Road Training

Road Training

Road Training

VeloNews’ Everyman Racer Jason Sumner says sometimes you need to just ride.

Don’t take this the wrong way, but there is a lot more to riding bikes than just training for the next race. And while I know that might sound obvious, for me anyway, that simple truth got lost for a little while. During the last year, I’ve been willingly immersed in an exciting new world of power meters, intervals, thresholds and watts. I trained indoors on powder days, bailed on friendly group rides so I could stick to my workout plan, and skipped a few Friday night bacchanals so I’d be fresh for Saturday’s ’cross race.

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Training

Road Training

Road Training

Christian Vande Velde’s secret?

Christian Vande Velde came into his own last season with a run of stunning successes: A strong showing at the Tour of California, the pink jersey at the Giro, a stellar fourth place in the Tour de France, and to cap the season, the Tour of Missouri overall win. This year Vande Velde scored a stage win at Paris-Nice, and looks set for another top season that he hopes is set back only slightly by his injuries in Monday's stage 3 crash at the Giro.

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Road Training

A tale of two races

Team Columbia’s Marco Pinotti reached the line in the front group in Wednesday’s Fleche Wallone classic, finishing 40th, 54 seconds behind the winner Davide Rebellin. More importantly however for Pinotti was the sixth-place finish of his teammate, Thomas Lövkvist, who crossed the line just six seconds behind Rebellin.

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Road Training

The Coach(ed) Corner: The importance of being humbled

There’s a commonly held sports adage that says the best way to get better at your chosen activity is to play with people who are better than you. I certainly don’t agree with this in all cases. Hoops with LeBron would only equal thunder dunks in face. I’d probably drown in Michael Phelps’ wake. And clearly Troy Polamalu could rip all our heads off.

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Road Training

The Coach(ed) Corner: Finding the time

Of all the lessons I learned during this past year of getting coached, No. 1 by a long shot is this basic tenet: More time on the bike does not necessarily translate to increased fitness. Instead, the key is finding that critical balance between high intensity and adequate rest. Better to crush yourself a couple times a week, and then have several short truly easy days, than to noodle around whenever you can and rarely take time off.

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Road Training

Training with type 1 diabetic athletes has taught coach Rick Crawford about metabolism — and life.

I got involved with Diabetes Training Camps about three years ago. I’ve been to seven camps since then. I just wrapped up a camp in Tucson with the Triabetes group, which was a departure from the other camps I’ve done in that all the diabetic campers were training for the same goal, an ambitious one, to complete the Ironman in Phoenix in November ’09. All the campers have type one diabetes.

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Road Training

Project Pruitt: On the road again

Editor's note: Tom LeCarner, VeloNews' copy editor, is an avid cyclist who has been unable to ride and train for most of 2008 because of knee pain. He is being treated at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine, using Specialized Body Geometry equipment and services at Specialized's expense and reporting on his progress in regular columns.

 

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Road Training

Coach Frank Overton tells what to do with your new power meter

A simple 20-minute field test can determine your power at threshold and is the best starting point for a power-based training plan. Knowing one’s threshold wattage gives you the ability to use wattage-based training zones and to understand power readout in real time on the bike. Most importantly, you will be able to analyze training data on your computer and measure your cycling improvement. What

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Road Training

Sitting In and Bowing Out: The Art of Pass/Fail Racing

I was looking through some blogs last night and came upon Bike Snob NYC . This guy writes a great blog and this post in particular gives some humorous TIPS that I though I would post. Cycling should be an enjoyable endeavor. However, if you find yourself in an amateur road race in the first place you’re the sort of person who seeks suffering rather than avoids it. If you simply must participate in amateur road racing, here are some tips to help ameliorate the adverse effects: Know Your Limits There is a fine line between ambition and delusion. The former is the fuel for success, and the latter is the way to ruin. I believe it was either Sheldon Brown or Ben Franklin who said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” This is especially true when it comes to road racing. Basically, if you’ve never won a race before, you’re not suddenly going to start winning them now. So settle down, pick a wheel to follow, and stay out of trouble. Unfortunately, though, too many people fail to realize this, especially in the lower categories, where everybody stupidly sees him-or herself as a potential winner. When everyone’s going for the podium the result is a pile-up. It becomes like some moronic slapstick routine where eight people bend down to pick up the same $100 bill and just end up bashing their heads together as a gentle breeze carries the money down the street. The reason the higher categories generally see fewer crashes is not because

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Road Training

Cycling training logs for the Macintosh – Part 2

Editor's Note: Drew Geer is an endurance mountain bike racer who has been using a computer training log since 1998 and has hand-written training logs going back to 1972. He's been an Apple Mac user since 1984. Geer paid retail for each of the products he reviewed in this article.

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