It has been a while since I wrote about anything related to my racing. The problem is that while most of the country has some nice weather to ride, the Northeast has been cold, cold, cold. That has not stopped me from riding my bike outside at all, but this spring is really dragging since I am looking forward to doing some racing soon.
A few teammates have been going out to the Rochester early season Giros. These are low key races where thankfully Tyler Hamilton will not be competing. Gee, that guy sure loves to race. The most recent race report of the Rochester Giros can be found here.
Matt, Jason and William have been going to races every weekend so far. They certainly have the itch to race and are getting some good experience in during these training races. If my timing works out I will join them next week and give a race report.
So, what do I do in the meantime to make sure that I am ready to race? Like many other weekend warriors, I have a family, full time job and web logs to maintain, so I do’t have endless hours to devote to training. Add to that a few pounds that I need to lose in the meantime and you have a need to focus on training done right.
My training consists of a few different activities. Spinning Class, Weight lifting (squats, leg curls etc.) Cardio work and some bike trainer work.
Bike Trainer.
I do not spend endless hours on the bike trainer. This is different than most other weekend warriors. I do not have a bike setup with a TV, and I am not sick of watching last years Tour de France. Bottom line, I do not do much riding on my trainer. There are a few sessions that I do on a trainer and rollers, but the longest session I’ve had is about 1 hour. When I do ride the rollers or trainers, I try to do interval work which varies each time. Plus, on the rollers I try to focus on smoothing out my pedal stroke to try and get smooth circles.
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Disclaimer: I will be racing for the Colavita-Spokpost.com racing team, this story is from Spokepost.com.
Spokepost has some great racing tips for all of you budding racers to use. I touched on a few of these back when I wrote about “How to keep up with the fast guys”. Now Bill Laudien, organizer of the Turkey Hill Country Classic writes some very valuable tips for those wanting to improve their racing results. The first tip is one I always try to follow and that is to never take an unnecassary pull or do any unnecessary efforts.
One of the main tactical difference(s) between the cat ½ races and all other events is that no self respecting cat 2 would take a hard pull unless he had a good reason to. Conversely, cat 4 races usually play out with everyone sitting around until someone attacks, then everyone killing themselves to catch the poor guy, then everyone sitting around again. Save your big efforts to either attack or to bridge to a break.
I have to admit that I had the sprinting idea backwards. A few races I competed in, I would wait untilt the last minute to sprint, but was caught out by riders that started ahead of me. I think I will try this next race.
I’ll try to keep this as simple as possible. Sprint early. Most new riders wait to long and find themselves in the middle of a mess. You’re usually better off going early and avoiding the chaos. Even if you get passed and finish 5th, its better than being trapped and finishing 12th or worse yet, ending up on the pavement. Also you’ll never really know how far you can sprint until you’ve gone too early a couple of times. Once you’ve seen how far you can go before you blow, then you can make the necessary adjustments based on wind, terrain, and circumstances.
http://spokepost.com/news/story/1216/
An important part of being a Euro-style guy is to be able to go fast when needed. You don’t need to be a Hammerhead, but you want to keep up with the fast guys on the club rides, and have a good showing when you race.
In cycling, no matter how fast you are, there is always someone faster than you, so getting faster is a steady progression that never ends. There are a few tips that you can use that can give you that extra bit of energy when you are riding with guys/girls that are simply much faster than you are. The key behind most of these tips is to save your energy. You main goal is to stay with the group as long as possible, so here are some tips to help you acheive this goal.
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