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I hear you Xavier.
Not poo-pooing anything you do as it clearly works but I often see lads spending a fortune on kit and little else.
I think the point I was trying to make was that equipment alone isn't the answer. Good solid training costs little and often reaps higher rewards than just spending cash on kit, certainly at club level anyway.Getting to your point about hitting some high end stuff in the winter, I've started adding short 30 second, flat out sprints to the end of my sweet spot intervals on the turbo, just to hurt my legs a little. Hopefully it'll keep me a sharper.
SQT's at Derby when I can and some MTB'ing without looking at my data until after the ride also helps as pace is often dictated by faster riders which is always good IMO.
BeaconJon-
Yes, dropping epic cash on bikes is nice but there are better ways to approach it. Building Rich's TT and HC bikes this year was a good example of that, the HC bike was ~£800.
Have a play with some maximum unpaced work as a full session in itself - when I coached the Uni of Birmingham squad one of their turbo sets was 4x70sec unpaced (ie as hard as you can from the start, no changing gear or resistance) with about 10min rest. Absolutely brutal when you get it right and an excellent session for developing a range of energy systems, plus no fancy kit necessary as it doesn't matter what power you do, you'll be spinning >120rpm to start and then just clinging on.
Adding work at the end of endurance sets I'd reduce the duration - make it 3x10sec sprints rather than 2x30sec. Doing those will actually improve growth hormone secretion and in a weird roundabout way can help you recover better within your program. In the past we've had someone inadvertently drop weight doing these as testosterone levels can rise as well.
xavierdisley
Nothing wrong with a bit of AeroCoaching ;)
Personally I've gone well off fewer hours than most for 10-50 mile TTs, down to 4-5hrs per week in years past. I'm about double that now as I've managed to mitigate some of the horrific saddle issues I'm prone to, I train at Newport 1-3x week and keeping the short work in year round does pay dividends. There's a tendency for people to only do sweetspot (I hate that term! Makes it sound magic) training and nothing else for TTs which is wrong: if you don't know how to train then fill your boots and just ride at 86.2% FTP all day or whatever, but you'll hit a plateau and then go nowhere after that.
Incorporating short stuff will STILL target the right energy systems for TTs and efforts 1-3hrs in length, even when the power is mad high and you're only doing 20-40sec. People make the mistake of just looking at power output during a session and saying "oh that's way higher than my 10 mile TT pace so it's not helping my 10 mile TTs". I just did 3 flying 500s yesterday afternoon at the track, and today I'm going to do 4x2km as long as my leg holds up. Targets for next year are 10-50 mile TTs as well as track, it all helps.
Clients of mine occasionally raise an eyebrow when they have 40sec repeats in the depths of winter but when they emerge and have +10-25w on their FTP for the following year it makes it worth it, you just have to manage it effectively. Being a drone on the turbo definitely a bad idea as you've noted!