Cycling Fitness / Training Advice

How you react to heat

I froze my arse off in France in the middle of summer a few years ago. Altitude/temperature/descending windchill don't factor in my feeble brain so I went out completely underdressed and suffered for it. Take warm clothes too.

It's not that hard. A few steep bits, but flat too.
Lots of rock sections.But worth it.

Yeah - temperature can typically drops around 1 degree per 150m - can be as much as 1deg per 100m - so 1000m gain can see a 10c temp drop.

The more you ride your body will adapt the muscle that ache, to not ache. Plus it's probably just the shitty roads beating you up.
Tempo on the turbo would be my advice. And longer days riding.

The higer your threshold. The easier it will be to ride at a steady pace up climbs.

Make sure you've a big enough cassette when you go. 34x28 at least, maybe even 30. You don't need ot pretend to be a hero. Spintowin.

That reminds me I am more than double the age my smallest on the back :-/

@amey will be fine, he's just being a drama queen.

I am weak :_(

@skinny the 'ride more' advice that makes sense, I was just wondering if I can 'hack' my way ;) clearly not. Any value in getting a PM? Since selling mine couple of years ago I am quite used to HR.

And yep I will be taking 11-28 and 50/34, fuck the pride plus theres always instagram; my tiny bike with 50/34 looks like 53/39 anyway :P

The idea of riding with you makes me scared .. this wasn't easy: https://www.strava.com/activities/735327246

My fav segment: https://www.strava.com/activities/735327246/segments/18029171269

Will be doing that again and couple of Brighton and back centuries. looks at @pastry_bot

55-11

Great piece of advice. Lots of unknowns for me. Heat (maybe not that much as I am from a sunny country) and altitude are the main ones. Nutrition wise I almost exclusively eat nuts (mainly cashew) and soreen banana with some sort of sugary drink mix in bidons.

If you want to add a bit more science with your HRM, the Stravistix add in for Strava/Chrome has added a fitness/freshness PMC type chart based on same HR/TRIMP formulas as used by Training Peaks to do HRTSS scores.

Then you can 'see' your build and taper etc. for the event.

Worked for me building for trip to Mallorca in May then a Manchester-London ride in June and Ride London in July.

If someone was to pace something like this by HR alone, would the resulting drop in HR as the body fatigues over the week make this difficult?

@amey

A bit of this would be good prep

https://www.strava.com/activities/148107658/shareable_images/map_based?hl=en-GB&v=1401631307

Has the added bonus of an ice cream van at the top of The Wall.

That looks really good!

@dubtap I will decode and give it a try, thanks!

Mate, you live in my back garden I think; I'm on Murillo Road.

Ha! Yep, I'm one over. Rembrandt. If you see me on either a black steamroller or black Storck, shout hi.

I was on trainerroad last winter but since the iOS app for zwift was released I've been using it far more. Chasing someone up a virtual hill makes threshold work far more tolerable, I find. The problem I find with Zwift, however, is that it's too hard not to chase someone's wheel if they pass you on a hill, at which point any suggestion of staying in zone 2/3 for a ride goes out the window.

I have a just finished the first week of a two week testing block, which has given me power durations at 20', 5', 1' and PMax. This week's tests aim to fill out dips in the PD curve at short, medium and long durations.

My question is with regards to what strengths at certain durations might indicate and how best to move forward.

Basically, my 5' power seems to be where I test well (385w - 5.7w/kg) and am curious what, if anything, this means for my 20' power (306w - 4.5). Should I be looking now to work over and around threshold to pull it up? Or work from below to push it up?

My eventual aim is to be able to hold upper tempo to sweet spot for longish durations (60-90'), then recover, then repeat 2 or 3 times. My general weakness is always stamina as I struggle to find time to do lots of long miles. I will be making more time to train from March onwards.

Sorry, lots of questions, but want to make sure I move forward with a clear direction.

Two weeks testing? Would have been better training.

If you 20 is low compared with 5, you need to work on it with efforts from 10-30 min. Cal also work on it with 30-90 min stuff.

If you can do 385 for 5, 340 is quite achievable.

Sorry, it posted before I'd finished.

I know what you mean by two weeks possibly missed, but I have plenty of time before June and I hadn't done any maximal efforts in months so didn't know where I was.

Anyway, testing is training and all that.

Just lighthearted. Didn't see how it could take 2 weeks to test.

Work below and push it up. You've capacity to spare.

If you 20 is low compared with 5, you need to work on it with efforts from 10-30 mins

So a mix of over and under work?

No solid efforts to build stamina.

Understood.

Any benefit to working on Vo2 also? Trying to increase that 5-8min power?

No you've spare capacity. Why work on it? Spend time where it's needed.

You need to work on longer duration aerobic power to improve that.
Vo2 will improve as you push up ftp. It's not mutually exclusive. You need to get used to doing longer effort. You can do them, just not used to it.

I never do vo2 work any more. Still cracked out 430w for 5 before xmas. The other work I do works on vo2 indirectly.

Do intervals from 10 minutes to 60 minutes at 91 to 105% of your FTP
Also, do plenty of Sweetspot(88-93% of FTP) from 20- 120 minutes.

Perfect. Very much appreciated, thank you.