Club run 1st March 2008

[quote="Sylv"][quote="Ian MunneryA1size"]
No matter what i do it will always give a cadence max of 236 or 244, even with the optional sensor, i dont know how much this skews the results tho.

[Toks]

[quote="Robh"]Hi Ian,

Might wanna have a look at doing some Vo2 intervals if your finding no more improvements with threshold workouts. This will pull up the aerobic limit and help with burning less matches.

Rob

[quote="Toks"][quote="Robh"]Hi Ian,

Might wanna have a look at doing some Vo2 intervals if your finding no more improvements with threshold workouts. This will pull up the aerobic limit and help with burning less matches.

Rob

[quote="Robh"][quote="Toks"][quote="Robh"]Hi Ian,

Might wanna have a look at doing some Vo2 intervals if your finding no more improvements with threshold workouts. This will pull up the aerobic limit and help with burning less matches.

Rob

[Phil L]

This looks all too technical, though I wouldn't mind a power meter if I could afford one. I seem to be getting a number of compliments about how my power has improved, so it would be very interesting to see what sort of power I am pushing. The only training I have been doing which I can attribute to this improvement, if you can call it training, is using my Brompton during the week for commuting - 1.5 miles each end of the train journey - I don't do any other cycling other than the CR. I can imagine this causing a few chuckles, special from the sports scientists amongst us. I guess I am benefiting not because my commuter bike has 16" wheels, weighs 10Kg, and folds away neatly, but because it only has two gears - one for the flat, and one for up hill and starting. My commute home from the station involves a 100m climb (distance) up a 11% gradient (probably 15% at its steepest), which doesn't sound much, but on a 50/16 gearing on a 16" wheel, sitting in the sadle (Brompton's aren't very stable when you get out of the sadle), it takes some pushing. Thing is, after a while this became too easy, so I started doing the hill in the second gear (50/12). I have now upgraded the chain ring to 54 teeth and swapped the fat tyres for skinny Schwalbes with less rolling resistance. I am now doing the hill almost every day in 54/12 - it hurts, but the hill is short enough to not be traumatised by it. I am not an expert on training, but if I was reading my body correctly, I would say that the key to getting the benefit is to push the highest gear possible up a hill whilst in the sadle, but regularly and in small enough quantities so to avoid any kind of muscle fatigue - so a Brompton isn't really mandatory for this program , but being severly limited on gears ensures the discipline.

As for the alternative 18s ride lead by Ian - enjoyed it thoroughly - thanks Ian. Just sweeping round further west as we did means catching a lot more hills - so a bit more challenging than the normal CR - and we still managed an average of 18.3mph - not bad considering. I am finding hills easier these days (Brompton power yeah ), and head winds don't seem to bother me as much either, so felt comfortable, even when I was at the front. Paul on the Pearson and Mr Locke seemed to be very happy on the front too, though I would rather tucked behind an "A1 size" person to act as a wind block . Lost it on the sprint to the cafe - tried to hang on to Mr Locke, but felt a burning sensation in my thighs - don't normally get this but can guess why I did - so eased right off and settled for second place. Even with our late arrival, I was pleased to see some cake still left. Don't unerstand the fairy cake mixture stuff mind - I can't remember when I last saw some propper fruit cake .

Enjoyed the sprint home - the hill up past the golf course into Redhill now becoming a favourite of mine. I use to hate the Merstram drag, but enjoying this too, where I am now finding I can often hang onto the wheels of the lead group. Love the last bit of the Coulsdon by-pass where it dips under the bridge - a deceptive gradient where 40mph can be regularly achieved in the empty bus lane whilst whizzing past slow moving traffic.

[mlocke]

Phil

I have recently found myself doing the 'push a big gear in the saddle on the hills' method of training and this is what I attribute to my new found climbing prowess and all round general improvements.

Never mind all this scientific 2x20, lactate threshold, powertap, FT mallarky (although I would like one ) just find a hill and put it in the big ring a few days a week and hey presto! Like Phil said though - not too often.

Don't knwo what I'll do when I reach the plateu of this method - maybe thats a training forum question

Mark

[Andrew G]

[quote]Don't know what I'll do when I reach the plateu of this method - maybe thats a training forum question

[Toks]

[quote="mlocke"]Never mind all this scientific 2x20, lactate threshold, powertap, FT mallarky (although I would like one ) [size=150]just find a hill and put it in the big ring a few days a week and hey presto! [/size] Like Phil said though - not too often.

[Robh]

I don't do any big gear work...I like my kness and back too much...I just make sure in the past for 5min intervals I'm riding above threshold which is easy with a Powertap.

I presume the 2 guys above newish and have done very little interval work? I think their iimproved form of fitness is down to functional training which is the oxgen independant zone i.e intervals. This type of training will bring on form quicker than structural training but can lead to fatigue quicker if not watched carefully.

Now for me I'm riding currently structurally.

Saturday with the London to Brighton group was the first time I've been above 400W + on the climbs since the middle of January when I use to go out with the 19/20's grp. All my rides since on a Saturday have been solo in the little ring for 4.5hrs around 17-18mph with no real exertion over any climb. Hours have gone up, more rides during the week with intensity dropping, no more 3 day blocks of 3 x 20mins for the time being. After riding for around 1.5 months I thought I might loose some form up the climbs but I felt fine on Saturday.

[Phil L]

I am not a racer and don't intend doing any either or at least at a serious level - so not even a "newbie". I see myself as a leisure cyclist who likes to hammer it a bit at times, and put the pressure on some of the lower category racers when I can . Toks - you are definately right about the knees - so I am watching out very careful for any undesirable side effects to my high gear pushing.

Something I forgot to add is that a Brompton is not that highly geared, so on the flat and down hill, it is very easy to max out on cadence. As part of my "training" - I try and cover the full length of London Bridge at the highest possible cadence I can manage with any extra bursts of acceleration I can muster (probably starts off at 120rpm and drops down to about 90rpm - at a guess as I don't have a computer). Being a cyclist who stops at all the lights and trying to be the first to the next set (or catch the cyclists who have jumped them) - then I am applying a sort of interval training (sprint, recovery, etc) . Any way my main point is that I am not trying to sell a training program (I would be in the training forum if I was), I am just trying to explain my improvements to people who have noticed them. Doing another high cardio-vascular sport not requiring the legs also helps ... and laying off the beers has also helped

[Toks]

[quote="Phil L"]I am not a racer and don't intend doing any either or at least at a serious level - so not even a "newbie". I see myself as a leisure cyclist who likes to hammer it a bit at times, and put the pressure on some of the lower category racers when I can . Toks - you are definately right about the knees - so I am watching out very careful for any undesirable side effects to my high gear pushing.

Something I forgot to add is that a Brompton is not that highly geared, so on the flat and down hill, it is very easy to max out on cadence. As part of my "training" - I try and cover the full length of London Bridge at the highest possible cadence I can manage with any extra bursts of acceleration I can muster (probably starts off at 120rpm and drops down to about 90rpm - at a guess as I don't have a computer). Being a cyclist who stops at all the lights and trying to be the first to the next set (or catch the cyclists who have jumped them) - then I am applying a sort of interval training (sprint, recovery, etc) . Any way my main point is that I am not trying to sell a training program (I would be in the training forum if I was), I am just trying to explain my improvements to people who have noticed them. Doing another high cardio-vascular sport not requiring the legs also helps ... and laying off the beers has also helped

[Andrew G]

Similar to an exercise we did last year on one of the Surrey League training sessions with John Leitch.
This was on a more gradual, but long hill. We stuck it in the biggest (or at least a big) gear and hammered it out the saddle up the drag as hard as we could for 30 seconds, then chucked it to a much smaller gear and spun our legs out to help prevent lactate build up for 30 seconds, then jump back to the big gear and repeat. We did 6 repetitions of this up a long drag hill. Very good exercise which I always mean to repeat, but forget when approaching a suitable hill . I've always thought Polhill would be good for this, the problem with most hills out that way is that they are either too short or too steep, or both.
Part of the reasoning behind the exercise is to improve your ability to put in a big effort and then recover as quick as possible from it.

[mlocke]

Andrew

I came back via boxhill on Saturday and put in three big ring efforts not unlike the ones that I tried on you at the end of Hilly 50 a couple of weeks ago

[Andrew G]

[quote="mlocke"]Andrew

I came back via boxhill on Saturday and put in three big ring efforts not unlike the ones that I tried on you at the end of Hilly 50 a couple of weeks ago

[mlocke]

No they didn't - cheeky!