This was a conference for members of the Association of British Cycle Coaches that I attended on 19th November. The headline speaker was Magnus Backstedt, winner of the 2004 Paris-Roubaix race, whose ambition is to win it again this year. He outlined his winter training schedule which I found quite mind boggling. He’s on the road in all weathers and works in 4 day blocks. Until the new year each block is: day 1 – 3 hrs, day 2 – 4 hrs, day 3 – 5 hrs and day 4 – 6 hrs. He then takes a day off, only it isn’t, it’s a 2 hr easy ride. On his training days, he rides at an average 33kph. He’s currently splitting his 6 hr day into a 4 hr road ride and 2 hrs at the Newport track (he lives in South Wales, so all of his routes are hilly ones). He also lifts weights 3 days per week. From January, his 4 day blocks will be: day 1 – 6 hrs, day 2 – 7 hrs, day 3 – 6 hrs and day 4 – 7hrs. He fits power intervals into all of his sessions, currently concentrating on high gear, low cadence bursts up long hills. He always rides the second half of sessions harder than the first half to simulate race conditions – to ensure that he has strength for the parts of races where positions are decided.

Geoff Cooke was also a speaker and his training schedule was quite as impressive for an Over 60 rider. He does road rides on 4 or 5 days per week, 2 or 3 track sessions and 3 days of weight training.

Having made you feel rotten about the tiny bit of training you do, here’s something that you can do and will save you money. Matthew Bridge from the Human Performance Unit at Birmingham University spoke about diet and exercise – the head of the unit, Asker Jeukendrup is scientific adviser to the Rabobank team. The most interesting parts of the talk were about energy drinks and all of what follows is backed up by meticulous research.

There is no benefit from eating a banana or a power bar, or drink an energy drink prior to any race up to 10 miles, and no need to drink during such a race. For a 25, it might be beneficial to take an energy drink about 45 minutes before your start time. He recommended maltodextrin at a concentration of 75gms per litre of water (e.g. Dynamight from Allsports), plus a pinch of salt and a drop of fruit squash for taste). Why 45 minutes before the start? – you’re liable to suffer a drop in blood sugar and feel rough about 30 minutes after taking the drink and then recover about 15 minutes later – so use the final 15 minutes for an easy warm up. Their research suggests that there’s no physiological benefit from drinking during a 25, but there might for some riders be a psychological benefit – it makes them feel better about the race.

For long rides, they find that a mixture of carbohydrate sources works best. A good combination is maltodextrin and fructose (available from Boots – near the sex toys?) with 60gms of maltodextrin and 30gms of fructose per litre of water, and consumed at a rate of 1 litre per hour. For easy rides of up to 2 hrs, there’s no need to use an energy drink, and for a long ride, no need to do so until after you’ve done 2hrs.

The unit has done much research into aiding recovery after exercise. Their research tells them that carbohydrates alone are best for recovery, consumed at a rate of 1.2 grams per kg of body weight per hour over 4 hrs after exercise. This needn’t be drink – to give an example of quantity, a medium sized ripe banana delivers 30 grams of carbohydrate.

They find no advantage in using protein drinks (like amino load) to aid recovery, with the possible exception of a rider with very little body fat (probably only Alex Wise in our club, and I’d have my doubts about that), who might start using up muscle to provide energy at the end of a long ride, whereas most of us would have plenty of fat for the purpose. They find that the most effective way of replacing protein is to drink a pint of milk, especially a milkshake drink, which pleased me as I’m a chocolate Yazoo junkie.

Geoff Cooke swore by protein powder to aid recovery – there really was nothing to touch it – but he’s an agent for Allsports!

It was interesting to note that while the Human Performance Unit receives a lot of research funding from Lucozade, all of the cyclists in the unit make up their own drinks as I’ve described above.

D Birch
November 2004