the chain gang and increases in intensity towards the start of the season. Interval training once a week on the turbo for ten weeks, an hour in total. I may not ride the track league because I think base miles are more important, and the travelling makes it a late night. I’ve never attended a winter or spring training camp – much as I’d like to, I have to keep my holidays (and cash!)

for a week at the track champs and the family holidays. Once the season starts I usually ride to most local events, then a vets stage race at Easter, the Tour of the Abberleys in early May. I usually ride a local 10mile TT Saturdays, riding out and home, try to find two rides each weekend. If Sunday is a special target event I would go for a potter on Saturday. I feel that overall my training should have more structure and be more specific, but when I can’t make up my mind what I’m training for, other than to ride the bike, it’s not easy. Barrie Mitchell, 99 C Cat Crit champion and prolific Midlands winner, will be a D cat rider this year. October to mid-January Monday, 1-hr weights, 5 miles on the turbo Tuesday, 1.15 on an undulating circuit on my 38-lb MTB, around Level 2/3 Wednesday, 1 hr turbo in the morning before work. Thursday as Tuesday Friday, day off Saturday, 2-hr café run with group on MTB, very hard on way back Sunday, as Tuesday, + occasional longer run, good steady pace, with companions. From mid-January to end March, much the same, but the Saturday run gets longer and even harder. Sunday, as Tuesday. Sometimes a weekend away with team/club in

Wales, a really hard 2-day session, pouring rain, headwind all the way round. I usually stop weights in March, but may continue it for a few months as the effects could be beneficial. After the first few sessions in October my ‘on-thebike’ strength appears to have increased dramatically, but it’s not been easy to see if the effect can be carried into the season as I stop before the season starts. From the end of March much the same, except that Monday is a rest day and my lightweight spare road bike replaces the MTB in the week. If for any reason I’m unable to follow the routine (other commitments, bad weather) I just re-arrange the routines and almost always complete a 7-day cycle in some form or other. Although I’ve enjoyed the odd few weeks away in Spain or Lanzarote over the last four – five years, I’m not at all convinced of the benefits: usually I do too much each day, come back very tired and take at least two–three weeks to recover owing to having insufficient ‘long’ miles in the legs – added to the fact that it’s usually bloody miserable weather when I return. The benefits other than social are not presently worth the costs and time. For 2001 I intend to spend some time at Manchester with the LVRC, BCF and World Masters Championships as particular goals – all unknown territory as I haven’t ridden the track since Leicester in 1972. As in previous years my main racing efforts will be on the road, aiming at the road Championships. I intend to ride the Peter Fryer series for good training and expect a good kicking. As you can see, I don’t really have any time off the bike, or from related exercises. I’ve never had the courage to take a real break for fear of losing form or putting on weight. I eat far too much,

but it’s one of life’s great pleasures and I’m a lost cause in this respect.

It’s significant but not surprising (given their age and background) that nearly all our correspondents believe in getting in a good base of miles in the endurance-building phase of their training. While we all learned our training in the days when very little science was applied to us, our patterns are roughly similar to the

periodised, progressive schedules recommended by the current ‘scientific training’ gurus. What is significantly different is what we eat nowadays: even in the 1970s the emphasis was still on a high-protein diet, steak and salad, despite the fact that the importance of carbohydrate had been established in 1939. In his mis-named Scientific Training for

Ken Cowdell, prolific winner in C Cat events in recent years, ‘lives right out in the sticks’ so he can get a few extra miles in riding to the rendezvous. Ken aims to maintain reasonable condition through the winter – there’s no point in letting it go too much and then having to build up all over again. Up to Christmas, four days a week with a group of up to half-a-dozen. Tuesdays around 80 with a cafe stop, Level 1, flat; Thursdays 3 hours hillier; Saturday afternoon, 40m steady in the group; Sunday a 3-hr clubrun – it comes out to around 220 miles a week. After Christmas the same pattern, but the intensity goes up: ‘You know what it’s like – you try to control it, but a lot of them have got heart monitors and some of them don’t really know how to use them.’ Thursday is a hilly Level 2, and the Saturday runs can get really intense, because Kevin Dawson (for one) comes out. Sundays, still the runs, but getting in some reliability trials – which are more like road races, really. In March I go on the Ideal training camp to Mallorca and get in 80 miles a day, dead steady. The Editor, much against his wishes and better judgement, has been blackmailed into contributing by his training partners who know enough about him to make life very difficult if he doesn’t agree to their demands. So here you go, and don’t say you weren’t warned. I usually wind up the season mid-October, find myself drifting into a sort of break of two or three weeks in November, and aim at getting in around 600 miles in December, mostly low-level 2, with twenty minutes a week at Level

3. I don’t go out when it’s really cold, because I don’t think you benefit and the risk of falls is increased. January: get out when the weather permits is 700 – 800 miles, 70 on the Wednesday dole run with a few sprints and fierce bursts, otherwise .If I can manage close to 200 miles a week in this period, then I’m satisfied. More in February, perhaps 1000, including a weekend or two away. Last year I did a month in Mallorca, mid-Feb to midMarch, getting in 1500 miles in perfect conditions. In this period some interval training starts, 5-minute x 6 at 80% for timetrials, ten 6-second sprints over forty minutes, 1-minute hill intervals, nothing out of the ordinary. These continue throughout the season. When I get back the season will have started, and it’s LVRC road races and hilly time-trials for the next month, then the usual mix of road races and timetrials and a club 10 most Tuesday evenings. Usually have a mid-season break, go to watch the Tour or something. This season the aims will be the road and time-trial championships, the Abberleys 3-day, Ken Smith 2-day, some RTTC series events, and some team time trials which are excellent for power and speed. I always eat a good diet, high in carbohydrate (bread, potatoes, rice, pasta), plenty of fruit and vegetables, chicken & fish. Not much alcohol, perhaps a couple of glasses of red wine in a week and never before a race. I ride the best gear I’m prepared to afford – there’s no point in spending all that time and effort training and then turning up on a pair of cheap tyres with gashes in the tread. V

Cycling of 1954 Dr Christopher Woodard warned athletes off bread, rice, bananas, potatoes, pasta and dried fruit because, he said, they were fattening. The shift towards a preponderance of carbohydrate began in the late 70s and was confirmed when Francesco Moser won the 1984 Giro on a vegetarian diet, mostly of cereals. V

Train your weaknesses, race your str engths strengths

T

his is a piece of advice you may have heard already. It’s a good recommendation, but how many riders ignore it? It’s easy and comforting on training rides to do what you’re already good at. You’re a relatively successful time-triallist, you find it quite easy to roll along on a big gear for an hour or two in training, so that’s what you tend to do. Then one day you think, ‘Hang on, they tell me Arthur Wotsit won one of these vets’ road races last Sunday. I can knock two minutes out of him in a club 10. Why don’t I have a go at it?’ So you enter an LVRC road race, and you find that the constant sprinting, the changes of pace, and the hills are making life very much harder for you, and your greatest talent, rolling along at a steady, unvarying pace, isn’t helping all that much. Or you’re a great sprinter, never too tired to kick at 200 metres and leave everyone for dead. But you spend your life in the back or middle of the bunch and you only get to the finish with the leaders three or four times a year. Little groups keep clipping off when you’re not looking, and every time the road goes uphill you drift or roll backwards. If by some chance you get to the front, you find there’s a six-man group three hundred metres up the road – and you’re not going to work to chase them down, are you? I mean, it’s not your thing. Sprinting’s your thing – you’ll save yourself and go for seventh place and third in your category. And you’d have got it too, only four more skinny little oiks clipped off up the last hill and stayed away. Never mind, you got twelfth. And it’s the same in training: you sit in the back of the group and win the town signs. You pride yourself on your climbing ability. Give you enough of a gradient and you can drop most people your age and quite a lot of the younger lads. It’s power/weight ratio, see. You’re only nine stone eight. They’ll get you back on the flat, and when it comes to timetrialling some bloated RTTC type with a special curve in his top tube to rest his gut on will murder you. That’s just the way things are. Isn’t it?

If you fall into any of these categories (and others) you can do one of three things: you can go on as before and continue to find life hard; you can give up completely; or you can try to improve your performance in those areas where you find yourself deficient. Most people do the first, some people do the second, but in real life (outside of the professional ranks) hardly anybody ever does the third thing . You’ve heard them: ‘Six of us in a sprint, I’ll be sixth. Always’. Or ‘Time-trials? I don’t do time-trials.’ And ‘Of course, I’ve never been able to climb, that’s why I only ride flat criteriums.’ As the hilly classics (Liege, Amstel Gold, Tour of Lombardy) and the big stages races show, if you want to do well all-round, the thing to be is an allrounder. If you’re a professional who makes his living at road racing, you’ve got to improve. Louison Bobet, a natural rouleur, taught himself to sprint, won big bunch sprints, and beat the unbeatable Rik van Steenbergen in the Tour of Flanders. Robert Millar, a natural climber and under ten stone, taught himself to time-trial to the extent that he could make the top ten in a Tour TT stage. Rik van Looy, owner of the biggest thighs ever in road racing, developed enough climbing technique to finish third in a high mountain stage of the Tour de France, and tenth overall. Gianni Bugno used to get dropped on descents, but learned to do it by, allegedly, listening to Mozart – and, presumably, practising a bit. Laurent Jalabert was a bunch sprint specialist before his big crash: he came back as the great all-rounder, fourth in the Tour, Points winner, twice winner of the Mountains Prize, World Time-Trial Champion, slaughtered the field in the Vuelta. Then there was that promising winner of classics and flat stages, young Lance Armstrong … Of course, there are people who aren’t interested in anything outside their own specialism (Mario Cipollini, for instance); but it can be done, and the sensible thing is to try it. If your sprint is your weakest link, then devote some of your shorter early-

season training rides to working on it. Do ten flat-out six-second sprints with five minute rests between – potentially a big improvement without shattering yourself. Do some 15-second sprints, ten minute rests. Ride up a drag just about as hard as you can for 50 seconds and then sprint for the last ten. Half a dozen of those should leave you feeling ready for a lie down. In the days when trafffic was a bit slower and lighter I knew a man who worked on his sprint by jumping after the lorries doing 40 mph up and down the A38. A climber lacking in overall power? Power intervals, either on the road or on the turbo. The chances are that if you sacrifice a little of your climbing ability, you’ll more than make up for it elsewhere. You want to be a good, or at least competent time-triallist? Timetrial intervals, five minutes at 80% of your max heart rate, one minute rests, six in a session. Ride a local club 10 most weeks. Persuade somebody who’s faster than you to ride two-ups with you. Cornering and descending? Get out there on some suitable roads and terrain and practise. Take a Mozart tape on your Walkman if you want. Just don’t settle for the status quo: train your weaknesses, race your strengths.

Laurent Jalabert: from great sprinter to great all-rounder.

Everybody benefits from wrapping up and warming up …

Warm Front WRITING IN AN issue of Sporting Cyclist

around 1957 Brian Robinson advised racing cyclists: ‘Always train with the legs covered’. It’s a piece of advice that I have always followed, except in very warm weather. Robinson was one of the real hard men of road racing, and if he didn’t think it was wimpish to dress up against the cold, then that was good enough for me. As far as I know Captain Oates is the only man who got to be a hero because he froze to death. What’s more, it seems to me that it’s good advice not only for training, but also for early-season racing. We often get years with long, cold winter-spring transitions, and yet you’ll see riders in early April wearing shorts on days when the ambient temperature is around five degrees, and a bitter north-east wind chill is lowering it still further. Remember that in a temperature of 10°C a wind speed of 15 mph will effectively lower the temperature to only 2°C. If the temperature is only 4°C a 10 mph wind will lower it to -2°C. Humidity is a factor, too. If it’s damp and overcast as well as cold, then the chill will feel even more penetrating. In Cycling Weekly for 12th May 2001 I read the report of a Buckinghamshire 25, run off in similar conditions (‘a bitterly cold morning with a fierce wind’). In the opinion of top time-triallist Michael Hutchinson: ‘It was definitely a leg-warmers day, and I was surprised that I seemed to be in a minority of one in wearing them’. He won by four minutes. Human beings tend to under-perform in extremes of temperature, both high and low. Cooling a muscle causes it to become weaker and fatigue occurs more rapidly. The nervous system responds to muscle cooling by altering the normal muscle fibre recruitment patterns. Some researchers have suggested that this change in fibre selection decreases the efficiency of the muscle’s actions. The velocity at which the mus-

talk about warming up. I got to the start a bit late, threw the bike off the roof rack, stripped off me tracksuit and started – and I did my best-ever time!’ My answer would be: ‘With a proper warm-up you’d have gone even faster.’ However, just pottering about on the bike for ten minutes is not warmingup. I think you have to develop a structure for warming up that you find, with experience, suits you and allows you to achieve your optimum performance.

cle shortens is decreased: that is, the muscle contracts more slowly, and as a result power decreases significantly when temperature is lowered. What it amounts to is that you can choose between going slower or using more energy. But the mechanisms which release more fuel (in this case ‘free fatty acids’) are themselves slowed down by the cold, so it takes longer to get the fuel into action. It’s like getting sludge in your petrol pipe. For us cyclists, who are in any case creating our own 20 mph wind chill, this means we’ll go slower, fatigue quicker, and probably run out of energy before the finish. Being warm protects the body against external cold factors, and helps its metabolism to work normally in order to produce the energy needed, both for the demands of the exercise, and to keep warm. The simplest way of providing insulation against the cold is to wear sufficient clothing – and on a cold day that means leg warmers. Another aspect of the effects of temperature is the matter of warming-up – and warming-down. There’s not much doubt that most cyclists warm up for too short a time, and in too unstructured a way. We’ve all heard people say, ‘It’s a lot of nonsense, is all this

Start off with three miles steady, lowish gear, say 18 mph. Increase speed progressively for a mile to 23 mph (these are very rough estimates, of course), making yourself breathe hard – but don’t go anaerobic. Then do (for example) three 6-second sprints, not quite flat out, with a couple of minutes rest between each. Wind up with another ten minutes brisk but steady, maybe including another minute a bit faster to make you breathe hard again. I would regard something like this as a minimum. Finish your warm-up about 10 minutes before your start time, and keep warm until two or three minutes before you’re off. If you warm up and leave a gap of more than 15 minutes, the effect is dissipated and you have to start all over again. It is possible to overdo the warmingup process. If the weather is very warm (a Saturday afternoon in June), your warm-up should be reduced substantially – your core body temperature is going to rise during the event in any case, and if you start off too hot, your performance may suffer. In these conditions particularly you must always keep well hydrated, drinking before the start and throughout the event. You’ll notice that I’ve been thinking

ised riding, but twenty minutes warm up should still prevent your being caught unawares by an unusually fast start. Being well warmed up usually reduces muscle soreness in the early stages of the event, and at all times it reduces the risk of injury. Don’t forget that we’re all individuals, and that what works for one may not be so effective for someone else, so you have to find out what suits you best by trial and error. Maybe throwing the bike off the rack and belting down the road will work for you. Warming down is beneficial, too. Continuing to exercise the muscles gently improves the blood flow and speeds up the removal of lactic acid. Fifteen to twenty minutes twiddling a low gear is as effective as half an hour’s massage. mainly about time-trials here, but the same is equally true for road racing, where warming up for many people means riding round the car park mak-

ing sure your gears are working. It’s perhaps not as critical as for a time-trial: distances tend to be longer, sometimes there are two or three miles of neutral-

In the off season MOST PEOPLE FIND that at the end of a long season, they aren’t keen to continue training at the same level: even vets get stressed psychologically by mentally getting themselves up for events, so it’s probably a good idea for most of us to have some kind of a break, a fortnight or three weeks, to forget the stress and recharge the mental batteries. On the other hand it’s silly to waste the benefits of the racing season by taking to the pub for three months; the older you are, the more important it is not to lose fitness So even your break should include some fairly vigorous exercise: bed rest results in a rapid loss of muscle condition and oxygen uptake capacity. Hill-walking, swimming, running (starting easy and short, on soft surfaces), and anything that works your cardio-vascular system without stress. For racing cyclists the off-season is maintenance time, and to maintain reasonable condition you’re going to need something that works

out at perhaps 100–150 miles a week. It’s not a lot, really, but try to avoid two hard back-to-back rides (Saturday/Sunday) in hard conditions. You may think of it as character building, but in the cold and wet you burn up a lot more energy, so depleting your glycogen reserves. If they’re low, your immune system is weakened and you become a prey to infections, particularly of the upper respiratory tract. It’s more effective to maintain the frequency than to do only a few long rides. Ride just as you feel like riding, and don’t be pressured into doing more volume or intensity than you want. Those of us who have retired, of course, have the advantage of being able to choose our own schedules, avoiding the dark and the worst of the weather. Go out whenever light, weather and inclination permit. As we all know, there’s a safety problem on British roads, so ride in daylight when possible. Eat well, don’t worry if you put on a little weight, but not more than half

a stone. (Remember, this is just a guide – don’t panic!). Wrap up really well, especially hands, feet and head. Take at least a Mars bar and a bottle on any ride over half an hour. Stop at cafes whenever you feel like it: this is supposed to be non-stressful. The mountain-bike makes a change, especially off-road. I’ve always thought that cyclists in fulltime work should, if possible, save time by using the ride to work as part of their training. If you really want to do it, then it’s usually easy enough to organise, and your workmates will soon get tired of taking the mickey out of your lycra legs. Don’t train if you have a cold or any kind of virus. Don’t go out at all in very cold or very bad weather and road conditions. Use rollers or trainer as an alternative, but not to the point of boredom. If you’re a cyclo-cross rider, ignore all this: you’re doing enough anyway. V

Heart-rate monitors – do we really need them?

Good servant, bad master I WAS RATHER PLEASED to hear Neil Mar-

tin, winnerof the three-day Tour of the Abberleys, say that he never uses a heart monitor. This nifty bit of technology has its uses, but it has to be recognised that they’re fairly limited. They are most useful, not to athletes themselves, but to sports scientists who are conducting tests and compiling data for research papers. Most coaches think that runners and swimmers are better off using a stop watch and accuratelymeasured distances to set their pace for training. A cyclist, unlike a runner, has a stable platform for his monitor and can read it easily while training. Athletes are by the nature of their sport ‘tuned in’ to numbers, and heart monitors satisfy this felt need for quantification by providing steady, more or less instant, feedback. Their principal value to cyclists is that our sport is significantly affected by a range of environmental factors: wind speed and direction, humidity, terrain, air temperature. Heart-rate monitors (HRMs) can thus provide an accurate gauge of the intensity of any given training session, regardless of the external environment. Until the late 1980s even an unreliable heart monitor could cost thousands of dollars. Then reliable, lightweight telemetry systems suddenly became available at a reasonable cost. Unfortunately, it was obvious from their first appearance that cyclists were choosing them for quite different reasons. They had novelty value, and they became for a time a fashion accessory, a sort of athlete’s jewellery. They were, as I’ve said, a nifty bit of technology. They had a high pose factor. Strapping the transmitter around your chest in the changing room marked you out as one of the elite, a guy so important that your every heartbeat was like gold-dust, to be recorded and treasured. Now novelty value is not to be sneered at too readily. It can provide a psychological boost, and a psychologi-

cal advantage is a real advantage. Even the cheaper ones can record your ride, or rides, and provide a limited amount of data which you can look at later and see what your average was, and for how long. What fun. The more expensive ones actually allow you to download the data via an expensive interface with your computer and actually print out charts and tables. However, I would guess that very few of those who have downloadable monitors ever use that data to plan their future training schedules, or to modify even their next training ride. A problem for cyclists is that all the tables for training levels are based on maximum heart rate, a figure that few owners of HRMs ever knew for certain, and not even ascertainable without doubt on a KingCycle test. There are a good many limitations. Heart rate is sport specific: a triathlete will record different levels in the three different disciplines. The athlete must learn to treat the information with caution. Individual heart rates vary widely. The formula of 220 minus your age is not only virtually useless, it can be misleading. There are well-trained athletes in their thirties who cannot achieve maximum heart rates of 170 bpm, while some veterans in their fifties can reach 180. Illness (the start of a virus) and fatigue can skew the information. There are numerous ways in which tooclose reliance on your HRM can lead you into error. A three-man group was chasing a break in a road race and quite visibly gaining when one rider sat up, the chase disintegrated and the break stayed clear. Afterwards one asked: ‘Why did you sit up? We’d have caught them in another mile.’ The sitter-up replied: ‘Well, I looked at my monitor and it said I was on my maximum. I thought, that can’t be right, so I sat up.’ An acquaintance told me: ‘I find it very useful for judging my effort when

getting across to a break.’ Really? Most people find out that they have to get across whatever the monitor says. Another told me: ‘With the HRM timetrialling is cut and dried, there’s no longer any problem over pace setting. Determine your maximum, ride at 90 percent, and you’ll achieve your optimum time.’ The first time he did it he had a tail wind to the turn, but stuck rigidly to his 90%. He got there a minute slower than he wanted to and ended up a fresh tenth instead of a tired second. Then there was the guy who phoned his doctor with severe chest pains, until he realised he’d forgotten to take off the transmitter in the shower and the strap had shrunk. When Chris Boardman got a monitor that also showed his calorie expenditure he began to plan to burn 3000 calories on longer rides. If, within half a mile of his home, he’d only burned 2900, he’d ride round the block a few times to get rid of the last 100 calories. This is, actually, rather a sad little story. HRMs seem to have been designed specifically for people with a tendency to obsessiveness. But HRMs do have their uses. They are particularly useful in riding intervals at predetermined levels (always supposing you know what base you’re using to set the level), especially on the turbo-trainer where you’re in complete control, with no distractions from traffic. HRMs can prevent you going too hard in training when you should be taking it easy; or taking it easy when you should be going hard. But even if you use a monitor regularly you still have to know what each percentage level of effort feels like, as well as what figures it records. However, the monitor is capable of giving a more objective assessment of whether the athlete’s training objectives are being achieved. HRMs can also warn against fatigue, or the onset of a virus, and so help to

prevent overtraining. If your resting heart rate is more than five beats above its current normal level, then you may be tired or unwell. But you can find this out by taking your pulse in the normal

way. This is one reason why you’re advised to check your resting heart rate daily, always at the same time and in the same conditions. A novice may find an HRM useful as

long as he/she takes account of their potential inaccuracy and other drawbacks. But experienced riders rarely need them.

Notes on heart-rate There are many misunderstandings about heart-rate. These notes are intended to clear up inaccurate information and to show what we can learn from our heart-rate. 1.

2.

3.

There are two ways in which the heart can pump more oxygenated blood around the system. Short, very hard efforts (anaerobic) train the heart to beat faster by thickening the muscles of the walls. Long, less intense efforts (aerobic) train the heart to pump more blood per beat by enlarging the chambers. Everyone has a maximum and minimum heart-rate. Both upper and lower figures vary with the individual and with age, fitness, health and degree of fatigue.

4.

As you get older, the maximum rate your heart can reach declines. This means that it pumps less blood than it used to. The decline after the age of 20 is about 2 beats per year. However, even this isn’t fixed. Some 60-year olds have max HRs as high as people 20 years younger.

5.

You can only maintain your maximum for a short time. For most competition you will perform at a rate 10% or more below maximum. If your MHR is 200, you might ride a 10mile TT at 180, i.e. 90%.

6.

If you’re tired you will be unable to approach your maximum heart-rate, or even reach your optimum sustainable rate. Being unable to get your HR up to its normal competition level is a sign of fatigue, that you haven’t recovered from previous efforts, or that you are developing an illness probably caused by a virus. Other reasons might be lack of sleep, inadequate food intake, or stress from work or family commitments.

7.

Your resting heart-rate goes

The larger the chambers, and the faster your heart beats the more blood it pumps. It is therefore to an endurance athlete’s advantage to have a heart that has large chambers and a low resting rate, but which speeds up quickly under intense effort.

down as you get fitter. This means that the size of the chamber is increasing so that the heart can pump more blood per beat. However, when you make an effort your heart rate should rise rapidly there is no advantage in its remaining very low. 8.

You should take your RHR every morning, at the same time. You need to take it accurately, because if it’s more than five beats above normal, something may be wrong: either you haven’t recovered from yesterday’s effort, or you could have a virus.

9.

If you’re still fatigued then there isn’t any point in training hard – you won’t benefit, and you’ll just make yourself more tired for nothing. Do a short, really easy recovery ride, or have a day off. Always remember that everything you do (work, playing with the kids, washing the car etc) makes energy demands and can cause stress and fatigue. You have to look at the whole picture. Proper rest is essential.

It may work for European professionals who ride for six hours a day through January and when the season starts race and rest. But for amateurs it’s rather different.

‘I’ll just race myself fit’

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bout the end of March you’ll meet someone who’s had a couple of months off since Christmas, put on a bit of weight, and three weeks ago started going out on the Sunday runs. You can guarantee that it won’t be long before he says, ‘I’m not bothered, I don’t believe in all these miles, they make you slow. I’ll just race myself fit.’ It’s a widely-held belief, and most of us have tried it at one time or another; but like many such beliefs, it’s simply not true. It is true that for a short time you can get fast by doing nothing but fast training – but it won’t last. If you haven’t got that vital base of endurance training, your form won’t hold. You won’t be able to last the longer distances, and after a few weeks you’ll find yourself struggling. Continental pros are often held up as examples to justify doing nothing but race. ‘Look at Jalabert,’ they ’ll say. ‘Never does any training between April and October.’ It’s largely true – but they’re not comparing like with like: a 50-year-old who rides a 45-minute crit on Wednesday and a 45-mile road race on Sunday can’t be compared with a 28-year-old who might ride a 150-mile classic, a couple of mid-week 2-hour crits, and then a four-day stage race, a total of perhaps 600 miles, all in eight days. He’ll be pushed to find enough recovery time. During the season the professional roadman has such a heavy racing commitment that when he’s not racing, he’s resting. In addition he’ll have been stacking in 2000 miles per month through December, January and February, starting the season with 5 – 6000 miles in his legs. It has always been so: before Milan – San Remo in 1946, in mid-March, Fausto Coppi had 7000 kilometres (4400 miles) of training miles in his legs since 1st January. In fact, that’s only about 370 miles a week. Amateurs are luckier. Because they

Not just racing themselves fit: Lance Armstrong and team-mates getting in the basic endurance miles. have complete control of their racing TT and a criterium mid-week, then probprogramme they can do as much or as ably all you’ll need is a couple of onelittle as they wish. But even veteran hour recovery rides, and a longer steady amateurs will do better if they follow a ride, say 3½ hours, every ten days. But similar pattern, though naturally few of for most of us such a week would be them will do more than half that mile- untypical. One of the problems with racing is age. How you do those miles is important. It’s no good doing every ride at that it interferes with training. You’ll Level 1, or always riding the same dis- have noticed that even professionals tance. Racing is racing and training is will take time out from their heavy training: they are not the same thing. schedules to prepare specially for cerTraining is essentially a building-up proc- tain events. In 1982, after a poor ride ess; racing is likely to be a tearing-down. in the world road championships, In training you have control. Training Bernard Hinault trained for two weeks needs to be differentiated, of specific specifically for the Grand Prix des Natypes – endurance, recovery, interval. tions time-trial and won in record time. Most people know by now that our Racing is too unspecific a way of premuscles are made up of different kinds paring. This applies principally to top of fibres: slow twitch for endurance, riders, of course: domestiques can’t fast twitch for sprinting. The amount generally be given much time off, and of each will determine what kinds of usually end the season worn out. There’s another thing: everyone, riders we are. Differentiated training recruits different muscle fibres. In rac- deep down, knows that they have to ing matters are to a great extent be- train. People in all cultures place great yond your control: the race has a mo- emphasis on the importance of prepamentum of its own. You may end com- ration. But it’s important to remember pletely exhausted, or even perfectly that you’re preparing for something, that the preparation, the training, is not fresh. Even if you do manage to organise an end in itself. In fact we’ve all met yourself a heavy racing programme, you plenty of people for whom training has have to continue to train through at least become an end in itself. Chris Carmichael has pointed out that the first part of the season. If by midJune you can get in a criterium on Sat- training is 90% physical, 10% mental; urday, a road race on Sunday, a 10-mile racing on the other hand is 90% mental

and 10% physical. The point is that your training and preparation has been getting you ready for the big event, and that’s when you have to perform at your best. To put it simply, this is where you really have to try. It will probably hurt, and if it doesn’t then you’re almost certainly not trying hard enough.

It’s during the recovery phase that your body really benefits from all the training you’ve been doing. Or should have been doing …

Recovering IF AFTER A strenuous effort in racing or training you don’t recover properly, then you won’t be able to race or train as hard next day. This is particularly important in stage racing, of course, but proper recovery is always important, not least because it restores your immune system. The keys to recovery are Rehydration Restoration of glycogen levels Rest Rehydration A significant drop in weight (a kilo and a half, or more) after a ride is an indication that you’ve lost fluid. A reduction of 2% in your weight through fluid loss means roughly a 10% drop in performance. A 4% bodyweight loss will reduce your work capacity by 20 – 30 percent. You should therefore carry adequate supplies of replacement fluid and drink frequently during the exercise. In average conditions this means around 500 ml per hour, roughly two ordinary bottles per 40 miles. Immediately after the ride, drink 500 ml of fluid. It’s more effective if this is some kind of sports drink (home-made if you prefer it) rather than plain water. A carbohydrate drink will also help to restore glycogen levels, and some of them contain electrolytes, which will restore salt balance and help to prevent cramp. If you can avoid dehydration during the exercise, then you will recover more quickly afterwards. Colour of urine is a good primary indicator of your hydration status: it should be very pale, no more than straw-coloured. Restoration of glycogen The first study which showed the importance of carbohydrate as the primary fuel for exercise was made in 1939. Since then countless studies have replicated this result. Carbohydrate is converted into glycogen in the liver and

muscles. Before starting you should have high glycogen levels, and you should try to maintain them as high as possible throughout the period of exercise by taking additional carbohydrate. This may be in solid or liquid form. Most of us find it easier to drink than to eat while racing, but in longer events some solid food (a banana, an energy bar) also has some psychological benefit. In a two-hour road race you’ll be riding mostly on the glycogen stored as a result of your preparation and your prerace meals, but the carbohydrate you take during the event will also be converted and will speed up your subsequent recovery. It has been shown that in a 40 km time-trial (where the effort is continuously strenuous) carbohydrate feedings will improve performance. In a 20 km time-trial they have no effect on performance in that event – but performance on the following day will be better than if no carbohydrate had been taken while riding. It has been shown that taking some protein with your post-race carbohydrate feed will speed up recovery. For best results the protein/carbohydrate ratio should be one part protein to four parts carbohydrate – so something like a ham sandwich, or a turkey baguette is ideal. You can buy special recovery

supplements which do this. They’re mostly based on amino acids, which are simply the same proteins you get in meat, fish and eggs. But bear in mind that this is a very, very expensive way of doing it. One ounce of chicken costing perhaps five pence contains 7000 mg of amino acids, which is what you’d get from a whole box of special supplements costing £10. Full restoration of glycogen stores can take 20 hours, but immediately after exercise your body is particularly ready to convert food to glycogen, so start eating and drinking carbohydrate-rich food during the first 15 to 20 minutes. Some riders say, ‘Oh, I simply can’t eat straight after a race.’ At one time you couldn’t ride a bicycle, but you learned. So train yourself to do it. Start with 50 gm of carbo drink (i.e. a 500 ml bottle with 10% carbohydrate) and a ham roll. Then take 50 gm carbohydrate within the next hour, and then a proper meal, with plenty of carbohydrate. You’ll be surprised how quickly you get used to it. Rest It’s during the rest phase of training that the body overcompensates for what you’ve done to it during the exercise period. It replaces its fluid and electrolyte balance, restores its glycogen lev-

els, repairs the micro-damage to the muscle fibres which causes that stiffness and soreness the day after. The muscle fibres get thicker, the mitochondria increase in number, maximal oxygen capacity increases, the aerobic threshold is raised. Your body is making sure that, if you’re going to give it a beating like that again, then it’s going to be ready for you. But unless you rest none of this can happen. Recovery starts with a gentle warming-down ride for 20 minutes after the event. This will maintain blood flow in the muscles and eliminate lactic acid. A rest day doesn’t necessarily mean no activity or no riding. Walking is good, as long as you don’t overdo it. If you go out on the bike it should be for 45 minutes to an

hour, at below Level 1: village postman pace, or ‘guilt-producingly slow’, at around 60% max heart rate. Ride enough to stimulate active recovery, but not enough to provoke a training load. Checking your recovery There are basically three accessible ways of testing how well you’ve recovered: weight, heart rate, and how you feel. A fourth way is to check your power output (which should rise as you get fitter and recover better), but for most people this is difficult. Once you start training you should take your resting heart rate (RHR) each morning at exactly the same time and in the same conditions. You can do it manually or using a monitor. As you get fitter it

should gradually come down. If it’s five beats or more above normal, then you’re not fully recovered. If you go out on a training ride and find that you’re unable to get your heart rate up to its optimum, then you’re still fatigued. Mature people should find that their weight is restored overnight. If it’s still a kilo or more below what it was yesterday, then you haven’t fully recovered. How you feel is more subjective, but with practice, rating yourself on a 1 – 10 scale, you can get pretty good at estimating how hard you should train today, if at all.

In the Lance Armstrong Performance Program Chris Carmichael suggests the following table as a starting point. Effort

Recovery

0 to 6 hrs

8 hrs

30 to 60 minutes, tempo intensity

8 to 10 hours

75 to 120 minutes, tempo intensity

24 to 36 hours

15 to 45 minutes at lactate threshold

24 hours

60 to 90 minutes at lactate threshold

24 to 36 hours

10 to 30 minutes above lactate threshold

24 to 36 hours

Large numbers of riders, especially us vets(retiredor otherwise), now spend up to a month in Mallorca sometime between January and April. Some of the advantages are obvious, some are less obvious until you’ve been there and discovered them for yourself.

What ’s so great about What’s

Mallorca? It’s around 15 to 20 degrees warmer than England in February. It’s a fact that cold weakens muscle, and warmth reduces muscle and joint soreness. This explains why you can go out and do nice long steady rides of 50 – 90 miles on consecutive days without the stiff, aching legs that such training would produce back home in temperatures just above freezing. You haven’t got anything else to do but ride the bike, rest and talk about bike equipment. This also helps to explain why you can do several days of long miles without feeling exhausted and praying it’ll rain so you can stay in bed. But no matter how tempted you are to set new mileage records the same rules of training apply: take days off, intersperse long miles with short recovery rides, vary the intensity of your training. You want to get back fit and eager to race, not knackered and needing a month’s rest. It rains much less often. During the last two years I’ve spent 56 days there from mid- February to mid-March, and it rained on four days. Imagine that. However, it can rain (and even snow), so take along a certain amount of bad-weather clothing. It’s relatively cheap to get there. In 2001 you could fly for between £80 and £120, bicycle free, depending on how early you booked and how long you intend to stay. Palma Airport to Puerto Pollensa in the north will cost you about £7 the hard way (by bus), or £10 – £15 per head by shared minibus. It’s cheap to live there. Off-season rates for flats and hotels are low, some as low as half the mid-season cost. Food is about two-thirds the price of food in Britain. You can get an excellent three-course meal with wine, bread and olives thrown in for a fiver. And the salads! and oranges!

Suggestions and warnings Of course, it doesn’t have to be Mallorca

There’s more or less unlimited accommodation at that time of year. The variety available is very wide: hotels, apartments, apartment-hotels, training clubs. One not-verylarge LVRC member even slept in a cardboard box on the beach at Palma. There are hundreds (perhaps thousands) of kilometres of excellent, well-surfaced roads carrying little traffic. Some are actually deserted. The main roads are busy, but you have to cover very few miles on them – which is a good thing, because drivers (mostly tourists) are just as thoughtless, abusive and/or hostile as they are in Britain.

The island is beautiful and interesting, with delightful scenery virtually no matter where you are. This is uplifting for the spirit. Returning from a four-hour ride in mid-afternoon sun along Pollensa Bay is very unlike dragging yourself through the North London suburbs in a gale on a grey, freezing March day. Which brings us to the last point:

Some of the lads at the foot of the col to Bunyola.

There’s a wide range of terrain. The Tramuntana Mountains, up the west coast, rise to 1500 metres, with plenty of long, demanding climbs (up to 10 miles in length) reaching 1000 metres. A gear range of 12-23 x 39/53 will cope with most things. Alternatively you can do a three or four hour ride on the flat coastal and central plains; or an undulating route; or a mix of mountain, undulating and flat. This is why the best places to stop are probably in the north – they give you direct access to this variety. The east coast and the south have their own attractions, but you’ve got further to ride before you get to the big hills, or heavy traffic to get through.

– anywhere warm, sunny, cyclist-friendly and cheap will do. There’s not much point in going to the Mediterranean later than April. By the beginning of May it’s usually warming up here, the season’s getting under way, and Mallorca’s starting to get a lot busier. But remember when you land back in Luton or Liverpool in the middle of March that it may well be twenty degrees colder than it was two hours ago in Palma. Wrap up well as soon as you get off the plane, and stay wrapped up when you go out on the bike. V

Training in Mallorca: Technical Regulations 1. On arriving in Mallorca, each member of the group shall spend £37 on a taxi from the airport. 2. On arriving at the hotel/apartment the first hour shall be devoted to a discussion of the spending of £37 on taxi fares. Subsequent to this discussion all members of the group shall spread all their equipment, bike bags, tools, clothing, wheels, chains, sprockets etc over the living room, bedrooms, balconies, kitchen, corridors and bathroom, being sure to make plenty of black, greasy marks and stains, and scratching the paintwork. The object is to make the local cleaning and repair staff feel appreciated. 3. Dress. When the bike is assembled group members shall dress in complete, brand-new trade team outfits and parade for inspection on the sea-front. Those wearing club jerseys etc shall remain indoors until it is time to leave. They will be instructed later where to buy the obligatory trade team clothing. 4. Object of the training camp. The object of the training camp is that all group members shall begin by doing far too much training all at once. As little as 65 miles on the evening of arrival day is permitted provided that at least two 10km climbs are included. 5. Preparatory training. No group member shall be permitted to undertake any preparatory training whatever before going out to Mallorca. Group leaders may require certificates from club secretaries guaranteeing complete idleness during the winter months. 6. Mileage. This shall be a minimum of 90 miles per day, every day. Lunch stops are permitted, on condition that two large baguettes, at least one cake, and three cups of coffee are consumed, and the relative obesity of groups of German cyclists commented upon very loudly. The eating of Spanish ham, which is raw, will be considered to be the sign of having ‘gone native’. Bonus points shall be awarded for non-stop rides. No sug-

gestion that today’s (or tomorrow’s ride) might be shorter shall be acted upon. Under this regulation the phrase ’50 miles’ is to be understood to mean ‘at least 90 miles’. 7. Truce. A truce is called when everyone is finally too knackered to ride at more than 12 mph even downhill. 8. Debriefing. This is deemed to be that part of the evening devoted to discussion of rear or posterior parts of female cyclists overtaken on the ride. To avoid disputes it is considered advisable for all members to agree on a points system based on such criteria as width, shape, wobble factor, type and style of shorts (Mapei may be taken as the state of the art), and general pulchritude. A formula for introducing each subject should be agreed upon, such as ‘Ooooh, that German girl in the square at Bunyola, oooh, aarrggh!!’, or ‘She was absoloootly gorgeous.’ Use of boring clichés is obligatory; any description which may verge on the poetic or original may result in the deduction of points. 9. Performance. The day’s performances shall be discussed in the most microscopic detail for a minimum of two-and-one-half hours, preferably more. Permitted adjectives shall be limited to ‘awesome’ and ‘brilliant’. Discussion shall cover primes, town sprints, jumping behind motos, Gary’s awesome descent of Sa Calobra, Dave’s brilliant sprint at Sineu, and Andy’s awesome, brilliant climb of Lluch. Bonus points shall be awarded for undetected lying. 10. The rest of the evening (if any) shall be given over to watching Eurosport on the rented TV set; discussing the complete universe of bicycle equipment, especially its cost in Spanish bicycle emporia; complaining that no-one speaks English; looking at pictures in Spanish magazines and wondering aloud what the words mean; and planning the next day’s route (but see Regulation 6 above).

Go on the training camp, but don’t overdo it …

You crazy thing

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here are reasons why people do crazy things in Mallorca that they wouldn’t think of doing back home. Warmth, sun and a big group, and you’ve only got a week or a fortnight, so cram in all you can. You’ve prepared for this specially, and you want to show everyone how good you are. There are climbs like you never see in Britain – Puig Major, Soller (both sides with 27 hairpins), Lluc, Sa Calobra, all the monasteries – let’s do them all, preferably in one day. Patterns of training and racing are changing: people are racing less, finding their pleasures elsewhere, peaking for March to be at their best in Mallorca. The upshot is that a rider who’s been averaging 150 mpw sets out to do 1000 miles in two weeks, and a 60+ veteran gets in 1950 miles in 4 weeks, ‘achieving’ 650+ miles in the fourth week. At the risk of repeating myself: It can’t be emphasised enough that it’s during the rest period that the body recovers from the efforts of training and rebuilds the depleted systems. During intensive training the body is stressed and to some extent damaged. The heart pumps at a rate beyond what it has been used to, demands for a greater and faster supply of oxygen are made on the lungs, the fibres of the muscles suffer micro-damage – that’s what causes the soreness the day after. During recovery the body overcompensates for what you’ve done to it, so that next time it will be ready for the severe demands you make. When you increase the demands, it again uses the recovery period to over-compensate, and so on. This is what progressive training is. But if you don’t build in those recovery periods you’ll become chronically fatigued and go backwards. Advice: don’t do a long hard ride the day before you travel, or the day after you arrive. The main reason for this is that strenuous exercise such as is involved in climbing 9-mile cols as hard as you can, wears down the body and mind and depresses the immune system, and you want your immune system to be at full whack if you’re going to spend a couple of hours in the tube full of 250 people in a moist, warm, virus-friendly atmosphere that is your average airliner.

It’s psychologically very demanding to keep getting yourself up mentally every morning to do another 90 – 100-mile ride with a couple of big climbs ridden at Level 3, and a 10-mile finishing wind-up at Level 4. Intersperse your long rides and big climbs with days when you ride 20 miles at a really easy pace, sit in the square for an hour in the sun over your café con leche and bocadillo de jamon, and then gently ride 20 miles home. And each week take one day off the bike completely: walk a couple of miles instead, promote blood-flow in the muscles without a training load, get to see the town, learn where the best cake shops are. Climbs. You’re never going to suffer from altitude problems in Mallorca. The highest col, Puig Major, is only 1036 metres (3367 feet) above sea level. Nevertheless, it starts at sea level, so in terms of height climbed it’s almost exactly the same as l’Alpe d’Huez which starts at around 800 metres above sealevel, and so demands a certain level of respect. And the machinery! No longer the winter hacks: large numbers turn up with their best racing bikes, £3000+ worth, and wheels. Incidentally, it’s worth bearing in mind that there may well be a motor-cycle/bike shop at the next small town which will sell you a spoke, but if you break a spoke in your Ksyrium out in the middle of the Mallorcan hills the chances are you won’t be able to get it fixed nearly as easily. Nutrition: high CHO, low fat, drink as much fluid as you can take. Avoid alcohol. This is supposed to be a training camp. Isn’t it? Oh, all right, then. The BCF’s little booklet (eight pages of A5) outlining Four Levels of Training Intensity, based on Peter Keen’s research, is still a useful training guide. The levels are based on the use of a heart-rate monitor, but for those of us who just can’t be bothered with modern technology there are descriptions of how each level should feel. OK, I know they’ve gone to six levels now, and even the original four levels added in another at Low Level 2. Coaches have often pointed out that Level 1 is something-and-nothing – too

slow and undemanding to produce much in the way of a training response, too hard for a true recovery ride. The aim is to ride enough to stimulate active recovery but not enough to introduce a training load. The Six-zone system recognises this: its Level 1 is below that of the old Four-level guidelines. Chris Carmichael’s Lance Armstrong Performance Program contains a useful guide to recovery riding. Consider the recovery rides Lance did after winning the 1996 Flêche-Wallonne classic on 18th April, where he spent an astonishing two hours at or past his lactate threshold during the race. The next day, a Thursday, he rode for 75 minutes. He pedalled a cadence of 75 to 80 rpm and maintained an average heart rate of an easy 112 beats per minute. On Friday he rode for 60 minutes at the same cadence, with an average heart rate of 115 bpm. On Saturday he eased back into some exertion, with a 2hour ride that included two brisk efforts of 5 minutes each, 2 minutes apart, with his heart rate at 178-183 bpm. The rest of the ride was at a moderate rate, with an average heart rate of 118 bpm. Those three days of riding helped to speed recovery from his effort of nearly 5 hours at FlêcheWallonne. He was able to go into LiègeBastogne-Liège on 21 April, rested and ready to race again. He finished second. And no two people require exactly the same training schedule. One rider told me: ‘I used to go out training with the best rider in my club, but I found that I didn’t have his constitution, and the punishing schedule that brought him to peak form simply killed me. I was doing all my best rides in training, merely to stay with him, and had nothing left for racing.’ Don’t be afraid of doing less (or even more) than your companions. You don’t have to complete the 100-mile circuit if you find 60 miles suits you better. When you get home it’s likely to be colder (this year was an exception), and less training-friendly. Have a couple of days off (after all, you’ve done 400+ miles in the previous week, haven’t you?), eat well, wrap up well, and start off with a couple of easy rides. V

Interval training is the way seriously to improve your power output – and your speed

In the Interval A

nyone knows that if you ride around at 15 mph you’ll get very good at rid ing at 15 mph. But you can’t then expect to feel OK racing at 25 mph plus. You therefore have to overload your body’s systems to provoke overcompensation during the resting/recovery period. Intensive training is very demanding, draining and exhausting. Training for a 40-mile race by repeatedly riding 40 miles in 1.40 is not the answer. However, it was shown many years ago that repetitions of short bursts of high intensity work with short rests between each were more effective than a single long stretch of high intensity work. This kind of training is called interval training. Interval training should not be confused with sprint training . Sprint training aims to develop greater speed: interval training stresses the body to force it to adapt to greater physical efforts. Interval training develops the cardiovascular system, develops strength through progressive overload of the muscles, develops endurance and speed, and improves tolerance to pain. It also reduces

blood lactate levels at given work-loads, and brings about changes in slow-twitch muscle fibres (the ones that you depend on for endurance) with consequent improvements in speed. Interval training has always been based on the principle that the high intensity interval and the rest interval are of such a length that the body does not have time to recover fully before the next high intensity interval begins. However, recent research and training techniques by Dr Gordon Wright, working with Stuart Dangerfield, suggest that long er rest periods between efforts may be beneficial: for instance, flat-out efforts of four minutes are followed by 12-minute recovery periods. For cyclists intervals can be of many kinds. Here are some. Note that before doing interval training you should already have reached a good level of fitness with a large base of endurance training. Trying to do high intensity speed work from the start is like trying to build a house on no foundations. Always warm up thoroughly (30 minutes) before beginning the interval work, and warm down afterwards. You can do intervals anywhere, preferably on quiet, traffic-free roads, or on the turbo. The advantage of the turbo is that you have no distractions or dangers and are in complete control. Short sprint intervals Sprints of 6 seconds on a racing gear (53 x 15 or bigger), absolutely flat out as hard as you can go, followed by a rest period (spinning on a small gear) of around 1 minute. Around a dozen is the maximum you should aim at. Time starts when you jump, so you’re better off counting seconds than trying to look at a watch. If outdoors try to pick a stretch with the wind. You should not feel very tired afterwards.

Stuart Dangerfield’s pyramid of interval training ends with four 2½-mile efforts in around 4.30 each (33 mph) with 12-minute recovery intervals.

Long sprint intervals As for short sprint intervals, but the sprints will be 12 – 15 seconds in duration. Leave a longer rest period (2 – 3 mins) between the sprints and do fewer, perhaps 6 – 10 depending on how you feel.

Short intervals Typically 1 – 1½ minutes in duration with rests of about double the interval in between, i.e. 1 minute on, 2 minutes off. Generally you’ll do these at 90% - 100% of max heart rate, but always above your threshold. They cannot therefore be longer than 2 minutes. The principle is to do your first interval at a set effort and time it. Subsequent intervals should be at the same effort and completed in the same time. As soon as your time exceeds 10% of your initial effort, then stop: further training will not be effective. You will feel tired, probably very tired. Power intervals Done up an incline (but not a steep hill), in a high gear (typically 53 x 12 – 14), for up to a minute at maximum effort, with two to three times the amount of recovery. Aim: to build power. Low intensity Sometimes called ‘time-trial’ intervals. 5 mins at 80 – 85% of peak sustained power with rests of only 1 minute. They should not feel exhausting, and a fit rider should be able to do six or eight. You can vary the system with 6 x 5 min, 8 x 4 min, 10 x 3 min. Good for building power. High Intensity Usually short (1 – 2 min), five to ten repetitions, always at 100% effort, with 1 minute rest periods. Exhausting. Russian steps Easy to do on the turbo. Start with 1 minute on, 9 minutes off; then 2 on, 8 off; 3 on, 7 off; 4 on 6 off; 5 on, 5 off. If you’re still fresh enough, do five more in reverse, finishing with 1 minute on. Intensity: 100%. Hill intervals These are done on hills, preferably with steady gradients. They may range in intensity from 80 – 100% and last from 1 minute to 5 minutes. Points to watch Don’t be tempted into actually stopping during the rest period, especially if you’re on the turbo. Continuing gentle exercise speeds recovery be-

cause it promotes blood flow through the muscles, removing lactic acid. Don’t do interval sessions more than twice a week. You might do a low intensity session for one, and short intervals for another.

Only do intervals when you’re fresh, rested, and feel like doing them. Stick precisely to the scheduled intervals. Always allow at least two days after interval training before your next race.

For whatever intensity, choose a gear that allows you to pedal at 90 – 120 rpm. The only training that should be done at very low revs (50 rpm) is pure strength training on very high gears.

15 – 30: Short intervals 15 – 30 intervals are the brainchild of German coach Gerschler, but this material comes from Canadian master coach Guy Thibault, who is a firm believer in interval training of all kinds. 15 – 30 intervals can be done on the road, but as with all interval training they’re more controllable on the turbo. You warm up for ten minutes, then make a hard effort for 15 seconds, then 30 seconds recovery. You do this for ten minutes, that’s thirteen hard efforts in the block of ten minutes. Then you recover for five minutes, and then do another ten-minute block of 15 – 30. The most difficult bit is establishing the right intensity for the initial efforts, especially the very first ones. The tendency is to do the 15 seconds just a little too fast. You have to do all the 15-second efforts at an intensity that you can repeat each time without flagging, from the beginning to the end of the session. Never go flat out. If you go too fast (and even experienced athletes do it), you end up paying for it: either you have to slow down, or you finish exhausted,

which isn’t really the aim of the exercise. The 15-30 formula is only one of a number of types of short interval training. Gerschler says that you have to do effort periods of 15 seconds or less, divided up with recuperation periods of the same period, or up to double the time. The idea is that as long as you stick to 15-second efforts with a recovery time the same or up to double, you’re OK. Contrary to what you’re led to believe, it’s not necessary to push yourself to the limit during an interval training session in order to derive benefit from it. When you do short intervals, from the first effort periods, 15 seconds or whatever, it’s your own responsibility to find an intensity that’s high enough to achieve a satisfying level of fatigue – a matter of not finding it too easy – but not too intense either, a matter of being able to raise your effort noticeably from the first repetition to the last, without exhausting yourself. A beneficial side effect is that you lose more weight than you do in continuous riding.

The idea is that you develop at the same time your maximal aerobic power (VO2max), and your anaerobic capacity, the two most important determinants of performance in cycling, and, of course, in many other sports. Short interval training is practically the only type of training which works both physical systems at the same time. When you do the fast stretch, you’re recruiting your neuro-muscular system at an intensity which easily reaches and even passes your VO2max, even if you don’t go flat out. Hence the recruitment and therefore the improvement of your anaerobic capacity. During the period of recuperation, say 30 seconds, your cardiovascular system has to transport oxygen to the muscles to compensate for the oxygen you’ve used up during the effort. That’s why we say that short interval training develops maximal aerobic capacity at the same time as anaerobic capacity. Even while you’re recuperating, you’re soliciting your cardio-vascular system.

Some more interval training methods INTERVAL TRAINING 1 V

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10-15 min warm-up, gradually increase heart rate to within 5 beats per minute of average heart rate from ten miles test 5 min riding at average speed from the ten miles time-trial

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5 min riding at about 60% of ten miles timetrial speed

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Repeat work/rest periods three to six times

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10 min warm down

INTERVAL TRAINING 2 (time-trial intervals)

LACTATE THRESHOLD TRAINING 1 V

Warm up for 20 – 30 min

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Ride at 100% for 1 minute on race gear

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Rest (low gear) for 1 min

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Repeat five more times

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Ride for 5 minutes at 10-mile TT pace

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Warm down

LACTATE THRESHOLD TRAINING 2 V

Warm up for 20 – 30 min

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Ride for 30 sec at 120 rpm (i.e. 60 revs) at 100% max HR

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Warm up for 20 – 30 min

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Ride for 5 min at 80% max HR

Rest (low gear) for 2½ min

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Rest (low gear) for 1 min

Repeat as many times as you can manage

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Repeat five more times

Warm down

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Warm down

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Road Racing How to do it

The reason the French call road racing ‘en ligne’ is because being somewhere in a line is of the essence of the sport.

Getting in line, staying in line Cycle racing is based on the principle that the rider nearest the wind is doing the major share of the work. In a time-trial, he is the only rider, but in other forms of racing he will be one of a group which may vary in size from two to a hundred. The principle remains the same. The sheltered rider is saving energy, and the faster they’re travelling, the greater the proportion saved. It’s been estimated that the second rider in a two-up formation travelling at 25 mph may be saving up to 30% energy. In the middle of a bunch the saving can be as great as 40%. Since the rider in front is working hardest, groups maximise their joint effort by riding in lines and taking turns to be on the front. The simplest example is the team time-trial. Here there is no argument about the group’s purpose: they’re all of one mind, all working together towards a common goal. Experienced teams will choose their line-up beforehand, with the riders ‘sized’ so as to give each one the maximum shelter – it’s no good having the giant directly behind the team midget. Riding at a constant speed is the best policy for economising on energy: changing pace uses energy unnecessarily. Stronger riders will not go faster, they will do longer turns. Weaker riders will do shorter turns, even moving over to let the next rider through immediately after they reach the front: ‘through and off’. This makes little energy demand on the rider, and maintains the rhythm. Riders who are tired will rest at the back for as long as it takes them to recover. Riders unable to recover will, eventually, be left behind, since they can no longer contribute to the team’s joint effort. In a road race things are different. All the riders (unless they’re in the same team) will have different purposes. Usually this will be to be first across the line. Groups will form therefore, from individuals willing or anxious to

Bernard Hinault leads the break in Flêche Wallonne. The wind is from the left, so the riders are maximising their shelter by riding slightly to one side, as well as behind. It is clear that Hinault is the strongest rider and is setting a killing pace. Behind the third rider a gap has opened and the other members of the break are now obliged to chase.

form temporary alliances in the interests of defeating the majority by reducing the number of those in serious contention. This is called a breakaway. Since they are trying to leave the majority (the bunch) behind, the pace will often be much higher than the steady-state rhythm of the team time-trial, and all the riders will do short turns, going through and off. If and when the break is established the pace will slow a little. If they remain clear, then the members of the break will compete among themselves for the major placings. If a group escapes, then the bunch may try to chase them down. To be effective in this, they will have to adopt the same methods as the breakaway. For all groups, the principles remain the same. To be effective, therefore, in establishing a break, or catching a break, the riders in a group of any size must maximise their joint effort. They can do this most effectively by sharing the work among as many of them as possible. In a small breakaway, three to six riders,

this is frequently done well, since all the riders recognise the necessity to contribute to their joint needs. Riders need therefore to ride according to the basic principle. In a six-man break, if one rider ceases working (going through and taking his turn at the front) for any length of time, then others may do the same, the rhythm of the break is disrupted, and the break may fail. Likewise, if a 20-man bunch is pursuing a break, it will fail in its object if only two riders are doing all the work because the third man in the line won’t go through to take his turn. If he doesn’t, then the riders behind him can’t come through either. He may do this deliberately, of course, in order to hinder the bunch because he has a team-mate in the break. He may do it because he is afraid that, if he hits the front even for the few seconds it takes him to swing over and let the next man through, he will waste valuable energy. If this is the case, then he should drop out of the

up the line and spoil its rhythm. So if you’re up near the front, or in a break, riding in a line-out, in the long run it saves more energy to go through and off when it’s your turn. Then when you’ve done your turn and swung off the front, you will benefit from the shelter of the next rider who swings off. When there are enough riders for this to happen, you have what is called a double pace-line, one line moving up, the other down. If, instead of going through, you freewheel to avoid being on the front, or switch to the down line, you will once again break up the circular rhythm of the group. You don’t have to do a long turn: it really is just through and off. If you’re finding it too hard, then go to the back and stay there until you’ve recovered. It also pays to get on the wheel immediately of anyone who accelerates. If you’re near the front and a rider passes you and goes into the lead, if you jump on to his wheel at once, the expenditure of energy is very small – it may require no more than two or three harder thrusts on the pedals. If, on the other hand, you ignore him the gap will grow. At 30 metres people may be willing to bridge the gap; at 50 they’ll be less willing; and at 100 metres nobody will want to chase. Bringing this rider (or riders) back will take twenty times as much energy as you’d have used to close the original small gap. Wind With the wind dead ahead or directly line altogether and sit in the back of the group. I have said nothing so far about the effect of the wind. If the wind is directly ahead or behind then there is little difficulty: the riders will be in a single line, sitting one behind the other. If on the other hand the wind is blowing from either side (which is much more common), then things can become quite complicated. In these conditions you have to ride, not only behind the riders in front, but off to one side as well. A rider and bicycle isn’t a very large windbreak, and to benefit, each rider has to ride very close to the wheel of the rider in front. Learning to do this safely is basic for all road-race riders. It follows, therefore, that leaving a gap between yourself and the rider in front will (1) reduce the drafting effect and make it harder for you; and (2) break

behind the riders will be in a straight line. With the wind, as it usually is, coming from one side or other, at a variety of angles, riding in a line is more complicated. To get the maximum shelter each rider will be not only behind the one in front but off to one side. With the wind coming at a shallow angle from the direct line, he will be only slightly to one side and still behind. With an almost direct side wind the riders will overlap to a greater or less extent. This formation is called (in Britain) an echelon. In France it’s an éventail or bordure. The principles remain the same. The rider at the front is nearest the wind, and the following riders come through in shelter. Getting this right makes a significant difference to the group’s effectiveness and to the pace they can maintain. Sometimes, with the wind at a shallow yaw angle, it’s difficult to judge the precise direction and to decide which side you’ll change on. Changing on the wrong side will make it a struggle for those behind to get shelter and to come through – in effect they will all be riding in the wind all the time. Professional roadmen are skilled at using the wind to put the opposition at a disadvantage. On closed roads the éventail can stretch across the whole width and may contain twenty or thirty riders. Those who can’t get in it have two choices: they can ride in a long tail down the left- or right-hand gutter, in which case they’re all riding alone in

Effects of a crosswind in the Vuelta a España

Direction of Wind Direction of Travel

the wind; or they can form a second echelon from which the stronger riders can leap-frog across to the echelon in front and force their way in. We rarely see this in Britain, but in Belgium and the Netherlands it’s a common sight. In Britain, because we rarely have closed roads, echelons extend at most to the white line, so the tail in the gutter may start in an echelon of only six riders. It’s always easier to be in the echelon and working with it than to be in the tail with the wind blowing on you. Sooner rather than later the elastic will snap, a gap will open, and the lead echelon is away. You now know the basic principles of riding a road race. From here on, tactics are a matter of detail; and as we know, the devil is in the detail.

The riders in the echelon are sharing the work and recovering in shelter. Each of the riders in the line in the gutter is exposed to the wind all the time. Eventually weaker riders will drop back and leave gaps. In addition to receiving no shelter, the riders in the gutter are at much greater risk of falling, and more likely to puncture. It is essential to get into the front echelon, joining on the windy side and immediately taking your share of the work. Joining the echelon at the back will merely mean that you join the line, tire, and fall back again.

The echelon or éventail seen from above

Everyone has to find ways of maximising their strengths, playing on their opponents weaknesses, and minimising their rivals’ abilities. These methods we loosely call ‘tactics’, and they’re pretty well infinite. But there a few basic principles underlie a host of variations.

Road racing: Tactics Riders ask me, quite often, ‘How do you win a road race?’ I always assume that they don’t want a detailed set of training plans beginning when you were 16. I assume that what they’re asking is primarily a question of tactics. Tactics as used in cycle racing describes a sort of syndrome of factors which combine to enable the rider to work out how to maximise his strengths relative to those of his opponents in order to achieve the best possible result for himself. It is primarily a mental exercise but is closely related to physical skills: for instance, a rider skilled at cornering will have tactical advantages on a technical course, and so will a skilled descender on a descent. The mental part of road racing is very like chess: the basic principles are very simple, but the complexities of their application are virtually infinite. However, all forms of massed-start cycle racing on road or track are based on one principle. That principle is that the rider nearest the wind is doing the major share of the work. A rider at the back of a line of four is probably using 20% less energy than the one at the front, and a rider in the middle of a large group may be using up to 45% less than the leaders of the group. It is on this basis that all road racing tactics rest. If two or more riders are of equal ability and have achieved the same training status (are equally fit), it is an advantage for one rider to ride in the slipstream of the other (or others). There are two advantages for him: the riders towing him will tire themselves more by doing all the leading, while he will tire less quickly than otherwise because he is riding in shelter. In practice there will be many occasions where two or more riders share the lead, and therefore the work, in order to try to break clear of the main field. Imagine three ideal riders in what are,

Magnus Backstedt outsprints the four-man break to win Paris–Roubaix 2004 with Roger Hammond third. for them, ideal situations: Rider A is so powerful and has such endurance that he can ride alone faster than any of the others, who will be unable to stay with him, and he will therefore win alone and unaided. Rider B has so fast a finish that no-one can beat him, and he persuades the others (by whatever means) to carry him in shelter to the finish, where he is unbeatable. Rider C is such a dominant climber that if there’s any kind of a hill on the course he will drop the others and win alone. If all road races were run like this, then they would be very dull, completely predictable and one of three people would always win.

Fortunately very few road races are like this. In real life Rider A can do his thing once or twice in a season, but most of the time he can’t shake off Rider B or a substantial number of the others. But most of the time the others won’t let Rider B do his thing either. They drop him, or work him over to such an extent that his finishing sprint is blunted. There have actually been a few riders like Rider C (Charly Gaul, for instance), and over a very long climb, or a series of long climbs, they may indeed be virtually unbeatable; but the kind of hills that feature in most races aren’t long enough or steep enough to guarantee their victory, and their results show that they win much less often than do sprinters or all-rounders. In real life everyone has to find ways of maximising their strengths, playing on

their opponents weaknesses, and minimising their rivals’ abilities. These methods we loosely call ‘tactics’, and they’re pretty well infinite. However, there are basic principles which underlie a host of variations.

Knowledge of the course

It is a great advantage to know the course. If possible always try to ride it beforehand. Always have adequate gears for any course. If the course is completely unknown to you, then take spare cassettes or rear wheels so that you can make a last-minute change. Fortunately in the UK nowadays, with 9-speed and 10-speed set-ups, few riders are likely to lack a low-enough bottom gear or a highenough top. Even so, it is important, or sometimes crucial, to know that after a sharp bend the hill steepens will enable you to be in the right gear before hand, that a sharp turn will bring a change in the wind direction, that the gear for the finish hill, and where you should make your effort, will change radically according to whether there’s a tailwind or a headwind. On a circuit you usually get a lap to settle in, but don’t count on it. If you can’t go over the whole course, at least ride over the last half-mile and reconnoitre the finish. Is the straight long enough and wide enough for you to delay your sprint until as late as possible, or must you be round the last bend, or over the last crest, already in the lead? Observe also the wind direction: a headwind suggests you should leave your sprint as late as possible; a strong tailwind allows you to go earlier; a sidewind means that you’ll want to attack up the sheltered side of other riders. You’ll also have some idea of what gear to be in.

Observation

When an experienced rider arrives at the start of a race he will usually know a number of riders in the field, will know that X is a good climber, that B is a good sprinter, and so on. Based on his knowledge of their current performances he can also form a good idea of their state of form and fitness. He will know which riders will work well in a break, will always do their turn, and so on. He will know which are the best sprinters and that he would be wise to shed them before the finish if possible. The astute rider is concentrates and is alert throughout the race. Don’t be one

The break in Liège–Bastogne–Liège. Steven Rooks leads, Charly Mottet watches the three riders behind. of those riders who sprints for seventh place and thinks he’s won because he didn’t know that there’d been a break of six away for the last 30 miles; or who turns to other riders halfway through and says, ‘Is there someone away then?’ You should know who’s in the break (or at least the most prominent riders). If a break gets away and is out of sight, try to get accurate information about how far they’re ahead. All the time you should be watching the other riders, judging their strengths, their state of fatigue or otherwise. You’ll want to know these things before committing yourself to joining them in a break, for instance. When you’re in a break, look for signs of fatigue in your companions, but remember they’ll be watching you too. Always try to look impassive and unconcerned, never show that you’re tired. You may, of course, fake fatigue in order to lull your rivals into a false sense of security, a belief that they don’t need to worry about you as a threat. There have been some famous examples – Lance Armstrong on the stage to L’Alpe d’Huez in 2001, for instance.

P ositioning yourself in the bunch Your first aim is to ride near the front of the main bunch. In a peloton of 100 riders this may mean ‘in the first 20’; in a

group of 40 riders it means ‘in the first ten’.

Working with other riders

More often than not you will find yourself obliged to form alliances with other riders so that you can work to your mutual benefit against the majority. Why break away? When the entire field stays together throughout the race and arrives at the finish together, then the strongest finishers have an advantage. In any case, in a large field finishing on a relatively narrow stretch of road even the strongest rider may find himself blocked: when the odds are lengthened everyone’s chances of winning are greatly reduced. Riders with a serious intention of winning will therefore try to shorten the odds by breaking clear of the main field, either alone or in company with a group of other riders. Such a group might consist of three or four riders, or as much as a third of the field. Those unable to make the break will be effectively eliminated from contention. Those in the break will have a smaller number of riders to watch.

Breaking away in company

Most breakaways will be made by a group. This group can form in many ways. It might be built up from a number of riders who break away individually, first one, then another, and so on, until half-a-dozen are clear of the bunch. In other circumstances all six might get clear more or

Out of sight, out of mind is a good principle to bear in mind, whether you’re back in the bunch or in the break. For this reason it’s often worth trying breaks on twisty sections of the course, in narrow lanes with high hedges, and so on. Everyone knows you attack on a hill. Well, up to a point. Since everyone knows it, everyone will be expecting it, and will be prepared to take countermeasures. And where on the hill? In fact, the majority of breaks that go on hills do so as the hill levels off over the top, not on the climb itself. Most riders feel they’ve got to the top safely and unconsciously ease up a little. This is particularly the case where a long false flat follows a severe climb.

Difficult road conditions in the Tour of Flanders 1998. The riders are on the narrow, dry strip on the crown of the cobbled track less in a body. If one rider is going through much more strongly than the others, try not to be the one who’s just done his turn on the front when he does so, otherwise you’ll find yourself constantly making exhausting efforts to get on the back. This is particularly important as you get near the finish. In any case, if it’s early on, advise him to go through more smoothly, because his action (often unintentional) is breaking up the rhythm and effectiveness of the break.

ers willing to carry passengers during the time it takes for the break to get established, with the intention of shedding them later. A group of six to eight riders working hard together is more efficient than the main bunch, where perhaps at first only two or three riders are willing to work, while others may be getting in the chase line and not coming through, or even actively hampering the chase because they have team-mates in the break (see Blocking).

At this point, if the riders hope to gain time and stay clear, they must commit themselves completely to working in the break: there is no room for hangers-on. If any rider won’t take part in the joint effort then the break is unlikely to succeed, since others will, one by one, refuse to participate. However, if one rider is visibly unable to share the work at first it may be worthwhile for the others to persist in the expectation that he will join in as soon as he has recovered. The point at which any rider decides that this break is not going to succeed and sits up will depend on a judgment based on a number of factors – previous experience, knowledge of the riders in the break, knowledge of the riders left behind in the field, knowledge of the course ahead, his own state of fitness and freshness, the direction of the wind.

Many riders make breaks without ever having a chance of sustaining them. If you go with everything you can exhaust yourself carrying companions who are contributing nothing. This is where your previous knowledge of the other riders, or your current observation of them, counts. There are always riders who make a show of breaking away but are unwilling or unable to sustain their effort, and sooner rather than later they’re pulled back. There is normally no point in joining in attacks with such riders as long as they are kept within striking distance. However they can sometimes be a focus for attacks by stronger riders, and you should always be ready to join them in a bridging move. If or when you catch the earlier breakaways, the chances are that you’ll go straight past them, but the bunch will relax for a moment thinking the move is over. This will give you a little more time to consolidate the break.

There are exceptions. A larger break can succeed if it contains enough strong rid-

A surprising number of breaks go downhill, which is a good reason for practising your descending skills. A group which reaches the foot of a descent with a small lead can often consolidate on the flat.

Size of the break

The ideal size for a successful breakaway will to some extent depend on the quality and experience of the field. The better the field, the more difficult it will be for a group to get clear. In a weak field, three or four riders may be enough to be effective. In a better field it may require more riders. In general terms, however, once a break exceeds eight riders then it is likely to become less effective, because of the tendency mentioned above of some riders to take it easy on the back of the group. A break of ten riders will almost always include one or two who are along for the ride, hoping to be towed to the finish where they can outsprint the rest. A break of six is usually strong enough to get clear and stay clear, and is likely to be composed of well-matched riders willing to work for the common good. In an event where teams are operating, a break made up of riders from several teams is likely to have better chances than one containing riders from only one or two teams, since their team-mates can hamper any chase.

Bridging to a break

An experienced rider learns to identify key moves. If you find you’ve missed what is obviously (to you, at least) the key break, then you need to get across to it. This is preferable to towing the rest of the field up to it. Look around and see where the remaining strong riders are –

ideally, unless one of them can come with you, you need to wait until you’re separated from them. You have several decisions to make: where to make your attack from (up the side, from ten places back; from the front?), how hard to go. If the break is half a minute away, your effort will be that of a pursuiter. If only ten seconds, of a sprinter. Jump hard enough to open a gap – why make it easy for the others? The worst outcome of a bridging attempt is that you get stuck, alone, in no-man’s land between the bunch and the break. Unless this is very near the finish, so that you may hang on for a placing, or unless you can look round and see reinforcements coming up, then sit up and wait. If you continue, others will simply use you as a stepping stone to the break and you’ll be too exhausted to hold on to them.

Breaking away alone

There are examples of riders breaking away from an entire field and riding a long way to the finish alone. We’ve all seen this happen in televised stages of the Tour de France, and very strong riders have done it in classics. But the fact remains that such rides are exceptional. Such rides in a big stage race may be made possible largely because the rider is so far behind on General Classification that he is no longer a threat and may be allowed to win, especially following a time-trial or a hard day in the mountains when many riders want an easy day. In practice, most lone wins occur when (1) a rider leaves behind a small group of breakaway companions who have decisively distanced the main field; or (2), if the field remains substantially together, in the last two or three miles. In the first case the strongest rider has only a few rivals to watch and has plenty of opportunity to observe their strengths and weaknesses. Even so, it’s a mistake to try to split the break up too early. You should make sure that it’s well-established, and that you’re confident of staying clear on your own for the remaining distance. The gap between you and your former companions needn’t be very great, as long as you can see after a short time that they’re not gaining on you. There are no rules about what conditions decide your move. An excellent sprinter may feel confident in remaining with half-adozen breakaway companions to the fin-

ish, knowing he can beat them; but if he finds he can also drop them and finish alone, he should do so. A puncture with 200 metres to go doesn’t matter much if you’ve got a 30-second lead. In the second case (breaking away alone from the field) the rider will usually delay his move until he’s close to the finish, within two or three miles. He is gambling on being strong enough to withstand any chase, or, more likely, on the likelihood that no-one will chase so close to the finish for fear of towing the others. By the time the field decide to react, the attacker hopes to have a big enough lead to stay away. This moves are usually risky, but they succeed on a surprising number of occasions. Occasionally, of course, the attacker really is so strong that he can stay clear in any event.

Breaking away early

In professional road races on the mainland of Europe early breaks rarely stay clear to the finish. This is not to say that they’ve failed, since their first priority is to display their sponsors’ names and logos for as long as possible on the television cameras. But the present-day dominance of large teams, and the use of the intercom with which directeurs sportif can instruct all their riders, mean that when a nine-man team goes to the front and rides hard they will reduce a substantial lead very quickly. Sometimes it’s worth persevering. I was once in a large break which went after 20 miles of a 110-mile race, the first stage of a three-day event. After 60 miles of very hard work, during which a number of riders were shed, a motorcyclist came up and said, ‘The bunch is one minute behind’. Clearly there were strong and determined riders still behind. But we kept working, and it was shortly after this point that the bunch finally gave up and the gap opened to four minutes. The remnants of the break remained the first six on GC for the rest of the race.

Blocking

An experienced rider, or riders, can help a break in which one or more of their team-mates is present by blocking at the front of the main field and so disrupting the chase. Sometimes merely refusing to take part in the chase may be enough. On other occasions actually going to the front, slowing down, and so reducing the pace of the whole field may be required.

Such tactics can be enormously effective, but they are likely to provoke resentment from the riders who are trying to organise a chase. A skilled blocker will keep inserting himself into the line so that he is always the third or fourth rider to come through. The most effective tactic is to come through slowly, reach the front and then slow down very gently while still pedalling. Many riders will suppose that the blocker is merely a not-very-strong rider, but by the time they get round him and take up the chase again, the break will have gained another ten seconds.

The type of race often determines tactics Tactics in the stages of a stage race may be very different from those which we observe in a single-day event. In a stage race there are races within the race. One rider may be pursuing a quite different aim from others, perhaps concentrating on stage wins rather than overall victory, sprint or hill points, or the team-race. In a stage race a rider may legitimately sit on a break or be towed up to a break in the interests of his team leader or the team as a whole. A well-organised team may attack from the start of the stage in order to provoke splits in the field, or to reduce the number of riders in the lead group by a process of wearing-down.

Fast star ts starts

Fast starts can catch you unawares which is why it’s always a good idea to warm up. But you can also catch others unawares, so warm up with this intention. I have seen a key break of six go as the flag was dropped and stay away for the entire 65 miles of a race. This is a move worth trying early season when others may not be very fit.

Using the conditions

This applies particularly to the use of the wind but astute and well-prepared riders can take advantage of any weather condition: snow or heavy rain, for example.

Approaching the finish

If you’re a sprinter you have to watch for non-sprinters who may try to get clear in the last few kilometres. If you’re alone, the least tiring method of controlling them is to ride near the front of the group and instantly jump on to the wheel of anyone who attacks. Letting them gain fifty yards or more means that you’ll have a tiring chase, but very short bursts shouldn’t damage your sprint. If you have

team-mates, ask them to close down attacks. These tactics can be very important in a stage race, especially where there are time bonuses for placings.

works. It depends on the group size and your speed. It can be very effective if a move has just been brought back and there’s some confusion at the front.

The finish

Others say, ‘Don’t attack from the front, everyone can see you.’ But it can work if you’re strong and have a good jump. Try to have a rider behind who you know is lazy and has a poor jump. Another method is when you’re in a line working at the front of a group, to accelerate through very fast and keep going. This is obviously a way of attacking a small break as you near the finish.

In European professional races the speed is wound up from two or three kilometres out, and the rider who wins the sprint may have to jump on a 12 or 11-tooth sprocket from a group already travelling at 40-plus mph. But in many road races in Britain the riders approach the finish much more slowly and an explosive jump is more valuable an asset than a very high finishing speed. Probably the commonest fault in British road racing is to start the sprint in too high a gear. Gear down slightly for a rising finish or a headwind. This is where study of the finish on the day of the event pays off.

Be unpredictable

The most dangerous riders are those who are always doing (or at least trying) something different. Try to become one of them. Don’t become known for always attacking in a certain place, for always trying a particular move. Try never to telegraph your moves. If you can make sneaking away work, then sneak away. The manual says all sorts of things that sound like good sense but don’t take into account actual circumstances and conditions. For instance, the book will say, ‘Don’t try to break away into a headwind’. In actual fact, and in the right circumstances, attacking into the wind can be very effective. Consider: there will almost always be a marked reluctance to chase on the part of the others. They’re thinking: ‘It’s bad enough helping to tow other riders up to a break – into the wind it’ll use twice as much energy.’ While they’re arguing you’re gaining. And remember, if you’re riding on a circuit there will eventually come a point where the wind’s behind you. If you reach this point (for example) while the others are still struggling in a cross-wind, you’ll be accelerating and getting out of sight while they’re still hampered. Some manuals say, ‘Don’t attack from the rear’. It’s true that often, by the time you reach the front there will be a string of riders waiting to jump on your wheel, but sometimes they’re disorganised and it

I recently saw a rider open a gap by freewheeling down the side of the bunch down a straight descent. Nobody went with him and the bunch decided to let him sit out in front with his lead of 200 metres and wear himself out in the wind, though they were in fact going so slowly that he could maintain the lead effortlessly. After about five miles the riders reached a steep climb, where another rider got across to the lone breakaway. There were still 35 miles to go, but the bunch never saw the pair again.

‘Reading the race’

There is no doubt that some riders are able to read a race, to be constantly aware of everything that’s going on, and to be able to identify the moves that are worth going with and those that will almost certainly come to nothing. Some riders seem born with this talent: they can do it from their first rides in road races. Others acquire it through experience. Some, even strong and otherwise talented riders, seem never to manage it. Reading a race is something you can learn, but it is the most difficult art to teach. It is the result of a whole bundle of factors: preparation, knowledge of the course and conditions, experience, observation of a thousand tiny details of which the rider may not always be conscious.

Catching a break

If the field sees that a chasing group has caught a break it may assume that the move is over. This is one reason why the chasers should persist and ride right through the break. When the field catches

the remnant they may well suppose that there are no more riders ahead and sit up, at least for a time, so giving the new break more time to establish itself. When you have to make a move Eventually every rider faces the prospect of having to make a move because noone else will do it for him. This is particularly the case when a rider is race leader in a stage race.

Keep it simple

Don’t try to be too clever. The simplest tactic that will deal with the situation is the one to go for. If you over-complicate things you can lose control and get in a mess.

To conclude

Of course, it goes without saying that the cleverest tactics are wasted if you’re not fit enough to seize the opportunity they give you. Tactics are a combination of intelligent riding, technical ability and physical fitness. Anyone who saw Paolo Bettini win the Olympic Road Race in Athens witnessed an outstanding display of head, legs and skills. Bettini was in the first quarter of the field throughout the race and made a probing move with three laps to go, but didn’t persist. On the penultimate climb of the big hill Bettini made sure he was at the front at the foot of the hill and attacked strongly, maintaining his effort over the false flat at the top. He took with him Sergio Paulinho, the Portuguese national timetrial champion, a strong rider whose best chance of a medal was to go with Bettini and work as hard as possible. Both riders knew that he would be unlikely to beat the Italian in a sprint. The pair stayed clear for the whole of the final lap and held a 40-second lead at the summit of the last climb. From here it was around five kilometres to the finish, where Bettini comfortably beat his companion.

Three tactical situations A break of a hill-climber, a pursuiter and two sprinters from the same team are in a four-man break 4 kilometres from the finish. Now comes a 1 km climb followed by a 1 km descent, a stretch of flat, and a slight rise to the finish. What should the hill-climber do to maximise his winning chances? And what should the others do? The climber should attack at the foot of the climb, attempt to open as large a gap as possible, and stay clear to the finish. It’s not just a question of physical ability: knowledge of the terrain and psychological factors come into play. The climber knows that his rivals are unlikely to be able to close the gap on the descent – they will all descend at the same speed. The pursuiter, who might be able to chase down the climber on the flat, will be unwilling to bring up the two sprinters who will get a relatively easy ride to the line. The sprinters will be unwilling to work for fear of blunting their speed. The best tactics for the sprinters would be for one of them to sacrifice his chances and work with the pursuiter to bring back the climber while his team-mate had an easier ride. The pursuiter’s best chance of winning is to work with the sprinters and then, when they’re temporarily tired, try to open a gap and stay clear. Two riders of the same team, Riders A and B, are in a three-man break with Rider S who is known to be an outstanding sprinter. The break is well-established and unlikely to be caught before the finish. What should Riders A and B do to maximise their chances of winning? And

what alternative strategies does Rider S have? Riders A and B should attack in turn, forcing Rider S to chase while the other sits on his wheel and is towed up. As he gets near to the attacker, the towed rider attacks in turn. If Rider S makes no counter move, four outcomes are possible: Rider S will become so worn down that either A or B, whichever is the stronger, will be able to stay clear and win alone; Rider S will succeed in staying with his rivals but will be so weakened that either or both will beat him in the sprint; Rider S is so strong that he can counter his rivals’ moves and still win the sprint; Rider S is so strong that when (say) B attacks, he tows rider A up to him and then attacks himself, dropping both and winning alone. Garcia Acosta actually did this in the 2000 Tour de France, dropping Frenchmen Hervé and Simon. In another actual example run on rather poor-quality minor roads in the UK Riders A and B rode so as to force Rider S to ride close in to the side of the road in the gravel and pot-holes, and he punctured. Rider A is a strong all-rounder known to be the favourite with a good finish, and the likely winner of the Tour of the Lanes. He is in a group of around 15 riders which includes three members of the Wheelsuckers Racing Team, Riders X, Y and Z. These last three begin attacking in turn. Their target is obviously Rider A whom they rightly regard as their main threat. As each of his three rivals attacks, Rider A finds himself obliged to chase each one down, with little or no assistance from the other riders in the group. As soon as

he brings back Rider X, Rider Y attacks. As soon as he brings back Rider Y, Rider Z attacks. What is Rider A’s best chance of defeating these tactics and winning? This situation actually occurred in a veterans’ road race in 2003. If you’re a victim of such tactics it is always worth remembering that their attacks also tire your rivals. After five miles during which Rider A managed to bring back the attackers in turn, the race reached a long drag culminating in a short, steep hill. On the drag A forced the pace at the front. The group was strung out with only Rider X of the attacking team near the front. On the hill A attacked and X, eager to maximise his personal chances, went with him. The pair quickly established a lead of 200 metres and despite the fact that the finish was still 18 miles away, Rider A recognised that this was his best chance of winning. Riders Y and Z now faced a dilemma. They could chase and bring back their own team-mate, or leave him in a break with a rider known to have a superior finish and take the chance that he could still win. In the event they didn’t chase, the pair stayed clear, and Rider A beat Rider X at the finish. Their best move would have been to chase down the break and resume their earlier tactics. Rider X’s correct behaviour would have been to sit on Rider A’s wheel and wait for his team-mates to come up. Rider A was aided (A) by his knowledge of the course (he knew about the hill); and (B) by his knowledge that Rider X tended to be selfish and would take the chance of breaking away in defiance of his own team’s best tactics.

Working on your sprint A finishing sprint is an invaluable asset for a roadman. While it’s no good having a terrific sprint if you’re never there at the finish, you’re equally unlikely to win if you always get to the finish with the leaders but can’t sprint. It’s not just the finish either: a good sprint is vital if you’re to bridge gaps, or break away without towing the whole field on your wheel. To some extent sprinters, like climbers, are born, not made. Your genes will have made you not only heavily muscled (relatively, anyway) but will have provided you with a high proportion of muscle fibres that physiologists call ‘fast twitch’. The fastest sprinters have a predominance (as much as 75%)of Type II white, fast-twitch muscle fibres. These fibres have a high anaerobic capacity, but a low aerobic capacity. That is to say, they provide explosive power and high top-end speed, but they fatigue quickly. Endurance riders on the other hand start off with a predominance of Type I ‘red slow-twitch’ fibres which can ‘fire’ repeatedly without fatiguing . So if you’ve got mostly Type II, you’ll have a hell of a kick for 200 metres, but may get shelled out long before the finish: you’re Florian Rousseau. If your muscle fibres are mostly Type I (70%) you can go on for ever at one pace, but your acceleration may be a bit sluggish: you’re Miguel Indurain. Fortunately this isn’t the end of the story. With training you can increase the effectiveness of your muscle fibres, whatever type they are. And winning the sprint at the end of a road race isn’t just down to muscle fibres: other factors come into play. They include general fitness, freshness, conviction and determination, economic riding, skilful placement in the group, judgement, and so on. Obviously the condition of the other riders is also important. Elements of sprinting include: explosive power (jump); top-end speed; high cadence; overspeed (e.g . sprinting downhill). You’ll know from watching the Tour de France that most continen-

Rik van Looy wins the 1961 World Road title from Defilippis and Poulidor. Tom Simpson is near the back in ninth position. tal pro races get wound up a long way out and in most of them top-end speed is more important than a fast jump. The same is true in vets racing in Belgium, for instance. In British vets racing a fast jump is probably more important.

Training

Your aim, as a road rider, is to improve your anaerobic capacity. You train for sprinting by sprinting. There are infinite ways. I knew a man back in the sixties who used to ride up and down the A38 near Worcester (no motorway then) sprinting after lorries which came past at around 40 mph, dropping off, sprinting up to them again, then resting and waiting for the next. Once a week do a training ride like this: half an hour warmup, then 6 – 10 absolutely flat-out sprints of only 5 seconds each, with a 2-minute rest spinning a low gear in between. Warm down for half an hour on

the way back. The idea is that it’s not very fatiguing, but it’s surprisingly effective. Really murderous, but excellent for developing anaerobic power, are hill sprints of around a minute on a medium gradient, absolutely riding yourself into the ground. If you’re going hard enough six should be about all you can manage, even when you’re properly fit. Another power-builder is to find a dip with half-mile slopes either side. Dive down the one and go flat out on a high gear up the other side. Rest for a minute, then repeat in the other direction. Give up when someone calls an ambulance. Avoid wasting energy: don’t throw the bike all over the road, keep your elbows tucked in and arms pulling up and back, not outwards. Practise sprints sitting down and out of the saddle. The important thing is to think of yourself

as someone who can sprint, not a nohoper. Work on your explosive power by rolling along at low speed and then jumping as hard as you can in a high gear. Practise your sprint as often as possible. To learn how to cope with the other riders in a sprint you have to train in a group, such as a weekly chaingang. Your circuit needs to have a few known sprint signs built in. Don’t practise sitting in to save yourself – you can do that in races, but not on the chaingang. You need to know how far you can go flat out without fading before the line.

Weight

Here’s another thing. If you’re a natural sprinter you’ll not only have a preponderance of fast-twitch muscle fibres, you’ll also tend to have bigger muscles than a rider who’s a ‘natural climber’. This will probably mean that you won’t win many very hilly races. Mario Cipollini tried and failed to win Milan – San Remo half a dozen times because, despite sitting in the back of the bunch for 250 kilometres, he got shelled out year after year on the Cipressa, a minor climb just before the finish. But you can get your weight down. Make sure that it’s all muscle, not fat. But if you set out to lose weight, do it very gradually indeed (not more than 500 gm per week), and don’t lose too much. Beyond a certain point you’ll be losing lean muscle mass and with it strength.

Racing

If you’re not totally committed, then it’s not a sprint. If you can take two lengths by jumping at 200 metres, then it’s going to take a very strong, fast rider to catch you and then get past. Anyone who can is probably better than you and deserves it. The way to ride the sprint will vary widely according to the circumstances and the strengths of the riders you’re with. If you can get a lead-out, all well and good; but don’t be afraid to go from the front. With modern gear-changing systems you can afford to start off in a lower gear and change up during your sprint. Many riders in vets races try to sprint in too high a gear. Those Continental pros in the 53/12 or 54/11 are already doing close to 40 when they jump. A 55-year-old coming into the finish with a group doing 23 mph needs to start on something lower, say 53/16 or even lower if it’s slightly uphill or into a headwind. If it’s a real hill then you may have to be on the little ring. Incidentally, it’s claimed you can accelerate slightly faster on a small ring/small sprocket combination than on a big ring/ big sprocket. During the race ride as economically as possible. That doesn’t mean sitting in the back and doing nothing all race. If you do, nobody will love you, some may even call you names, and, worse, you could miss the vital move.

On the run-in prepare your sprint. Relax as much as is possible, don’t do very long turns on the front (but remember it’s actually easier to go through and off as to mess about), make sure your shoes are tightly done up, take a drink five miles out. Choose the rider whose wheel you want to be on, if any. Ride well into the side so that you can see everyone behind you from the corner of your eye. Consider the direction of the wind: it will be easier to come past someone if you’re in shelter. On the other hand, taking the hard route may be effective if you’re strong, because nobody else will want to attack into the wind. Keep your nerve: on long straight approaches it’s easy to go too early and die. Watch where your opponents are looking for you: when they look for you on their right, jump past them on their left. Once you’ve committed yourself, don’t look round. Get into the habit of focusing on the line and forgetting everything else. You can see where everyone else is after you’ve won. If you feel tired, then the others almost certainly do as well. And if you find someone alongside you matching your effort, don’t give up: keep going for another second. And another. Go all the way to the line. He may be the one who cracks. Be confident – you might surprise yourself.

If you’re a Sumo wrestler it’s OK to be really, really heavy; cyclists, on the other hand, want to be light, but there are ways and ways of losing weight. It’s easy to become obsessive, and the consequences can be less than beneficial …

Weight and power

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ndy was permanently worried about his weight. At 6ft 2 his best racing weight was just under 13 stone, but by Christmas he was 15 stone. In February he rang me before his March trip to Mallorca to tell me he’d discovered the secret of losing weight: ‘I’ve stopped eating!’ he said. ‘Just black coffee for breakfast, a salad roll and another coffee for lunch, and nothing else until I get home about seven – and then I’m not hungry, so I don’t always have an evening meal. It’s brilliant – I’ve lost 21 lbs in twenty-eight days.’ He never came to Mallorca: the doctor signed him off work for two months with severe stress. You certainly can lose weight if you stop eating, as any hunger striker can tell you. You begin by losing the stored fat on which your body can survive for weeks, as long as you drink plenty of water. Then you lose lean muscle mass, and with it your strength and power. After a certain point you lose the pains of hunger, you lose the desire to eat, and eventually you lose the will to live. If you want to know what this feels like, a safe way to simulate it is to watch Des O’Connor for two or three minutes. Any kind of crash diet, or one-food diet, is bad for you. You need a wide range of foods to provide essential nutrients: not only the macro-nutrients (carbohydrate, protein and fat) but the micro-nutrients – vitamins, minerals, trace elements. This is what is usually referred to as ‘a balanced diet’. You can lose weight through exercise alone, but it’s a long, slow process and requires a great deal of exercise. Of course, losing weight should be a long, slow process, but you can help it along by reducing your overall food intake very slightly. The formula is very simple: you have to take in slightly less energy than you expend during any given period of time. If you can reduce your daily intake to 100 calories less than your expenditure, you’ll lose weight. This may require some fiddling

around, calculating the calorific value of various portions of a range of foods and so on, before you learn how to shave off the calories. Most training manuals for most sports give tables and lists of calories per portion, as does the packaging on many foods nowadays. As a rough guide, though, where you used to eat three slices of bread, eat two; where it was six potatoes, make it five; two, not three slices of meat; and so on. Remember, too, that you have to eat a certain amount in order to maintain the energy levels necessary for the exercise which will help you to lose weight. Of course your body uses energy just sitting around, or even sleeping. You can estimate your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) by the following formula: (weight in kg x 8.7)+829 = RMR If your daily life is sedentary, multiply your RMR figure by 1.4; if moderately active, by 1.7; and if very active, by 2.0. Then add this figure to your RMR to get a reasonable estimate of your daily calorie requirement. Athletes shouldn’t really have to worry about their weight. It’s easy to put the cart before the horse and use your sport as a means to lose weight; whereas your aim should be to lose weight in order to be better at your sport. What’s important is not weight pure and simple, but your power to weight ratio. This is a calculation that’s easier to do if you use metric. The difficult bit is finding your power output, which usually requires some kind of test on a turbo trainer or KingCycle. If, for instance, your power output is 420 watts for 70 kg bodyweight, your power/weight ratio is 6. This is about what you’d expect an elite rider to achieve. Miguel Indurain used to put out 550 watts for 78 kg , an index of 7, which partly explains why a man of his weight could climb so well. Pantani could make 400 watts at 55kg, an index of 7.25. The higher it is, the better – but there are two ways of raising it. One is, of course, by losing weight, but as we’ve

Indurain: 78 kilos, but a power output of 550 watts at his aerobic threshold enabled him to stay with the climbers.

seen, there are dangers. You can end up by losing lean muscle mass, and then your power output will fall. The other is by increasing your power output. In athletic sports the most effective method of doing this is by interval training. We listed a range of interval training methods in The Veteran Leaguer for Spring 2002, but they all have the same aim: to raise your aerobic threshold and therefore your useful power output. Most books on training for cycle sport include details of interval training methods. Here are a few: ‘Time-trial’ intervals: Five minutes at 80 – 85% max hear t rate, one minute recovery, repeat five times. 30 seconds on 53 x 15/14 at 120 rpm, rest 3 minutes, repeat five times. 1 – 2 minutes at 90% in a fixed time for a distance, 2 min recovery, repeat until you exceed your original time by 10%.

Remember: warm up before, warm down afterwards. The older you get, the longer it takes to recover. Continue to eat a good diet: 60%+ carbohydrate, 15% protein, 20% fat. And stop worrying about your weight.

The Coaching Page

It’s magic!

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and ask what they’re doing is finding the evican, and writing them down for advice on training. ‘What dence to support what we’ve always getting in a good foundation do you want to train for?’ I say. been doing anyway. One of the things of endurance training ‘What do you want to do? What are their research shows, without any training at different intensities your aims, your goals?’ doubt, is that, no matter how many and in varying volumes They’re not sure: ‘I just want to be basic miles you get in at 16 mph, it’s getting plenty of rest and rebetter,’ they say. This is less of a probour high-intensity training that really covery lem than you might think. It’s often posmakes the difference when it comes eating a wholesome, balanced sible, with a little patient questioning, to racing. The good news is that you diet, plenty of carbohydrate to establish some fairly specific, fairly don’t have to do very much of it, as (that’s what fuels most of short-term, time-based goals. long as it’s intense enough. Five-secyour training) ‘OK, you’d like to be able to get in There you are. That’s the big secret. ond flat-out sprints every five minutes the first three in your age category in a Ask anyone. until you’ve done ten. One-minute inroad race by the end of June. What are tervals, with three-minute rests, six you doing now? Describe a typical Recovery times. Five minutes at 80% max heart week’s training to me.’ With a litrate, one minute rests, six times. tle prompting we establish that the That kind of thing. rider is getting out on the bike for Supplements perhaps six or seven hours a week, It’s become the standard defence a bare maintenance programme. for a sportsperson who tests posi‘It’s not enough. To achieve your tive for some performance-engoals you’ll have to do more.’ hancing drug or other to say, ‘It ‘But I can’t fit any more in.’ must have been in some ‘Why not base your weekly trainnutrtitional supplement my coach ing on your ride to work. Take gave me.’ Why, someone may changes of clothes for the week ask, do healthy, fit people who on Monday, bring them back Fritrain every day and eat a good athday, ride the other three days and lete’s diet, need supplements? get in eight hours before you even And the answer is, they don’t. If get to the weekend.’ You have to do a certain mininum: there’s no you’re eating a balanced diet, ‘I can’t do that. Somebody might substitute for getting in the basic endurance miles plenty of fruit and veg, high in carsee me. I’d feel an idiot turning bohydrate, medium in fat, just the up at work in lycra tights.’ ‘Then your goals aren’t important Last year a 65-year-old rider told me: I right amount of protein, then supplegot in two long rides on the weekend, ments are just a way of creating expenenough to you.’ At this point they never say, ‘What I four or five hours each, so on Monday I sive urine, because you’ll excrete any really, really want is to become a win- decided I needed some interval train- excess. There are other dangers: taking any ner without training harder, without ing. Now I do my intervals on a hill near training more, without training better.’ home. I go as hard as I can at the bot- single supplement can upset the balBut I know that’s what they want to tom and then try to maintain the same ance in your body – iron supplementasay. They want me to say, ‘Listen, all pace all the way up. It takes me nine tion is particularly unwise for most peothis getting the miles in – well, don’t minutes to get to the top. Then I go ple, for instance. Protein is very filling, take too much notice of that. What I’m back down and do it again. Anyway, last provides relatively little energy, and going to do now is to tell you the big Monday, after I’d done this four times takes a long time to digest, so too much secret, give you the magic fix.’ And I was absolutely knackered. Do you will take up the space you need for carthen, right there and then, in a whis- think there’s anything wrong with me? bohydrate. Getting enough protein and fat in our society hasn’t been a probper, I’ll tell them the meaning of life. lem for years. Take a Boots multivitaWell, it’s not going to happen. I would Intensity if I could, but the truth is that success, There’s a tendency among us vets, min if you insist on insurance, but unwhatever that means to you, is down many of whom have been training and less you’re eating badly, then you don’t racing, on and off, for upwards of 45 really need it. V to: years, to deride sports scientists. This deciding on your goals, makis a bit unfair, because in most cases ing them as specific as you EOPLE WRITE OR PHONE

The Coaching Page

Tapering: the finishing touch

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apering is the term used for the sys tem of specific training in the last few days before an important competition in order to achieve peak performance on the day. It doesn’t mean that you just stop riding the bike and getting it right for you may be largely a matter of trial and error. But when you do get it right it can mean significant gains in performance. We all know that training improves your physical condition, but it also makes you tired. Your aim in the run-up to an important competition is to reduce your level of fatigue while maintaining your physical condition at the highest possible level. Thus the most effective tapering system is the one which produces lots of rest but very little detraining. Scientific studies show that the most effective taper is based on a substantial reduction in the volume of training at low intensity, and the maintenance of the volume of training at high intensity. In short, exactly the opposite of what you’d automatically tend to do, which is to go out and gently potter round the lanes. This would certainly reduce your fatigue, but would also diminish your physical condition and your performance would show it. As with all training, the ideal tapering method varies from one person to another, but it is possible to lay down some basic principles (see Five Golden Rules). Since older athletes need more time to recuperate, veterans will benefit from a longer taper, perhaps ten days rather than seven. And the longer and harder your training has been, the longer should be the taper. A taper is most likely to be successful if it is preceded by three weeks of particularly intensive training. This should in turn be preceded by a longer period of ‘progression’ to establish the base for the intensive training phase. This means that you should aim at an optimal level of fatigue during the phase preceding the taper period, intensive enough to provoke the necessary overcompensation, but not so demanding as to lead to overtraining. In order to make sure that the level of

difficulty of the training sessions is low enough but without reducing the volume of high intensity efforts too much, you need to adjust the other elements of your training sessions accordingly: allow for a long, inactive period of recuperation, rather than an active one, in between repetitions; arrange the training session in several series; reduce to the minimum the warm-up and warm-down periods, e.g. to five minutes. During the taper period don’t be tempted to carry on with a high volume of training, even though you’ll probably feel that you’re bursting with energy: if the total volume of training isn’t significantly reduced, then there is no overcompensation, and therefore no peak of performance. Training rides that are intense but not too difficult will optimise your performance by maximising your physical condition and minimising fatigue. Because tapering means reducing the volume of your training you can only realistically do a small number of tapers during a year. Save it for your most important goals. If there are two consecutive important events, with a gap between them of less

than three weeks then it’s better to continue on a reduced volume regime comprising many high intensity efforts. During the taper phase you should take care not to eat too much: ‘reduced volume of training’ means ‘reduced energy expenditure’. If the event you’re preparing for lasts longer than 90 minutes, consume more carbohydrates during the last four days (pasta, rice, bread, potatoes, etc), while restricting your intake of fatty foods. V

Maintain the high-intensity sessions

Five golden rules for tapering 1. The total volume of training has to be drastically reduced – by around fifty percent. For example, if you normally train on the bike for ten or twelve hours per week, in the last week reduce this to four or five hours. 2. The volume of high-intensity effort should remain high: that is, the periods during which you ride at a higher intensity should be maintained. ‘Higher intensity’ means an intensity higher than that which you would adopt in the normal course of things on long, continuous rides, but less intense than out-and-out sprinting. 3. The activity practised during the tapering period must be specific to the athlete’s particular discipline, i.e. cycling. No running, swimming, weight-training or football. The muscle soreness these can cause will reduce muscular strength and levels of muscle glycogen reserves. 4. The tapering period should last about a week, a little more if the volume of training is reduced progressively, a little less if it is reduced abruptly. 5. The daily frequency of training sessions should remain unchanged.

Sitting comfortably Points of contact

Cyclists have three points of contact with their machine: hands on bars, feet on pedals, and bums on seats. These three points may be in contact with saddle, handlebars or brake levers, and pedals, for long periods of time. Whenever you put human skin in direct or indirect contact with any hard surface, rough or smooth, for any length of time, then the skin will suffer. Eventually it will become accustomed to the hardship and compensate, by becoming thicker and tougher, forming calluses, which make it easier, but may crack if they become too thick and hard. The underlying muscles will also have a hard time until they too become used to it. As a result problems with hands, feet and perineum are quite common among cyclists.

Hands

Hand problems are probably the least common. The most likely cause of discomfort is when a hard callus forms, frequently on the insides of the thumbs or the base of the palm, and, especially in winter, develops a crack or split, open and potentially very sore. There are two ways of protecting the

Mitts: more than just a decorative feature. hands: use a good handcream like Neutrogena to keep the skin soft enough to prevent cracking; and wear track mitts (or gloves in cold weather). Most riders have used mitts for as long as they’ve been around, principally to protect the palms if you fall off, but they do help to cushion the palms against rough handlebar tape and to some extent the jarring from the road. Hands are unlikely to suffer from any

other problems, although in the 1948 Tour de France Maurice Diot suffered with boils on the palms of his hands, which made gripping the bars agony.

Feet

Let’s face it, the toeclip and strap system for keeping your feet on the pedals was always somethng of a lash-up. Identifying the right place for the shoeplate was difficult, and fixing it with those little nails was even more difficult: no matter how careful you were, the plate might slip slightly when you were driving the nails in, so that your foot could end up not straight but at a very slight angle. The idea was that the slot should fit the pedal tightly, there wasn’t much slack, and a number of riders suffered knee problems, sometimes permanent, as a result. Then there were the shoes, with leather uppers and thin leather soles. You bought them a size too small, sat with them for an hour or two in a bowl of water, and wore them around the house until they stretched enough to grip your feet like a glove. Trackmen and British time-triallists wore them without socks to avoid any possible slip. Then you wedged your foot on to a steel pedal and pulled a leather strap tight around the foot. It was almost impossible to avoid ending up with the steel buckle resting on the small bones of the foot and hurting like the devil on a long ride. And the soles were flexible. It was believed when I began cycling that this flexibility was a good thing. But it wasn’t. Shoes need to be stiff in the sole, and about the mid-1950s someone marketed long shoeplates (‘Anquetil’) in which the blocks forming the pedal slot were riveted to a piece of aluminium. They were described as ‘anti-cramp’, and of course they weren’t; but they did make the thin, flexible sole of your shoe much stiffer. Soles weren’t the only problem: in the 1947 Tour René Vietto, then race leader, suffered such severe problems with an overlapping toe that he had to cut holes in his shoe. The toe nevertheless became

infected and he was treated with antibiotics. After the Tour he had it cut off, but this affected his balance and he took three months to learn to walk properly again.

Sidi shoe: no velcro, no laces.

Saddle

Lastly there was the solid leather saddle. You cut the saddlebag loops off, hammered the cantle plate into a better curve, sandpapered the surface off, soaked it in neats-foot oil; and then, because it was so soft that the leather might tear, you replaced the copper rivets with bigger-headed ones. Then all you had to do was ride it until it shaped itself to your perineum. Or vice versa. Even then a day in the rain could ruin it if you failed to dry it carefully enough. The seats of shorts were real chamois – all we had before superior man-made synthetics came along. It was a pain to wash, and it took three days to dry, because using artificial heat would damage it. It dried like hardboard, so you spent an hour or two softening it and treating it with lanolin. As a result riders tried to wear the same pair of shorts for as long as possible, dirt and body oil accumulated, infected hair follicles turned into furuncles (small boils), and then you had real problems. The perineum is a wonderful breeding ground for all kinds of infections, and saddle boils are caused by bad hygiene: the remedy is to wash frequently, thoroughly and carefully, using mild soap. Take a packet of Wet Wipes to races and even on training rides. Tour de France journalists, always looking for stories and ready to invent them if necessary, described the

sufferings of riders with saddle boils as a Calvary. They wrote of riders cutting holes in their saddles and wrapping them in ‘silk tyres’. They seemed to think that the silk tyre casing (‘pocket’) was like a beautifully soft fabric, apparently quite unaware that the casing was in fact stiff and covered with waterproofing, and that tyres have hard rubber treads. Other riders were said to have put steaks inside their shorts, and eaten them after they’d cooked to a turn during the 130mile stage. Louison Bobet, one of the best-known victims, suffered from saddle boils for literally years. After his third Tour win in 1955 a five-hour operation removed a huge tumour from his saddle area. Remarkably he recovered quickly enough to win Paris – Roubaix the next spring. Sean Kelly was one of the last famous victims of severe saddle boils, abandoning the Vuelta with two days to go while in the lead. The principal cause of simple saddle soreness (as opposed to furuncles) is being unaccustomed to riding on a bicycle saddle. You get your body used to riding on a saddle by riding on a saddle, in fairly small doses at first, and then bigger doses, and so on. You’d have thought that saddle soreness was a thing of the past but in recent years I’ve heard riders on training camp in Mallorca complaining about it. One reason was their sudden increase in weekly mileage from 100 miles of less to 500 or more. Common sense isn’t really all that common. Remedy: build up gradually. And don’t apply surgical spirit to the affected part. Training gurus used to advise you to do this, but surgical spirit is only alcolhol and it’s only a cleaner. Worse, it can harden the skin which may then crack, just as hardened skin does anywhere else.

Modern equipment is better

Shorts with man-made inserts arrived during the mid-1980s, and that was the end of chamois, no matter how wonderful and back to nature it was. Modern shorts can be machine-washed, spun and dried in an hour. This encourages you to wash them after every ride and you should do so. Don’t use fabric conditioner with Lycra (shorts, jerseys, legs, whatever) – it takes the stretch out of it in time. If you like cream in the seat, OK, whatever floats your boat; but they’re just as comfortable without. Never use talcum powder – it hardens into ridges. Modern pedals, shoes, saddles, shorts and mitts are light years ahead of what was available up until the mid-1980s.

Mitts and even bar tape now come with gel inserts. Shoes are made of a variety of plastics and/or carbon fibre. The sole is thick, shaped, and very stiff, though not completely rigid. They don’t need breaking in and they keep their size and shape for the lifetime of the shoe. They are so durable in fact that manufacturers have to keep wooing the cycling public with new models, cosmetically modified, in order to stay in business. The introduction of the Look clipless pedal was the most important technical

The Look clipless pedal: the most important technical innovation since wired-on tyres. innovation since the wired-on tyre. In place of a lash-up we got a properly-engineered piece of equipment. I’ve never heard of a single rider switching to clipless pedals and then reverting to clips and straps. The position of the shoe plate can be adjusted to within half a millimetre, and you have a choice of fixed or floating plates, which virtually eliminate knee problems. No-one need have shoe or pedal problems nowadays – but if you have a fall, check that the pedal spindle or crank hasn’t been bent slightly. If it has, replace it. Try to avoid walking on protruding shoe plates. Check them frequently and replace them when they get worn. Apart from anything else, badly-worn plates can crack and pull out of the pedal during sudden efforts. The plastic saddle appeared in the sixties, and soon acquired a leather covering, then some padding, and it’s been around in roughly that form ever since. Instant comfort, no breaking in required. Tom Simpson famously made his own cover from an old handbag. You’ll hear people rambling on nostalgically about the good old Brooks B17, never been anything like it, but most of us wouldn’t go back to them at any price. The latest style in saddles is ultra-hard, ultra-narrow. They look frightening, but most people adapt to them. But never go for a saddle that you find agonising merely to be fashionable: ride what suits you. V

Right: elaborate design for the seat insert in contemporary shorts.

Two saddles. Above, leather over foam padding on a plastic base; below, pure carbon fibre – very hard, but you can get used to anything. If you want to.

Louison Bobet in the 1955 Tour de France. His expression may have something to do with the fact that he could barely sit on the saddle.

Fitting it all in

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of you who have life licked, who already know all about the best time to get into the housing market, get a discount on your new car, avoid an endowment mortgage – and, of course, train and race properly. This is largely for that considerable body of people who are newcomers to the sport despite their advanced age, or those who packed up racing and training at the age of 20 in order to further their career, their love life or their attempt on the national beerdrinking record and are now attempting a come-back and wonder why what used to be so easy is so hard now. Frequently asked questions include: When do I train? How do I train? How do I fit it all in? How much training should I do? Is it OK for me to follow the training schedules in Lance Armstrong’s Performance Manual? POLOGIES TO THOSE

When

If you’re serious, five days a week. However hard it seems at first, there’s no doubt that the best time to train is in the morning. Then it’s done and you’ve got the rest of the day for work or leisure or whatever. Training is very much a matter of habit.

Fitting it in

Not so much a problem for those of us who are well and truly retired from fulltime work, but for those in jobs it can be a matter requiring some organisation. My advice has always been, ‘Build your training schedule round your ride to work.’ Some people ask for advice, and then immediately begin raising obstacles as to why they can’t do it: ‘They’ll take the piss if I turn up in lycra tights’. Well, you can learn to live with that, and anyway they’ll get used to it. More difficult is the ‘I’ve always done it that way’ defence. So if you’re unwilling to change, why ask for advice? ‘I always like to get home and have my tea, and then go out and do my training.’ Oh, yes? Starting at 7 pm, full of sausage, egg and chips, and in the dark? It takes less willpower to change at work, put up with the jokes, do a big loop and get home at seven with the warm, satisfied feeling that now you can eat, drink and put your feet up. Most, even all, workplaces have some-

where to wash and change. On Monday take your changes of clothes for the week, then ride to and from for three days, take the car on Friday and collect the laundry. Wear clothes appropriate for the conditions, leave early enough to allow for a puncture, and ride as far as you want. You’ll usually find an hour or so is enough. On the way home you won’t have the same time constraints so you can ride further – if you want to. You may even find it easy enough to meet a teammate for the loop home. Then you can include some more varied elements – sprinting for signs or hill tops, doing a few miles of through-and-off. If your work requires to do a lot of driving, take the bike and your clothes and shoes with you and at the end of your work schedule get a couple of hours in before driving home. If you’re in control of your time, take an extended lunch hour, get two hours in then, and make up the work time later. This is especially the case for the winter months. Be imaginative.

How

With a little experience pretty well anyone who’s reasonably fit can ride around at 14 mph on a lightweight bike for quite a long time. And if that’s all you want to do, that’s fine, and doing it will train you to ride at 14 mph. But you want to race, don’t you? Training, as opposed to just riding around, has to be progressive. This means including stretches of intensive training in your rides: hard sections, sprints, intervals. If you ride to work and back three days a week make the morning ride easy, the evening one harder, depending on how you feel. Learn to listen to your body.

How much

We tend nowadays to measure by time rather than distance. Few veterans need ever to train for longer than three hours continuously. But if you enjoy 100 mile rides just for the hell of it, then go ahead.

Being an individual

Everyone is different. Coaches call it the Principle of Individuation. There is no such thing as a ‘nylon tights’ training schedule in which one size fits all: two different people will require two differ-

ent schedules. If the same schedule fits two people, it’s just coincidence.

Alone or in a group?

The manual of the Association of British Cycling Coaches used to advise riders to do all their training alone. Really? Just like all those professional squads? For most of us, 200 miles a week, always on our own, would be a tedious chore. If you’ve ridden to and from work most of the week, then the chances are that on the weekends you’ll welcome the company of other riders and the smart-arse dialogue at the café stops. How you ride in the group will depend on your character and your state of fitness. Remember that in the middle of the bunch you’ll be using around 25% less energy. This is OK if you’re not (yet) in very good condition, but if you’re reasonably fit, then take your turn at the front and work a bit harder for five or ten minutes. But remember the Principle of Individuation: if they’re going harder than suits you, or plan to go farther than you want, drop off (one or two others may be happy to join you) or cut out a loop and meet them at the café. The other advantage of riding with a group is that you’ve got support if you have an problems.

The chain gang

In many areas a chain gang – effectively an unofficial road race – meets once or twice a week. Once is enough for most vets – remember, training is a building up process. Save all the tearing down for the race on Saturday or Sunday. The aim on the chaingang is to go really hard: there’s no point in sitting in. A circuit means you can do as much or as little as you want: drop off, rest, take a cut across the circuit and join in again, sit on the front for a whole lap, pack up and go home when you feel like it.

Training on your own

But some of your training will necessarily be done alone. It’s virtually impossible to do interval training with other riders. Then there’s persistent bad weather, especially when it’s cold. This is the time for the turbo.

Chance favours the prepared mind I N A RUSH TO get to a race, I once forgot my cycling shoes and rode the whole 70-mile event in a pair of black elastic-sided walking shoes. It wasn’t a lot of fun and I never did it again. Moral: don’t be in a rush. But back in the sixties I remember a rider who used habitually to turn up at events in the Midlands without some essential piece of gear. With half an hour to go you’d hear a voice at the door of the changing room saying, ‘Has anybody got a spare bottle?’ Or it would be a pair of socks, a spare tyre (we all rode tubulars then), a pump, some food (‘Anybody got a banana?), embrocation. More than once he forgot his shoes. Finally there came the day when the plaintive voice asked, ‘Has anybody got a spare bike?’ He’d leant it against the garage door to put on the roof rack and then driven away without it. This sort of thing is surprisingly easy to do if you’ve left your preparation to the last minute. Over the years I’ve lent to other riders: safety pins, spare wheels, inner tubes, spare tubulars, shoes (at least three times), socks, quick-release skewers, a complete left-hand STI lever and cable, sprockets, chainrings, embrocation, insect sting relief ointment, tape, spokes, and dozens of tools. Of course you can’t forecast that you’ll need a complete left-hand brake and front changer cable – but most of the other stuff is pretty basic: cables and spokes break, nuts and bolts work loose. And this has continued to the present day, when the riders are all men over 40 with years of experience. I really don’t understand why people nowadays turn up with just one pair of wheels, or no tools. A lot of what’s in your race bag can stay there throughout the season: helmet, shoes, licence, for starters. Obviously they’ll be taken out, used, and cleaned; but for the season, that’s where they live. Other fixtures include safety pins, massage cream, shorts cream (if you use it), a couple of energy bars for emergencies, inner tube(s) and tyre levers, mini pump, rain jacket, plastic bag(s) for wet clothes and stuff. Safety pins are essential, especially if you race abroad, where the management doesn’t supply them. At the World Championships in Liège in 2002 I supplied a dozen British riders with safety pins. I’ve got into the habit of leaving a

kit of tools and a spare pair of shoes in the car. Now that nearly everything on your bike can be fixed with a set of Allen keys the toolkit doesn’t have to be very big and heavy, but you’ll also want bottom bracket tools, a chain wrench, cassette lockring remover, a nipple key and a few spare spokes (if you use conventional wheels), chain tool, 10 and 13 mm combination spanners, cable cutters, spare cables and shoe plates. And your track pump. And a spare pair of wheels. Oh, and your bike. Of course it helps if you clean and check the bike the day before and replace anything that looks as though it’s near its sell-by date. This is something that should be an automatic part of your race preparation. No equipment lasts for ever. Change cables, chains and shoeplates frequently. The last time I repaired a club-mate’s broken chain on a training ride he complained: ‘That chain’s only been on there two years.’ You wouldn’t think you’d have to tell anyone, ‘Pack your bag the night before’, but there are still people who leave it until the last minute. This almost guarantees that you’ll forget something important. Modern race bags with several pockets are very useful. Get used to keeping the same stuff in the same places – you may need it in a hurry. When you pack

the bag have a checklist. This doesn’t have to be written down: you soon get used to checking off essentials mentally. Have a system for it, like starting from the feet up: shoes, socks, shorts, undervest, jersey, arm warmers, shades, helmet, mitts. It becomes a ritual. Take all you need for possible weather conditions: a longsleeved jersey, arm-warmers, an extra undervest, rain jacket – and plastic bags for putting your wet and dirty gear in. These things are more important in the early and late season, but conditions can change significantly at any time of year. I know that most organisers lay on food and drink of some kind, but having your own basic supply (a ham roll, a Mars bar, a small flask of coffee, a bottle of mineral water) is a good idea, too, and you can put all that and your race bottles in a separate bag. Always have a spare bottle – if you lose one during the race you at least have a chance of getting a replacement handed up. Being uncertain about your equipment is no way to turn up for a competition, and going round the changing room cadging socks does nothing for your confidence. As the great Yogi Berra remarked once, ‘Ninety percent of it is half mental anyway.’

The well-prepared stage race rider: Dave McMullen, having put everything ready for the next day, relaxes between stages at the Tour of the Abberleys

Another look at Ratings of Perceived Exertion

Riding on feel NOWADAYS COACHES AND riders routinely

use heart-rate monitors to measure the intensity of sessions and to keep an eye on recovery. HRMs are easy to use, but they only give us a set of figures: they tell us something about the body’s physiological response, in a particular condition, at a particular time, but they need interpreting. In order to get the full picture, we have to take into account other factors and measures, such as the rider’s psychological state, how he/she perceives the work they are doing – in other words, how the rider feels. We all know that two rides, identical according to heart-rate, may feel quite different: one may feel much easier than the other to complete. Measuring feeling is difficult, but quantifying it can help us identify trends that could give us valuable information on how much training we should be prescribing. The Borg scale (Rating of Perceived Exertion – RPE) is probably the bestknown measure of how an effort feels to us. As soon as possible after a ride the rider gives uses the scale to score the session. There are several versions of the Borg Scale, but the original ranges from 6 to 20: 6 is no effort at all and 20 is absolutely flat out. Some riders may prefer the alternative, rather simpler 10-point scale offered here.

Original Borg Scale Rating 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Intensity Very, Very Light Very Light Fairly Light Somewhat Hard Hard Very Hard Very, Very Hard

When making your assessment, take the following into account: Don’t allow localised pain (burning quadriceps) to dominate your perception. Include your whole perception of the session including muscular and cardiovascular demands. Be honest with yourself. Don’t allow pride to cloud Known as a technical innovator (clipless pedals), Bernard Hinault nevertheless rode primarily on feel. your judgment. Don’t compare session hard, and they must be encouryour scores to anyone else’s. Peraged to be honest about using the tool ception of effort is a very perfor their own benefit. Riders usually find sonal thing. There is no ‘correct that it takes practice before they’re torating’. Just as everyone’s heart tally convinced that it works. Only through rates are different, so is everyrepeated use are they able to detect the one’s RPE. One rider’s percepsubtle differences between sessions. tion of ‘easy’ might kill some Those who stick with it usually find that people. it’s another useful tool that helps them After a trial period, begin to compare the to maximise their training. Regardless of rating system, it has been results from rides and act on them. If the shown that experienced athletes have a RPE for a given heart rate and pace conwell-developed sense of exertion. They tinues to fall over a period of time, this have become so adept at monitoring the could indicate that the rider is getting fitbody’s many systems (breathing, muscle ter. It may be time to increase the trainfatigue, lactate build-up) that most can ing load, by increasing volume or raising pinpoint intensity almost as accurately as the intensity of some rides. Conversely V a scientist using instruments. if the RPE starts to rise and at the same time the rider finds it increasingly difficult to reach target heart rates, this could be a sign of overtraining or stress. Reduce the programme to take account of this. Simply ignoring it will not make the problem go away. Honesty is essential: riders must understand that they have to be truthful about their perceptions. Some coaches find that young, inexperienced riders may be unwilling to admit that they found a particular

Simplified 10-point scale Scale Description

Cycling

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Very light Light Moderate

Admiring the countryside

Heavy

Few words

Very heavy

10-mile time-trial

Extremely heavy

All-out sprint

Continuous conversation

How to win a road race

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hen a reader asks ‘How do you win a road race?’ I think we may assume that he doesn’t want a detailed set of training plans. What he’s asking is primarily a question of tactics. ‘Tactics’ as used in bike racing, especially on the road, describes a sort of syndrome of factors which enable the rider to work out how to maximise his strengths relative to those of his opponents in order to achieve the best possible result for himself. It’s primarily a mental exercise but is closely related to physical skills: skills confer tactical advantages, and tactical know-how is ineffective without the physical ability to use it. The mental part of road racing is very like chess: the basic principles are very simple, but the complexities of their application are virtually infinite. However, all forms of massed-start cycle racing on road or track are based on one principle: that the rider nearest the wind is doing the major share of the work. A rider at the back of a line of four is probably using 20% less energy than the one at the front, and a rider in the middle of a large group may be using up to 45% less than the leaders of the group. This is the basis on which all tactics rest. If two or more riders are of equal ability and have achieved the same training status (are equally fit), it is an advantage for one rider to ride in the slipstream of the other (or others). There are two advantages for him: the riders towing him will tire themselves more by doing all the leading, while he will tire less quickly than otherwise because he is riding in shelter. In practice there will be many occasions where two or more riders share the lead, and therefore the work, in order to try to break clear of the main field. Imagine three ideal riders in what are, for them, ideal situations: Rider A is so powerful and has such endurance that he can ride alone faster than any of the others, who will be unable to stay with him, and he will therefore win alone and unaided. Rider B has so fast a sprint that noone can beat him, and he persuades

the others (by whatever means) to carry him in shelter to the finish, where he is unbeatable. Rider C is such a dominant climber that if there’s a real hill on the course he will drop the others and win alone. If all road races were run like this, then they would be very dull, completely predictable and one of three people would almost always win. Fortunately very few road races are like this. In real life Rider A can do his thing once or twice in a season, but most of the time he can’t shake off Rider B or a substantial number of the others. But much of the time the others won’t let Rider B do his thing either. They drop him, or work him over to such an extent that his finishing sprint is blunted. There have actually been a few riders like Rider C, and over a very long climb, or a series of long climbs, they may indeed be virtually unbeatable; but the kind of hills that feature in most races aren’t long enough or steep enough to guarantee their victory, and their results show that they win much less often than do sprinters or all-rounders. In real life everyone has to find ways of maximising his strengths, playing on his opponents’ weaknesses, and minimising his rivals’ abilities. These methods we loosely call ‘tactics’, and as I suggested in my chess analogy, they’re pretty well infinite. However, there are basic principles which underlie a host of variations. Knowledge of the course is always a great advantage. Always have adequate gears, always reconnoitre the finish, observe the wind direction. Observation: an experienced rider arrives at the start of any race with a certain amount of knowledge: he’ll know a number of riders in the field, can form a good idea of their state of form and fitness, knows who will work well in a break, who are the best sprinters. The astute rider concentrates and is alert throughout the race, watching the other riders, judging their strengths, their state of fatigue, but always appearing impassive and unconcerned, never showing he’s tired – though sometimes faking it.

Positioning in the bunch. Your first aim is to ride near the front of the main bunch. In a peloton of 100 riders this may mean ‘in the first 20’; in a group of 40 riders it means ‘in the first ten’. Why break away? When the entire field arrives at the finish together, then the strongest finishers have an advantage. Riders with a serious intention of winning will therefore try to shorten the odds by breaking clear of the main field, either alone or in company with a group of others. Those unable to make the break will be effectively eliminated from contention. Those in the break will have a smaller number of riders to watch. Breaking away in company. Most breakaways will be made by a group. This group can form in many ways. It might be built up from a number of riders who break away individually, first one, then another, and so on, until half-a-dozen are clear of the bunch. At this point, if the riders hope to gain time and stay clear, they must commit themselves completely to working in the break: there is no room for hangers-on. The ideal size for a successful breakaway will to some extent depend on the quality and experience of the field. The better the field, the more difficult it will be for a group to get clear. In a weak field, three or four riders may be enough to be effective. In a better field it may require more riders. In general terms, however, once a break exceeds eight riders then it is likely to become less effective, because of the tendency mentioned above of some riders to take it easy on the back of the group. Everyone knows you attack on a hill, don’t they? Well, up to a point. Since everyone knows it, everyone will be prepared. And where on the hill? In fact, the majority of breaks that go on hills do so as the hill levels off over the top, not on the climb itself. Most riders feel they’ve got to the top safely and unconsciously ease up a little. A surprising number of breaks go downhill, which is a good reason for practising your descending skills. The most important thing is to be unpredictable.

The Coaching Page

Strong but shelled out on the hills

A

REQUEST FOR ADVICE from a rider with a triathlon background, where he has been a gold medallist. His aim for 2006 was shortdistance time-trialling, but he’s been riding road races for training. In a recent LVRC road race with an uphill finish he finished fourth in the fourman break. He writes:

While they appeared reasonably comfortable with the out-of-saddle efforts, I’m almost at max HR, not really knowing what gear I should be in and switching on alternate hills from the big to small chainring. I believe that my general leg strength is sound but that my main weakness is hill climbing technique out of the saddle. I’m confident on long climbs but the short sharp climbs frequently encountered in LVRC races are my bête noir. Can you help please? A lot of interesting things here. Watching others can be misleading. It’s quite possible that they were near max HR but concealing their distress better than you. True story: a group of three was gaining on a break just up the road, when one of the chasers sat up, the pace slackened, and the break began to open the gap again. Afterwards the rider explained: ‘I looked at my heart monitor and it was on my maximum, so I thought, this can’t be right and I sat up.’ Lesson: a heart-rate monitor is no help at all in road races. You have to be with the pace, whatever it says on the monitor. Learn to ride entirely on feel. Most people nowadays accept the tyranny of the manufacturers and ride a 39/53 chainring. If, on the other hand, you use a 42 or even a 44 inner ring, this will often enable you to climb a steepish finish hill on the little ring and remain on it all the way to the line even if the hill flattens off. I’ve been training with triathletes, and my impression is that their training is very like that of ‘pure’ time-triallists. They train very hard, but ride at a constant pace, with almost no change. This isn’t the way to train for road

racing. Every so often we meet a really well-known and successful time-triallist in a road-race, and despite his great aerobic capacity and ability to ride 100 miles at 25 mph, he would get shelled out of a road race, more often than not on a climb of some sort. The reason for this is quite clear: the natural make-up of such a rider, i.e. the ability to make a steady effort at a fixed speed. Because that’s his natural talent, he tends to stick to the events he does well in (that is, time-trials) and to train for them, so reinforcing his particular way of riding. Road races are rarely run off at a

constant steady pace like time-trials. Even in vets races there may be bursts of 35 mph on the flat and 28 mph on even a shallow gradient. Therefore you have to train for these conditions and situations. This means that you have to raise your anaerobic threshold, and the most effective way to do this is by interval training. Use a variety of methods, from very short (6 seconds) flat-out sprints to 5-minute efforts at 80% of max HR with short recovery periods. Having said this, the most successful way to climb a hill is actually at a steady pace. In a hill-climb time-trial you’d find that maintaining the steadiest pace all the way up would give you a faster time than changing pace. If

someone does accelerate part-way up the climb in a road race, let them go. They will often slow and come back over the summit. If not, then you’ll be in better shape to close the gap because you’ve not gone into the red yourself. Or they’re better than you and they’re going to win anyway. Climbing in the saddle is more efficient and uses less energy than climbing out of the saddle. However, out of the saddle you can use higher gears, so if you’re going to work at climbing sitting down, then learn to pedal a little faster on lower gears. Train yourself to breathe slowly and deeply when climbing. Avoid quick, shallow breathing. Start the hill at the front of the group. Then if the pace is a bit quicker than yours you’ll still be in the tail of the group by the top. Do not change chainrings on the climb. Changing up from the small to the large can be particularly difficult under pressure, and changing down can cause disaster. If you stay on the big ring and change down the sprockets until you’re on the 21, then find you need a lower gear, you’re at the point where the chain is running across from the biggest sprocket to the bigger chainring at a sharp angle. You’re pressing hard on the pedals and when you change down the chain misses the little ring and drops off. And you’re going uphill. Practise hill techniques in training. Try to do a certain amount of your training with other riders, especially those who you know are better climbers than you. Though climbing out of the saddle uses more energy (research studies show this) it is often more effective on short, steep hills. Learn how to do it, where to put your weight, etc. It’s impossible to tell you how to do this in writing: you learn it through doing it. Many gaps open as the gradient eases over the top of climbs. Partly this is psychological: riders tend to ease up when they’re aware that things are getting easier. Train yourself to avoid this way of thinking.

How I suffered! ‘Pelissier will never win the Tour de France,’ said Henri Desgrange, ‘he is unable to suffer.’ Dozens of riders, from Fausto Coppi downwards, have used the same phrase to describe their agonies to the journalists: ‘I thought I was going to die.’ From the very beginning, pain and its alter ego, suffering, have been at the very centre of road-racing. Understanding them can enable us to apply strategies to cope with the pain associated with intense effort. In the peloton the ability to suffer commands respect: everyone wants to be known as the one who knows, more than any other, how to go beyond his limits. When recounting their exploits, riders always lay emphasis on the pain and suffering that accompanied their efforts. And the history of cycling is studded with those famous moments of devastating weakness, when the giants suddenly become mere mortals.

Three types of pain

Pain can arise from accidents (e.g. grazes, bruises) and from overuse (e.g. tendonitis). But they’re just bad luck – it’s the pain associated with intense effort that’s valued.

Useful pain

Physical pain is a localised and unpleasant sensation, transmitted by sensitive nerves and interpreted globally by the brain as a threatening disturbance. Pain therefore plays an important role by encouraging us to alter our behaviour so as to reduce to some extent damage to the body. Pain invites the cyclist to take care of himself. But competitive people reject this ‘invitation’: the spirit of competition prefers ‘work like a dog’ rather than ‘take care of yourself’. We admire marathon runners, but in general, long-distance runners avoid intense bursts, because they’ll have to pay for it later. But on the bike, when there’s an attack on a particularly difficult climb, the cyclist has no choice: he must immediately raise his pace – and inflict pain on himself – otherwise he’ll be shelled out of the bunch.

Understanding pain in order to deal with it

Your capacity for sustaining a higher level of pain can therefore make the difference. Some studies suggest that the better we understand the mechanism of pain, the more able are we to resist it. In fact, your brain constantly interprets pain so as to adjust your desire to push yourself harder or your desire to rein yourself in. It takes account of (mostly) subjective elements. These are: The psychological factor: ‘What pleasure (what personal prestige) can I gain from hurting myself even more?’ Of your general strategy: ‘If I drive myself even more, shall I be in shape to keep going until the end without flagging?’

Suffering – what exactly is it?

Athletes use the terms pain and suffering as if they meant pretty much the same thing. In fact, the term ‘suffer’ refers to ideas of enduring, of putting up with something unpleasant, for example, a physical pain, like burning thigh muscles. Thus the cyclist’s suffering is more a process than a condition. Pain asks a question, while suffering attempts a reply to it. Suffering is at the same time the cause and the consequence of the tendency of the athlete to confront pain. While suffering aids or permits us to hurt ourselves, it’s the pain itself that actually hurts us.

wards, starting from 20 down to one, then from 19, then from 18, all the time telling yourself that you’ll have the right to take it easy after breath number 1. At the end of each backwards count, switch briefly to associative mode in order to assure yourself that you haven’t passed a threshold of effort intensity which could leave you short of energy from here on. If you have to make another important effort having gone through this series of reverse respirations, start the formula over again from the beginning.

But there are limits

If the giants of the road go faster, it’s not necessarily because they know how to drive themselves harder. It’s more likely that their physical qualities are more developed. So those with an average physique would still not be able to beat the great champions, even if they could motivate themselves to the uttermost, and even if they develop a very great capacity to support the pain associated with intense effort. On the other hand, the ability to hurt yourself when it counts can make the difference between cyclists with equal physical qualities. Above all, it’s the passion which the cyclist feels for his sport is the key element which motivates him to transport himself into zones of intensity and pain which plunge him into a level of suffering that’s positively intoxicating. V

Strategies for confronting pain

When faced with pain allied to effort, high performance athletes utilise special strategies. Some opt for an associative strategy: they concentrate on the pain the better to manage the intensity of their effort. But the majority employ a dissociative strategy: they try to forget the pain by concentrating on a particular element, for example their respiratory rhythm, or perhaps a motivating phrase, or a hypnotic mantra that they continually repeat to themselves. The next time you find yourself in the red, try the following mixed strategy: count your respirations back-

Photo: Ray Minovi

Pain and suffering

This piece is a slightly-abridged and modified article by Guy Thibault, associate professor in the Dept of Kinésiology at Montréal University, Scientific Advisor to the Canadian Cycling Association. Translation from French: Ray Minovi

The cost of exercise

L

IKE LUNCH, EXERCISE

is never free – there’s a cost, and we pay it in energy. How long and hard we can exercise depends on our level of fitness and the duration and intensity of the exercise. The fitter we are, the more efficiently our physiology functions; and the kind of exercise determines which of our three different energy systems we employ. They are: 1. The ATP-Pcr system, which provides enough for a 15-second burst. 2. The glycolitic system which uses glucose and keeps us going for about two minutes. Both of these systems are anaerobic – that is, they occur without oxygen being present, which is why, after a couple of minutes, you run into oxygen debt. The only way to recover is to slow down or stop. 3. The aerobic system, in which we use oxygen to burn fuel and generate energy; this is the system we use for continuous endurance exercise. By-products of energy production are lactic acid and its salt, lactate. At rest the level of lactic acid in our muscles may be as low as 1 unit. In aerobic exercise lactic acid accumulates slowly but in very intense exercise it can quickly rise as high as 25 units, accumulating in the muscle, causing pain which we usually experience as a burning sensation in the muscle, and eventually forcing us to reduce or stop exercising. Training raises the level at which we can continue to exercise. Exercise physiologists talk about the ‘lactate threshold’, the point above which lactate begins to accumulate in the blood above the resting level. The higher this threshold is in any athlete, the better will be his or her endurance performance. The most effective known method of raising this threshold is interval training. Following exercise, during the recovery period, our muscles get rid of the excess lactic acid. Contrary to popular belief this takes only a short time, about half an hour. Several techniques are widely supposed to help in the dispersal of lactic acid. One of them is massage. However, research has repeatedly shown

that, whatever the benefits of massage may be, removing lactic acid is not one of them. Even lying down with your feet up is more effective; but active recovery is better than passive, because it promotes blood flow in the muscles, bringing oxygen and nutrients. For cyclists the best thing is to ride slowly and easily, pedalling gently but not too fast – say twenty minutes at 12 mph on a 42 x 17. Riders will often complain about muscle soreness a day or even two days after intense exercise, and describe it as ‘lactic acid’. It isn’t. Sports scientists call it ‘delayed-onset muscle soreness’ (DOMS), and it’s most probably caused by structural damage and inflammatory reactions in the muscle fibres. A period of active recovery is needed for the body to repair the damage and restore normal muscle function. This is why, following a hard race or training session, you may need one or two days recovery. Again, active is better than passive, but should be easy: an hour’s riding at village policeman pace, pedalling a fairly low gear at around 75 rpm, for instance. Walking is good recovery exercise, too. If you continue to exercise at high volume, or high intensity, or both, without adequate recovery, then you’ll become chronically fatigued, and that fatigue will be reflected in poorer performances. In these circumstances athletes often imagine that training even longer and harder will pay off, but they find that it only makes things worse. When your performance falls below what you could do when virtually untrained, then you’re severely overtrained and may need a long spell out of competition in order to recover properly. Training uses up all your glycogen, depletes all your systems, causes muscle damage, tires your nervous system, and so on. Figure 1 shows this as a dip below the base line. During recovery your body overcompensates for the harm you’ve done: repairing muscle damage, making good all the losses, such as glycogen, and taking you above your original baseline. Next time you train, you’re a bit fitter, so during recovery, you don’t dip so far; and so on (figure 2). Insufficient recovery, on

the other hand (figure 3), results in a cycle of fatigue. The other extreme is too much recovery: too long a period between training sessions means your body overcompensates, then lets down to where you were before (figure 4). This is why training has to be both progressive and individual. Training schedules produced for all and sundry can be misleading: the right level of training and the length of the recovery period for you is very much a matter of trial and error. Figure 1: General training cycle Training stimulus

Supercompensation

Involution

Recovery

Fatigue

Figure 2: Adaptation to repeated training stimulus Training stimulus

Training stimulus

Training stimulus

Performance improvement

Figure 3: Overtraining – fitness decreases Training stimulus

Training stimulus

Training stimulus

Training stimulus

Decline in performance

Figure 4: Too much time between training sessions Training stimulus

Training stimulus

Involution

Training stimulus

It’s all very well getting in 400 miles a week in the sun, but what do you do after the return from Mallorca in order to develop the kind of speed you need for serious road racing? John Bettinson suggests a few methods.

Base training – what next? John Bettinson

S

ome years ago the VL carried an excellent piece where leading riders described their base training at the start of the season. I’d hoped to see a follow-up when they reveal the specific speed-endurance training they do, but it never appeared. So here’s my version. I’ll begin with how I prepare to reach that point in a suitable condition. I finish off my ‘Period One’ bulk miles with two weeks in Majorca, early March. Our little party has a set runs list with two rest days, making three groups of rides within which intensity racks up. This way I can get in 1000 miles without any trauma. We leave the hotel at 10:00, loaded up with a couple of buns, an energy bar, a 750ml bottle and re-load sachet of carbohydrate. Oh! And Cetavlex smeared round the bum parts. The speed is steady, a high cadence, change at the front every five miles. I try to keep to a pre-determined heart rate and focus on using, and thus training up, only the correct muscle groups. There’s always a short stop at about half way. This element of control keeps everybody happy and hopefully we get 100% turnout again the next day. It’s general knowledge that riders should increase their mileage by no more than 10% at a time. But when I set off my body doesn’t know far I’m going today so, when I get to the point where it has already been trained up to, it expects to be back home. But it still has another 10 miles yet to do. It’s the bit that your body doesn’t want to do that is actually inducing the training effect. Unfortunately you have to do the 100 miles or so just to get to this point. These are the 10 miles that should be done in immaculate style and at the upper end of Level 3. No hanging over the bars stuffed, nor attacking down the opposite gutter in an almighty lash-up. Just 500m each on the front in a tidy line. I don’t hang about in the bike shed – a little stretching, and up to the room where there’s the chocolate bar and bottle of carbo drink I astutely left

on the bedside table before I went out. A bath is better than a shower for easing saddle sores, followed, of course, by a carefully applied dose of surgical spirits. After a long Bacardi and Coke I don’t want to do anything more until mealtime, not even wash my kit. At mealtime I walk along the servers to see what’s on, and then plan a balanced meal – and never too much. Yes. No matter how much I eat, it’s never too much. I think of every forkful as a nugget of goodness. So much for basic conditioning. On returning to the UK I allow myself a couple of easy days before any structured speed work. There are many ways to do speed work: reps., intervals, hill sprints, fartlek, turbo and chaingang. I don’t care for the chaingangs: with quickly throughand-off, the heart rate scarcely has time to rise and the whole session becomes almost steady state. Besides, the unruly appearance creates a bad impression and incenses other road users. I much prefer a line-out, as if in a team time trial. It could start with six riders but four is best – with three I never recover quickly enough. We each ride out from home and group up on a favoured 7-mile circuit on the coast, flat and quiet. We set off steady, each doing 20 revs on the front and swinging off. After each lap we take half a mile to recover before we start again. Next lap the pace gets more serious. And the third lap each rider holds the speed for as long as they can. ‘Hold it. Hold it. Don’t crack. To that road sign. No. Beyond. To that gateway.’ Then ‘bang’, you peel off, legs screaming, lungs gasping for air, to slide onto the back. This way I’m constantly nudging up my threshold and, to some extent, the other lads are forcing me to do so through some kind of peer pressure. I couldn’t make myself do it so intensely and it’s probably 5mph faster than if I was on my own. Remember: in a line-out the speed is uniform. You keep in the same gear, same cadence. However the rider on the front

is cutting through the air whereas the others aren’t. When he swings off the next rider, suddenly catching the wind, finds he has to put a lot more weight on the pedals to maintain the speed. This, in turn, loads the cardiovascular system, which is what we seek. He should hold his effort on the front as long as he possibly can, then peel off. If the riders behind start to freewheel then the chap on the front should be told, ‘Get off the front’. Don’t make the mistake of shouting at the second rider to ‘Get through’ as this will cause a disruptive jolt in the speed. It doesn’t matter how long you’re on the front, provided you are on as long as you can hold the speed. Get it all out! A few points to bear in mind. The rider on the front determines the line in order to avoid the hazards, and which side to change. Not only is he working flat out, he’s also giving the riders behind maximum recovery. Avoid coming off the front and dropping back on a short incline as it’s difficult to accelerate on to the last rider again. A corner can be a good place to change. Three or four laps is usually enough. I’m starting to hate it by then. Thank god we only do it once a week. If you have never done a 100km TTT, believe me, it’s by far the hardest form of racing you’ll ever do. Quality work over, for those who have got the time, it’s now time to ride gently out to the café.

Winter draws on

I

REMEMBER IN February 1962 riding 25 miles to Gloucester for a 100-mile socalled reliability trial, crossing the Forest of Dean in a snowstorm, finishing about 5.30, and riding home in the freezing dark. Climbing through Malvern I tried to take a drink but couldn’t because the water in my (aluminium) bottle was frozen. Worse, when I was 17 I rode a ‘Christmas 25’ wearing a T-shirt and shorts and passed out at the roadside a couple of miles from the finish. I came round in the back of the timekeeper’s car, being revived with hot soup. We don’t often have weather like that now, and winter’s not with us yet; but cycling is a year-round sport now – or so I’m told – so here are a few ideas about coping with the drop in temperature to zero or below. In principle, riding in the cold shouldn’t give anyone too many problems. Physical exercise increases heat production and in theory you shouldn’t need to wear more clothes than are necessary to prevent heat loss. But there’s a gap between theory and practice. Clothing that’s heavy enough to protect you completely from the cold is clumsy, it interferes with your mobility – and your enjoyment. So you probably lose some heat during the early part of your ride. In normal winter conditions in Britain you’re unlikely to lose so much that muscles, heart and brain pass the limits of danger, though it can happen in, for instance, high mountains (2000 metres or more) even in summer. What happens is that your organism sets in motion mechanisms which to some extent sacrifice what we may call ‘the envelope’ of the body in order to protect the ‘core’. Thus it causes a constriction of the blood vessels on the outside of the skin and at the extremities of arms and legs. Your central core and muscles, in effect, deprive the other parts of warmed-up blood. This limits heat loss and maintains your vital organs at a con-

stant temperature. If you insist on going out in the cold try a sort of ‘pre-warming’: soak your feet, ankles and hands in water as hot as you can tolerate (dry yourself thoroughly). This can put off by as much as 50 minutes the moment when you begin to feel that your fingers and toes are freezing. Warm yourself up internally with five or six minutes on the turbo without sweating, and again, make sure your skin’s dry before setting off. Avoid being out before sunrise and after sunset. Wind can be particularly dangerous: its chill factor can seriously lower

that you acclimatise to the lower temperature in a few days.

Winter training sessions Hill training

Five climbs of a hill which takes you about two minutes, alternately sitting down and out of the saddle. Use a gear which allows you to pedal fairly quickly (no straining or pushing) while sitting down, but allows you to pedal a bit more slowly when out of the saddle. Then do four more series of 4, 3, 2 and 1 ascent, recovering while freewheeling back down, and riding easily for five minutes between series. There are advantages to this method. The chances are that you can find a suitable hill not too far away. Since the series reduces as you go on, that provides extra motivation. The stretches you do out of the saddle will complement work you do on the turbo, where it’s difficult to ride ‘en danseuse’.

On the flat

the effect of temperature. Set off into the wind, return with the wind behind you. Always wear adequate protection on your head, which can lose a lot of heat. Avoid very long rides and be wary of sudden changes of temperature, especially in high hills or mountains. Avoid abrupt and intense efforts – when they’re cold, your muscles are more susceptible to damage. However, contrary to popular opinion, you’re in no danger of actually freezing your lungs by exercising in the cold. Don’t go out training in the cold if you’re particularly fatigued, for instance through lack of sleep, or from too much training. Drink (sports drink, juice with added sugar, etc) and eat (food rich in sugar, low in fat) on the basis of ‘little and often’. In the cold your system metabolises sugar much more quickly than fat. In prolonged periods of cold you’ll find

Ride for between 60 and ninety minutes on a flattish route at an intensity which keeps your heart rate (here’s where you can really use your HRM) at around 130 bpm (for riders over 50 – adjust by a few beats if you’re older or younger), splitting the ride into 5minute blocks, first at a very low cadence (below 70 rpm), then medium (around 90 rpm), and then elevated – over 100 rpm. Where appropriate, get out of the saddle, e.g. on slopes or into the wind. This method should help you to develop the efficiency of your pedalling action over a wide range of cadences, very important for any cyclist, but especially a roadman. Lastly, if it’s really very cold, reluctantly admit that you’re going to have use the not-very-appealing turbo after all. And if there’s ice on the road, stay home: no matter how hard you are, nothing is worth the risk of a broken pelvis or the possibility of some motorist losing control just as he’s passing you. V

Turbocharged By the time you read this we’ll be well into the off-season. As I pointed out in our last, global warming hasn’t yet made our winter fit for unrestricted outdoor cycling. Sure, you have your hack with mudguards, Roubaix tights, overshoes, but there’s an awful lot of cold, damp weather when you really, really don’t want to go out – not to mention the ice. What to do instead? I’m told that there are people out there who actually enjoy riding indoors on a turbo-trainer. Michael Hutchinson has been known to ride for six hours on one, and some people even prefer it. For most of us, however, the whole point of riding a bike is to be on the road, preferably a long way from heavy traffic, but out there. There are, however, two great advantages to the turbo: one, you can at least get in some training when outside it ain’t fit for man nor beast; and two, it is by far the best way of doing interval training – no traffic, hills or wind to interrupt your schedule. Everything can be controlled. Some people watch videos or listen to music, but in a short, intensive session, anything which interferes with concentration should, perhaps, be avoided. Indeed, interval training is the only real justification other than bad weather for riding the turbo. It isn’t a machine for doing long, slow, fat-burning rides on. Your turbo needs to be readily available: it’s a real drag having to set the thing up every time the weather turns nasty, and if you have to do that, then you may decide it isn’t worth the bother, so if you’ve got the space, have a permanent set-up using that old steel frame, heavy training wheel and 8-speed cassette – you don’t even need brakes. Drape a towel over the top tube and headset where your salty sweat drips and causes rust; get a 16" fan (around £20), because you won’t be creating your own airflow, and your core body temperature keeps creeping up; strap your heart monitor to the bars, take a bottle and a cheap kitchen clock with a sweep second hand, and you’re in business. Warm up for five to ten minutes, and after that the range of training schedules

is infinite. None should take longer than about 40 minutes, plus warm-up/down. If we’re riding the bike primarily as training, rather than enjoying the scenery and the chat, then intervals are far more costeffective than any other form of training. Here are a few suggestions: 15/30. 15-second effort intervals at around 90% Max Heart Rate (MHR), 30 second recovery intervals pedalling easily. In 10 minutes you do 13 of these. Then ride easily for five minutes, and do another 10-minute block. If you’re fit, do a third. The effort interval is not a sprint – the key is pacing it so that you can repeat it at the same level all the way through. Variations: 15/15, 20/20, 20/40, etc, depending on age, fitness and so on. If you’re pushed for time and cut the warm-up/down to five minutes each, you can do two blocks of 15/30 in only 35 minutes. Time-trial intervals. Five minutes at your average time-trial pace (see box) with a one-minute recovery interval on a low gear. Then repeat. Six times is usually enough in one session. With a warm-up and warm-down, around 50 minutes. Three-stage. Warm up. 15 mins at 90 – 95 rpm on, say, 53 x 16. 5 mins easy. Then 10 mins at 95 – 100 rpm on 53 x 15. 5 mins easy. Then 5 mins riding as hard as possible at 100+ rpm. Warm down. 40 minutes, plus warm-up/down. Three-set. Warm up. 5 mins at optimum training heart rate. 2 mins easy. 3 x 2 mins fast (105+ rpm) with 30-second rests, pedalling easily. 2 mins easy. 6 x 1minute at 110+ rpm with 30-second rests. 2 mins easy. 8 x 30-seconds very fast (110+ rpm) with 30-second rests. Warm down. 34 minutes, plus warm-up/down. Lactate Threshold training. Warm up for 10 – 15 minutes. Ride for 30 seconds at 120 rpm (i.e. 60 revs, probably on a gear of around 52 x 15) at max heartrate. Rest for 1 minute. Repeat five times. Then ride for five minutes at your 10mile time-trial pace. Warm down. Don’t be tempted to stop pedalling during the recovery intervals – active recovery, gently turning a lower gear, is much more effective, because it pro-

motes blood flow in the muscles and speeds up recovery. Some of these methods are pretty tiring (3-stage) and others can be exhausting (3-set). But some, like 15/30 and time-trial intervals leave you feeling pleasantly tired rather than shattered. This is how they’re supposed to be: don’t be tempted into riding your 5-minute efforts at 95% instead of 80% of your MHR. The right intensity is very much a matter of trial and error. All these methods help to raise your aerobic threshold, and if you do them properly and not more than twice a week, you may be surprised how well they work. MHR isn’t all that easy to determine – to do it properly you should do a ramp test. For most people, especially vets, a much more useful alternative is to base your heart percentages on your average heart-rate for a 10-mile time-trial, the sort of thing you can do every Tuesday or so during the season. When you’re fit, record your average HR for three of them and take the average of that. If it’s 160, say, then that will be your HR for a time-trial interval. Then all you need is a table (which we provide – see facing page) of percentages to give you your different training levels.

Four levels of training intensity based on your average heart rate for a 10-mile time-trial 10m avge

Level 1

Long (low) L2

Short (high) L2

Level 3

140 142 144 146 148 150 152 154 156 158 160 162 164 166 168 170 172 174 176 178 180 182 184 186 188 190 192 194 196 198 200

Below 122 Below 124 Below 126 Below 127 Below 129 Below 131 Below 132 Below 134 Below 136 Below 137 Below 139 Below 141 Below 144 Below 146 Below 147 Below 149 Below 150 Below 152 Below 154 Below 155 Below 157 Below 159 Below 162 Below 164 Below 165 Below 167 Below 169 Below 170 Below 172 Below 174 Below 176

122-127 124-129 126-131 127-132 128-134 131-136 132-137 134-139 136-141 137-143 139-144 141-146 144-149 146-151 147-153 149-155 150-156 152-158 154-160 155-161 157-163 159-165 162-167 164-170 165-172 167-173 169-175 170-177 172-179 174-180 176-182

127-131 129-133 131-134 132-136 134-138 136-140 137-141 139-143 141-145 143-147 144-148 146-150 149-154 151-156 153-157 155-159 156-161 158-163 160-164 161-166 163-168 165-170 167-173 170-175 172-177 173-178 175-180 177-182 179-184 180-186 182-188

135-140 137-142 139-144 141-146 143-148 145-150 147-152 148-154 150-156 152-158 154-160 156-162 159-164 161-166 163-168 165-170 167-172 168-174 170-176 172-178 174-180 176-182 179-184 181-186 183-188 185-190 187-192 189-194 190-196 192-198 194-200

Level 4

Above 140 Above 142 Above 144 Above 146 Above 148 Above 150 Above 152 Above154 Above 156 Above 158 Above 160 Above 162 Above 164 Above 166 Above 168 Above 170 Above 172 Above 174 Above 176 Above 178 Above 180 Above 182 Above 184 Above 186 Above 188 Above 190 Above 192 Above 194 Above 196 Above 198 Above 200

“DO YOU THINK WE SHOULD WAIT FOR THE COACH?”