The new season - racing or sportive - is nearly upon us. But whenever your target events may fall, one pro has an in-depth but practical set of gold rules for you.
By Dan Fleeman
Former pro rider, now owner of DigDeepCoaching.com
The former hour record holder Graeme Obree once said that if you set targets that seem achievable, then you’re not setting your sights high enough.
While there may be some truth in that, your objectives still have to be realistic.
Alberto Contador is never going to be a kilometre rider and Marcel Kittel isn’t going to be king of the mountains.
While your natural physical attributes can be moulded to a certain extent, they still determine the direction you should take as a bike rider.
For example, if you don’t have a high percentage of fast twitch muscles, you can’t be a pure sprinter.
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If you don’t have good VO2 max and a slow heart beat, it’s going to be difficult to be a top time trial rider.
There are exceptions to all rules of course.
But common sense tells us that it’s wasteful to ignore God-given attributes and spend too much time on an aspect of your riding which will never be your forte.
It’s better to learn how to limit your losses in a time trial than to concentrate too much on it at the expense of diminishing natural climbing skills that can win you races. Very few riders can do everything brilliantly.
So when you sit down with your coach to plan your season, bear in mind your body type, natural abilities and strengths. But remember too what Graeme said; aim high.
With all of that in mind I’ve put together ten tips that will hopefully help you to make the 2016 season a good one.
(1) Set race objectives
Determine months in advance what part of your game you’re going to need to hone in order to perform in the specific race you’re targeting.
Riders looking to win the Tour de France, for example, will be studying the course from the time it is unveiled for the following year.
(2) Basic Steps
Look at your own abilities with your coach; be honest with yourself, analyse what strengths you lack for achieving your objective.
Set out some basic training and preparation steps aimed specifically at improving those attributes that must be strengthened to help you reach your goals.
If riders are great climbers but not as good against the watch, for example, they will need to improve their TT to have a real shot at winning a major stage race.
(3) Mini Goals
When you set your main objective, start to work back from it and set yourself smaller goals to aim for.
This helps keep you motivated and helps keep a sense of perspective as you take that longer journey towards the bigger goal.
This is especially important to keep you focused when things are going wrong; when injured or sick during training blocks.
For example, the Russian team pursuiters have the Worlds and Olympics as their major goals – but with certain World Cups as ‘mini’ goals.
(4) Self Analyse
During this time of ‘planning’ it is very important to be as realistic and as self analytical as possible.
This is when a coach who is familiar with your capabilities and weakness will be invaluable; together you make up a team working towards your objective.
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(5) Mark Progress
Use markers to determine your progress. This can either be a regular lab test or functional threshold test using your power meter.
A simpler goal for someone still developing into the sport, or coming back after a lay off, could involve being able to ‘hang in’ with the local club run longer than normal.
Or it may even be beating your personal best on the local 10 mile TT – it is all a measure of progress and when you clear certain hurdles you’ll become hungry for more.
Pros living in Nice often test themselves with timed ascents of the La Turbie Col.
(6) Plan Early
Start a plan that clearly sets out the blocks of training you are going to undertake.
These will include, in general terms, what each training block will be aiming towards; the sessions you will be doing within these and specific training blocks and internal markers within these.
Most pros can tell you now what events they’ll be riding for the entire season. Their training will be very specifically planned around that.
(7) Efficiency
This is the basis of everything you do. Making your position and pedalling as efficient and smooth as possible directly influences your momentum.
This can involve speed/cadence drills or strength/force workouts.
Robert Millar consciously practised sitting as still on the bike as possible when time trial training, to minimise drag.
(8) Aerobic Endurance
This is essential in all endurance sports. How we do this can be very different to what you might think.
The normal procedure would be long slow rides – but this is not necessarily true (this would take a whole separate column to explain).
Using fat and less glycogen (carbohydrates) for fuel during long endurance events is another area which can be improved.
As the body becomes better at using fat to produce energy then aerobic fitness improves. This is especially important for very long races.
(9) Threshold
Improving your anaerobic threshold is a real must. Helping your body utilise and process lactate build-up is an essential part of the puzzle to build a better endurance athlete.
This can be an internal aim within each training block, e.g. someone who starts their training with a FTP of 270w would hope to achieve a FTP of 330w by their target date.
Along with a reduction in weight (power to weight ratio) this would deliver major gains.
(10) Finer Points
Think again about the specifics of a target race. If it’s a hilly race/sportive, make sure you are efficient at producing power on climbs, perhaps improve your power to weight ratio for this.
If you’re aiming for a criterium or ‘flat’ event, this power to weight will not make as much difference as in a hilly race; therefore maximising top end short term power is the way to go for a town centre specialist.
Look at the variables and start to include these aspects into your training.
I’ll finish up by stressing that all of the above points are expressed in general terms and require more detail when being specific about your own race objectives.
But hopefully this column will give you some guideline and will help you to start thinking about what is important when selecting and planning what races you wish to compete – and do well in – for the coming season.
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