Training for a hilly race

William Asher wrote:
Woos. Â*Real men use quicksilver. Â*

One added bonus is that it's relatively expensive, you can tell people
you spent around $3000 just to fill your tires. Â*It's a FM's dream. Â*

The second bonus is that if you use mercury-filled tires while riding
rollers, once you get those babies up to speed they are going to pack
some momentum and if you pop off you're not going to have to sprint to
leave a skidmark into the wall. Â*

ronaldo_jeremiah wrote:
No way. Supercooled liquid helium is the way to go. You get the
lightweight and superfluidity. Once the wheels are turning, they'd never
stop.

And you could use your wheel as a particle accelerator.

Kurgan Gringioni wrote:

Anyone who gives you flak about saying that is probably fat themselves
and have never actually experienced low weight and the accompanying
performance advantages. It's an eye opener.

BTW, Fat Steve was protesting me calling him fat for a bike racer by
proudly proclaiming that he was only 18%.

I AM NOT FAT!!!!!! I AM GETTING IN EXCELLENT SHAPE!!!!!!
I AM GETTING TIRED OF YOUR PANSY ASS ****!!!!!!
I ONLY LOOK FAT BECAUSE I AM HUNCHED OVER. GET IT?????

On Feb 4, 3:36*am, Amit Ghosh wrote:
On Feb 3, 5:10*pm, Scott wrote:

Who said anything about doing the low cadence/high force efforts at
significantly lower wattages?

dumbass,

if you do an all out interval, say 5 minutes and self select cadence
and then you do 5 minutes and you deliberately restrict your cadence
you won't make as much power, since you have imposed an additional
constraint on yourself.

You don't know what you're talking about. First, on its face your
argument makes no sense. Who says that the self-selected cadence
would be high, or that the notion of 'restricting' cadence means your
restricting it to a relatively low range. Forcing yourself to pedal
at a significantly higher cadence than YOUR optimal cadence is a
constraint, too, in that you are not working in your optimal cadence
range.

Besides, we're not talking about 5 min efforts. Most folks do SE
intervals over a 15 to 25 minute period. I guaran-****in-tee you that
you can consistently do a higher wattage at a lower cadence (55-60)
for that period of time than you could do for the same period at more
"normal" cadences (95-100) UNLESS you spend a LOT of time working on
high cadence intervals. Regardless, you have to have the strength
before you can put out the power at any cadence. So, what would you
prefer, spend some time during the early or off season working on
strength at a low cadence, then bring in the speed later, or work on
speed immediately but not have the strength?

From my experience I can tell you that it is much easier to hit much
higher wattages at high cadence for short periods, no question. But,
just because you can do a relatively high wattage for a minute at 100
rpm means you'll ever hit the same wattage for 20 minutes at 100 rpm
just by extending the effort a little bit at a time. But, if you can
do the wattage for 15-20 minutes at low cadence, you can up the
cadence pretty easily.

On Feb 2, 4:03*pm, hizark21 wrote:
Go and ride course you will be racing on. This way you will find out
what gears you will need to use and how much effort you will need to
expend. Not familiar with the race, but it's always better to have a
lower gear if you need it.

BINGO!
(Do it like Lance did it g)
--D-y

On Feb 3, 12:29*am, Mike G wrote:

(snipped)

Coupla things, Mike:

1) I have some number of teammates racing in that race, perhaps in
LB's cat;

2) I think it's terrible the way you have misled this poor young man.

3) I'd correct you, but I have teammates racing in Lago.

(Team orders, I know you understand)
--D-y

On Feb 4, 7:52*pm, Scott wrote:

You don't know what you're talking about. *First, on its face your
argument makes no sense. *Who says that the self-selected cadence
would be high, or that the notion of 'restricting' cadence means your
restricting it to a relatively low range. *Forcing yourself to pedal
at a significantly higher cadence than YOUR optimal cadence is a
constraint, too, in that you are not working in your optimal cadence
range.

Besides, we're not talking about 5 min efforts. *Most folks do SE
intervals over a 15 to 25 minute period. *I guaran-****in-tee you that
you can consistently do a higher wattage at a lower cadence (55-60)
for that period of time than you could do for the same period at more
"normal" cadences (95-100) UNLESS you spend a LOT of time working on
high cadence intervals. *Regardless, you have to have the strength
before you can put out the power at any cadence. *So, what would you
prefer, spend some time during the early or off season working on
strength at a low cadence, then bring in the speed later, or work on
speed immediately but not have the strength?


dumbass,

my head hurts from reading this nonsense.

On Feb 4, 12:29*pm, "marco" wrote:
Amit Ghosh wrote:
it's dumb and boring because anyone who's raced for about 5 yrs or so
has had a glimpse of their potential.

I agree with this, but I still see many people who have been racing a long
time and still their training consists mostly of group rides where 70%-80%
of the ride is social and low intensity. Yeah, they've had a glimpse of
their potential, but still don't really *know* what they're capable of. A
lifer-cat-4 on the "group-ride" plan would be capable of upgrading a
category or two with some better focused training.

the difference in conditioning between doing a typical 10-15 hrs a
week, pushing yourself once in a while with some sustained intensity
and an optimized training plan is maybe 10%. weight is the other
biggie and most racers can lose maybe another 10%. this is of course
meaningful with respect to results among your peers but probably not
enough to make you competitive at the next level.

Very true, depending on how you define "the next level". Seems like a lot of
non-pro riders are interested in upgrading to the next category. I think 10%
plus 10% should be good for a couple category levels. You are right about
the weight issue, but people don't like to hear about that. If you are a
male bike racer and carrying more than 5%-7% body fat, then you are
overweight with respect to optimizing your racing performance. I get a lot
of flak every time I say that, but it's true.

newbies and out of shape people have more to gain, but anyone who's
been at the for a few years isn't going to see a lot of changes year
to year based on some subtle aspect of their riding (eg. big gear
intervals or flom sprints or whatever).

I know you know that bike racing can be a game of very small differences. I
won a race last weekend by half a bike-length *in a two-up sprint after a
65-mile break. I *believe* that the big-gear intervals I did this winter
helped. Why? Because I did not have the fatigue that normally would
constrain that high-force 15-second effort at the end.


dumbass,

i have the same reply to all three of your paragraphs, which is : so
what ? after a few years of riding everyone finds they've gravitated
to a certain part of the field (say cat 1, or 2 or 4). that's why year
after year you have the same people at the front of the field, the
middle or back and why some full timers after they retire are just as
fast.

once you're 5 yrs in, your prospects of getting much better are slim.
if results in amateur races is what your after then it makes sense to
optimize your training and focus on minutiae - it might make a big
difference to someone to go from a midpack cat 4 to a cat 3 front
runner, but that's not a huge leap. talented newcomers go from cat 4
to cat 1 or cat 3 to pro in a season or two all the time.

"marco" wrote in message
...
Amit Ghosh wrote:
it's dumb and boring because anyone who's raced for about 5 yrs or so
has had a glimpse of their potential.

I agree with this, but I still see many people who have been racing a long
time and still their training consists mostly of group rides where 70%-80%
of the ride is social and low intensity. Yeah, they've had a glimpse of
their potential, but still don't really *know* what they're capable of. A
lifer-cat-4 on the "group-ride" plan would be capable of upgrading a
category or two with some better focused training.

I don't believe that you even catch a glimpse of your potential by riding on
club rides. The problem is that you are riding below the desired training
level for hard rides and above that for recovery rides.

It is a strange ride that I'm on that there isn't some weenie that isn't
trying to drag the group up to 20 mph or so. That's in the range that you
NEVER want to train in. Either 15 or 25 though after you've gotten into the
Cat 3 class those speeds increase a bit. (Any bets that Amit is going to
scream about heart rates and not speeds?)

If you're a "real" racer you need to train alone most of the time except on
your slow days. But you have to be able to refrain from answering those
stupid challenges from dopes who can never hope to get any good because they
always train in the ranges that leave them tired without causing any growth.

the difference in conditioning between doing a typical 10-15 hrs a
week, pushing yourself once in a while with some sustained intensity
and an optimized training plan is maybe 10%. weight is the other
biggie and most racers can lose maybe another 10%. this is of course
meaningful with respect to results among your peers but probably not
enough to make you competitive at the next level.

Very true, depending on how you define "the next level". Seems like a lot
of non-pro riders are interested in upgrading to the next category. I
think 10% plus 10% should be good for a couple category levels. You are
right about the weight issue, but people don't like to hear about that. If
you are a male bike racer and carrying more than 5%-7% body fat, then you
are overweight with respect to optimizing your racing performance. I get a
lot of flak every time I say that, but it's true.

Ain't it great when Amit tries to talk intelligently? He really knows what
the heck he's talking about if he isn't trying to impress someone else with
how cool he thinks he can be.

Most people cannot train hard enough alone to break into the next
performance catagory. That's why you have amateur racing. That's the
motivation to ride above your ability and get performance improvements.

On Feb 5, 7:25*am, Amit Ghosh wrote:
On Feb 4, 7:52*pm, Scott wrote:





You don't know what you're talking about. *First, on its face your
argument makes no sense. *Who says that the self-selected cadence
would be high, or that the notion of 'restricting' cadence means your
restricting it to a relatively low range. *Forcing yourself to pedal
at a significantly higher cadence than YOUR optimal cadence is a
constraint, too, in that you are not working in your optimal cadence
range.

Besides, we're not talking about 5 min efforts. *Most folks do SE
intervals over a 15 to 25 minute period. *I guaran-****in-tee you that
you can consistently do a higher wattage at a lower cadence (55-60)
for that period of time than you could do for the same period at more
"normal" cadences (95-100) UNLESS you spend a LOT of time working on
high cadence intervals. *Regardless, you have to have the strength
before you can put out the power at any cadence. *So, what would you
prefer, spend some time during the early or off season working on
strength at a low cadence, then bring in the speed later, or work on
speed immediately but not have the strength?

dumbass,

my head hurts from reading this nonsense.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

If you're having trouble comprehending it, it just goes to bolster the
point that you don't know what you're talking about.

On Feb 5, 7:51*am, Amit Ghosh wrote:

once you're 5 yrs in, your prospects of getting much better are slim.
if results in amateur races is what your after then it makes sense to
optimize your training and focus on minutiae - it might make a big
difference to someone to go from a midpack cat 4 to a cat 3 front
runner, but that's not a huge leap. talented newcomers go from cat 4
to cat 1 or cat 3 to pro in a season or two all the time.

I disagree. After my first seven years of racing I was able to make
some significant improvements with changes to my training. It mainly
came down to finding a small group that was committed to doing
structured training that included hard paceline rides, easy days,
climbing days and interval workouts.

Bret