Early Winter Training

Cyclists would expect to train for:

• Technique/skill
• Stamina
• Power
• Speed

During the early winter, that is, to the new year, traditional wisdom has been to concentrate almost exclusively on technique and stamina. The emphasis has been on riding lots of easy miles in low gears.

We will assume that you ended the season somewhere near your best in all of the above four elements.

Which two of the four elements would you expect to lose first as you go into the close season?

Speed and power?

So does it make sense to base winter training exclusively on the two elements that you retain and ignore the elements that you lose first and take the most effort to develop in the first place?

Why not ride hard all the year? – Because you’d get very tired and very bored and stale.

In the period up to the New Year, have one long ride per week, which for many will be a Sunday club run. To do this has several advantages – it’s a three hour ‘stamina’ run, at a speed where you don’t need to go on to the big ring. That means you can practice high cadence, low gear riding, keeping your shoulders still and not gripping too tightly on the handlebars. If you’re in a group, you can get used, if you’re not already, to following a wheel and being close alongside other riders – necessary skills if you’re going to try road racing. It also means you can work on cornering skills – get behind a good road rider and follow their line through corners – not just a road racing skill. As time trial courses become much more ‘sporting’, good cornering becomes a significant time saver. Even on ‘out and back’ courses, time can be saved by getting through roundabouts quickly.

Lots of riders go out on Saturday as well. This should be a shorter run, and should be used as an opportunity for going a bit faster – to keep a bit of your power and speed. Perhaps three or four bursts of five minutes or so going up to about 85% of maximum heart rate, some of these pedalling very fast in a low gear (speed) and others grinding away on a high gear (power). If you wake up on Sunday morning and your legs feel too tired to go out on the club run, you’ve gone too hard.

Depending on how ambitious you are, you might want to go out for a third road ride midweek. Some club members do an evening ride with CATS – good for bike handling skills and stamina (though for me it would be falling off and getting cold).

For those that can’t get out in the week, a turbo session is a good idea, though if you’re going to do this it needs to be structured, or you’ll soon get very bored with it and give it up. This is the obvious place to fit in some organised speed and strength work.

Underpinning all of the above elements are strength and suppleness. It’s a good idea to make one of your weekly training nights a weight training or circuit training session. You’re at your most efficient on your bike when your body is still and only your legs are moving, and it takes abdominal and upper body strength to do that – to give you what is usually called ‘core stability’.

Stretching, to aid suppleness, is good for enabling you to pedal at a high cadence. Most people feel that it helps you avoid ‘over-use’ injury and having done a lot of it this year, I find it helps me to get lower and, at the same time, be comfortable over the tri-bars on my lo-pro.

Turbo Sessions

These depend on your knowing your maximum heart rate as the intensity is expressed in terms of percentage of maximum.

Session 1
25 minutes at 70%, cadence 90+, then up a gear, keeping cadence same, which should get you up to about 75% and hold for 20 minutes, then up another gear at same cadence and hold for 15 minutes. This should take you up to 80-85% of maximum. This session is handy as a substitute for a weekend road ride.

Session 2
Warm up over 10-15 minutes, gradually going up through gears and resistances keeping cadence at 90-95 aiming to get to 75% of max. Keep in that gear and raise cadence to 95-100 and hold for 3 minutes, go up a gear but drop cadence to 80 and hold for 1.5 minutes, then drop a gear and up the cadence. Do six of each if it’s a midweek session or 8 of each if it’s a substitute for a weekend road ride, then warm down for 10 minutes.

Session 3
Warm up over 10-15 minutes to reach 80% of max. If you have a turbo which measures watts, check how many watts you’re producing, then keep it at that level, adjusting your gears so that your cadence is 95-100, for 4 minutes. Then raise the gear or increase the resistance so that your cadence is 80 but power output is the same. Do 8X4 minutes in an evening session, or 10X4 minutes if it’s a substitute for a weekend road ride.

Session 4
Warm up for 10 minutes in a low gear, then, keeping in the same gear, pedal flat out for 15 seconds, ride easy for 30 seconds, then repeat. Continue until you have done 6X15 second bursts, then pedal easy for 5 minutes and repeat the set, then, if you’re feeling up to it, do 5 minutes easy and repeat set again, then warm down. The emphasis here is on pedalling as fast as you can – better to do 2 sets flat out rather than 3 sets at less than flat out. This session is just about improving your cadence.

You will see that some concentrate on speed alone (high cadence and low gear) and some on speed and power (lower cadence and higher gear). If you find your heart rate going much above 85% of maximum, drop a gear or reduce resistance. (as a rough rule of thumb, most people time trial at about 92% of maximum).

Dave Birch