Rollers! Learn how to pedal slow, pedal fast, ride no handed, ride one legged, no handed and one legged. No handed and no legged.

I've written about this elsewhere, but I sometimes, if I want to get some exercise, but don't want a hard workout, I'll get on the rollers and just work rpm. three minutes at 80,then 90, then 100, then 110, then back down to 80, but shift into the next bigger gear. Repeat. Then the next bigger gear. Three gears is 36 minutes. If you want to fit it into 30 minutes, do two minutes for each cadence range,and use four gears.

Sprinting on rollers: take off any resistance and go for it. I saw 210rpm a few times, but I'm shooting to get back to 200.

BTW, I've only managed no hands and legs on a fixed-gear bike. And I don't think I've been able to pedal slower than 30rpm in a 38x25 without tipping over.

Cool. I alternate rollers/trainer during the week, so I'll try your workout next. No hands is easy but no legs? FUN. I'll also try the slow cadence challenge.

Does anyone have a fan that they're really crazy about? My fan is starting to give out, so I need to buy another. Something powerful and quiet, I guess.

I like Vornado fans. I find them fairly powerful for their size and quiet for their power.

Because I'm right now using the spin bike at my local gym, I watch those Sufferfest videos on my iPhone. I had to convert the download, though, to be able to do that. Put it into itunes, and then there is a function in the pull down menu where you can make a copy for iPhone/iPad.
If i was at home, I'd use my iPad or laptop. What you may have trouble doing is playing it on your television since they don't have dvd copies, only mp4 downloads. You'd need to either sync it to your tv or buy something that will turn it into a dvd-compatible video.

Got some little honeywell fan off amazon, it was cheap, works well enough, and is pretty adjustable.

Hi Kissena,

I wanted to share my winter training plan with you all. Eric Ragot and I worked on this together. I’m open to critiques and also questions about how you might use apply a similar plan to you. Mostly the point is to generate some discussion on training plans and techniques for this time of year.

Background:

I’m still pretty fit, having raced 13 cross races and 2 road races this fall. My overall endurance is low, since I’ve been racing many weekends instead of getting in long rides. I probably need to re-focus on some road specific issues, group riding, sprinting, and active recovery. I also probably need to loose 7-8 lbs.

January Training:

The main goal of January is to get used to structured everyday training that goes beyond “just riding.”

Mondays: Endurance riding (Zone 1 and 2) – on the rollers unless it is really nice – focus on riding no-handed and in many different gears. Keep cadence +10 over average cadence

Tuesdays: sprints. 10x10 second sprints, 5 minute active recovery. Same gear every effort. On rollers unless it is really nice. Progress by week: 39x21, 39x19, 39x17, 39x15, 39x13. Focus on smoothness and power to the pedals. Track progress via power and cadence.

Wednesday: tempo (at compu-trainer) – don’t get caught up in the races! 240 watts, for 1 hour. Pushing toward 250 / 260 watts towards end of month. Week 1, steady throughout, week 2, push last 10 minutes, week 3 push last 20 mins.

Thursday: Threshold work. 4 weeks of (2x20, 10 minute recovery). Threshold is 95-105% of FTP (maximum power for one hour). Build into each effort, finishing strong last 5 minutes.

Shooting to be ready for 3x20 in February.

Friday: L1/L2 riding. Outdoors or on rollers. Shaking out the legs.

Saturdays: long mixed bag ride. Take everything you did this week and put it into play. Ride with a group, do some state line sprints, push some hills. Keep

Sunday: long easy group ride – ride with group but keep it under control.

(Saturday and Sunday are reversible based on schedule.)

I will post about February plans shortly.

The question I've been asking myself lately is why not switch the Threshold nights to Wed so you can go hard on the trainer when everyone wants to race and move tempo to Thursday night. JP in I think this was one of the work out plans from your handout?

Thanks for posting. I have a couple of questions:

1) For your sprints, why do you do it in the small ring?

2) Regarding Thursday, where you do sessions at your maximum power for one hour, is this definition a little skewed? I mean, your lactate threshold now is not the metric you are currently using (i.e. if you are doing 20 minute intervals with rest in between it is more like a current 20 minute threshold, no?). Or, are you using a threshold you you determined at the end of your racing season last year? What I'm basically saying, is that if you can't hold whatever wattage/HR you are aiming for for 60 minutes, but instead for 20 minutes at a time, then this is too high and in fact your threshold is lower?

Thanks for the information, I appreciate you putting it up. Very interesting to compare to what I'm up to.

Posted By: josephmuellerThe question I've been asking myself lately is why not switch the Threshold nights to Wed so you can go hard on the trainer when everyone wants to race and move tempo to Thursday night. JP in I think this was one of the work out plans from your handout?

This is doable in theory, I think Jules road some of the first session more as intervals last night. I think the danger is in racing in sort of a no-man's land between tempo and threshold. The threshold efforts require actual recovery between sets.

Posted By: AdamThanks for posting. I have a couple of questions:

1) For your sprints, why do you do it in the small ring?

2) Regarding Thursday, where you do sessions at your maximum power for one hour, is this definition a little skewed? I mean, your lactate threshold now is not the metric you are currently using (i.e. if you are doing 20 minute intervals with rest in between it is more like a current 20 minute threshold, no?). Or, are you using a threshold you you determined at the end of your racing season last year? What I'm basically saying, is that if you can't hold whatever wattage/HR you are aiming for for 60 minutes, but instead for 20 minutes at a time, then this is too high and in fact your threshold is lower?

Thanks for the information, I appreciate you putting it up. Very interesting to compare to what I'm up to.

Point 1) Adam - for now, I'm doing "form sprints". I'm trying to learn the muscular coordination to spin smoothly. Power is irrelevant. Doing these in a small gear highlights all the inefficiencies in the pedal stroke and forces you to learn to ride steady at a high cadence. On the rollers - if you don't learn to smooth it out you'll fall right off!

My guess is guys who have lots of experience - JP, Marc, Eric, Myles, etc. won't get much out of these as they are very efficient already. I suggest giving it a try to see how your body reacts. If you are very steady and smooth at the high cadence, maybe it isn't work you need to do.

Point 2)

I'm basing it off my FTP from last season. So yeah, it is a bit of a crap shoot. I will re-test at the end of the month and try to set more accurate power zones. 95%-105% of FTP (my FTP was 296 watts) = 281 watts - 310 watts range. I'll start the intervals at the low end and hope that is falling somewhere in the right zone.

Keep in mind, FTP is what you could do for 1 hour at maximal all out exertion. So it's not like some sort of cake-walk to do 20 minute FTP efforts.

FTP is a source of great debate: there are a few (that I've seen) methods of calculating it.

Basically the goal of all of them is to get the ALL OUT BALLS TO THE WALL MAXIMUM HOUR power.

Since that is incredibly hard to do (sign up for a 1 hr TT and tell me about it afterward) most people use a shorter measure and extrapolate.

20 minute maximum effort or 3 mile maximum effort are pretty well known.

Doing 60 minutes at threshold is a soul-wrenching, brain-searing, spirit crushing, ball-shriveling, devil-dealing endeavor.
Doing 20 minutes at threshold is just really hard.

j

I see. Some good points. Might give the spinny sprints a try and see what happens.

Keep it coming.

@Joe - trying to do an entire session at Threshold is nigh well impossible given the terrain variation on the trainers. Plus the idea is that you are doing threshold on the trainer on Thursdays - a more controlled setting than the variable trainer session at Ride Brooklyn. Plus, if racing is allowed, its more high end work than I want being done now.

E

Hey E,

I was thinking 2 x 20's at Ride Brooklyn but that makes sense to me.

Just do what you're told, Joe!!

Posted By: Ryan JJust do what you're told, Joe!!

Yup. Nobody every got fast by thinking too much.

Posted By: mperlberg

Posted By: Ryan JJust do what you're told, Joe!!

Yup. Nobody every got fast by thinking too much.

Tell that to DZ...

I'm kind of with Joe on the computrainer thing. If you've got the company, makes sense to me to take advantage of the testicle fest and work on beating yourself and everyone else into a pulp. I haven't done the group sessions, but my guess is you'd have the inspiration to go past threshold and hold it until the perspiration causes you to overheat. As for the variable nature of the course, you can maintain threshold by going over on the climbs and under on the descents.

I think people need both variable and steady state training. Both where they alone are controlling their efforts and where they need to respond to others.

And with this Computrainer Wednesdays, I'd make Tuesday a tempo and sprint session and Thursday rest. Still, I'm impressed Mike can hold back and then open up late. And doing the beat down kind of ride is probably not something you should be doing three times a week this time of year when looking at how our season progresses. Twice a week should be plenty, and Mike seems to hold to this.Thing for me is counting on being able to do a super-hard ride outside in January on a consistent day strikes me as unwise considering our weather.

As for sprints, I actually start my sprint sessions with low gears either on the road or rollers. My feeling is that leg speed can be lost without practice. I do 10 seconds on 1:50 rest. Because I felt sick on tuesday, that became a rest day and I did sprints on the rollers today. I started with 2x20m at a high tempo. 10m warmup, 20m tempo, 10m rest, 20m tempo, 10m rest, and then sprints. The tempo sessions, I shifted gears every 5m. The first set, I started at 100rpm and shifted into a bigger gear every 5m until I was pedaling at about 84rpm by the end. The second set I started at 80rpm and shifted into smaller gears, about 100rpm at end.

My sprints on rollers I've been doing with resistance and low gears. Today I did six. I think it was 38x17. in the 10 seconds on I quickly get up to about 165rpm and try to go faster. I maxed out severa times at 168.

Thinking ahead to next week's roller race,which I might do, I took off the resistance and did another 6 sprints in a 52x15, close to the gear I'd use at the races. Here, I started at about 60rpm and wound up to about 190rpm. When I was more practiced at this sort of sprint, I could get up to 200rpm. (coincidentally or not, I was a better sprinter then)

It should be added that some people believe that it's better to start with muscling sprints, like big gears, low rpm and seated and then switch to low gear high rpm seated sprints. I'm probably going to do the big gear low rpm sprints for my next session. And then in March start to do sprints that more accurately reflect sprinting on the road.

And there's no way I come close to 160rpm sprinting in races on the road. I see it as part of the overload concept. It's the practice of getting up to speed fast and efficiently that I'm working on. Also good for closing gaps.

Posted By: mugwump
And with this Computrainer Wednesdays, I'd make Tuesday a tempo and sprint session and Thursday rest. Still, I'm impressed Mike can hold back and then open up late. And doing the beat down kind of ride is probably not something you should be doing three times a week this time of year when looking at how our season progresses. Twice a week should be plenty, and Mike seems to hold to this.Thing for me is counting on being able to do a super-hard ride outside in January on a consistent day strikes me as unwise considering our weather.

We talked a bit about these points. I could very easily do more intensity. We're taking January as more "train to get ready to train". February and March will be different. The last 2 season I have a slew of results in March and April, and then pretty much nothing for the rest of the road season (with the exception of 3/4 races last year). I'm hoping to prepare myself a more solid foundation to stretch my success into the summer months. So that means holding the reins back a bit for now.

I'd love to have another day to get more volume and not rely on the weekend, but it just isn't going to happen on a consistent basis during the school year.

While I enjoy testes as much as the next guy, I am not convinced that racing because one can race is the best thing to do all winter. If people started racing on Wednesdays, sure the workout might be harder, but where is the rest? What rest am I talking about? Well, if the person isn't really in shape, they are slamming themselves for a gain, sure, but when life, work gets in the way, it doesn't allow consistent riding at race pace. Also, if we were racing all winter doing CX (one race a week), we have nothing but evidence of it hurting the road season. So, why go there? Every rider needs to have a desire to race and a desire to train. Keeping it at tempo (preferably high tempo) and learning to moderate efforts to avoid blowing up, and learning to pace yourself, and to ride by feel and to discipline yourself while building a base are all reasons to hold back.

I don't necessarily subscribe to building a traditional base for the time crunched athlete - most of us. So my base building as it is consists of tempo and threshold. I also know that when life hits hard, training volume is the first thing to go, so I want to come out of the winter ready to train physically and mentally. Racing IS psychologically draining and racing on a trainer is in no way like racing in real life. Think about the hunger people have for early season races.

As for sprints - hey, are you weak at sprinting? Winter is the time to work on it. Are you a masher who lacks the flexibility to quickly change your efforts? Work on your spin in the winter. I didn't do sprint workouts last year and think I had a modicum of success. In part because I am naturally quick. But if you're not and don't have the form to sprint well. Work on it now. What I would avoid is real sprints as if you are training for something. Keep them varied and working on your jump or low end mash. No need for wound up flying sprints.

Again, build the core competencies over the winter. Stay fresh and motivated for the real training to come. Love your bike after the winter is over.

I used to race as often as I could as the season started and JP would race only once a weekend in March. I've since come around to believing that it is better to race once a weekend as the season unfolds and as you build fitness because you can train better than when you are racing. If you have a goal to achieve, the training can be much more targeted than the racing. Especially the local races.

Train your weaknesses, race your strengths and remember, riding tempo is your sitting in pace. Learn to do that well and your races get easier.

Eric

I wanted to share a training thought that was re-emphasized as I rode two days in a row for the first time in a long time, and got spanked by JP and a multitude of other club members. It's great that many of you are looking for workouts and drills and activities to make the winter pass.

But some of us, myself included, are simply not riding enough. Even if it's a 45 minute spin on the trainer, or 3 laps around PP, there is simply no substitute for building fitness, as just getting on the bike.

I've been doing this a long time, so I'll be able to come back up to speed relatively quickly, but for those of you who haven't been racing since down-tube shifters, think of the winter as the time to build a strong foundation on which intervals and speedwork will be built up in March and April.

My wife made a comment last season at a road race that included a "cyclo-sportif" category while waiting in the feedzone. In addition to the expected chaos and hilarity of watching the sportif's and their support personnel try to manage the feed zone (not a single successful bottle hand-off occurred), she said that it was striking to see the differences in how they were riding. "You guys look like you are part of the bike, those guys look like their riding on top of bikes."

When I was just starting out, I remember being snubbed for a Spring Break trip by my collegiate team, so I said screw it, and went out to Seattle to do my own training camp. I rode and rode and rode. When I got back, our team's queen bee said, "You look so much more comfortable on your bike."

So, what I'm saying, is that you don't have to get bogged down in the minutia of intervals and training zones and wattage to get better. If you are like me right now...you just need to get on your bike as often as you can.

"You guys look like you are part of the bike, those guys look like their riding on top of bikes."--sarah smith

This is one of the differences between a good bike rider and bad. Riding like the bike is an extension of your body rather than having the bike take you along for the ride. It's too easy to pick on triathletes, but this is a moment where it's appropriate to point out that many never understand the difference and never learn how to ride well, and that when you see many triathletes riding, particularly when you see them kind of grouped together (too afraid to ride a paceline) you should spot their riding problems from a kilometer away. It's also one of the reasons I think everyone should master rollers.

And I'm going to post to a separate thread about rollers in a moment.

Found my new trainer jams:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/velobeats/id417477267

AWESOME!!!!

That sounds like great music for taking yourself seriously to.

lol

i haven't clicked on the link, but if the music in homemade edits of cyclocross races indicates anything, it's that cyclist have godshitawful taste in music

only problem is that it requires malware to play it - iTunes...

personally, I just listen to pandora when i do hard pieces usually to the likes of matthew dear and sometimes i'll put climbs of the grand tours on mute blown up on my computer screen. if i do steady workout then throw on a movie like the hangover2 or other easy to follow brainless stuff.
to warm up, sitcoms are the best i find: 20mins and good to go. i personally like modern family at the moment.

1 day computrainer followed by 1 day on the rollers. Rides are 45 min. to an hour

Computrainer = intervals. 10 min warm up then 3 min standing climbs at about 270 watts followed by 2 minutes seated spin in the drops at 110 cadence. 5 min recovery & repeat 4 times.
Computrainer- 15 warm up followed by 10 minutes at 250 watts, 5 min recovery then 5 minutes above 270 watts, 5 min recovery repeat. (repeat last interval once if I'm feeling giddy)
Rollers - usually 45 minutes with a towel under the rear roller for some resistance. stay in drops as long as possible and keep cadence above 100.

On the bike about 5 days a week...its just enough to keep some baseline fitness. I start the season feeling slightly under trained and anxious for race miles. Yacks

watched 180 Degrees South, on my workout today. Nothing like pretty surfing/climbing images to get your mind off the crap coming out of the sky. Also a good hour and twenty minute length, and not that you actually have to pay attention to dialogue.

Threshold ride. I do these on rollers.

10m warmup
eight 5m efforts at threshold followed by 1m rest in between. Cut your efforts if you find yourself unable to maintain the low end of your threshold range.

After last effort, 1m easy followed by 5m 100-110rpm at middling endurance pace. then start cutting back the effort. shift into lighter gear, ride 1m at 90rpm. shift into easier gear every minute until out of cogs. then 1m at 80rpm. 1m 60rpm. 1m as slow as you can manage. then off.