6/15/14 11:47 AM

I have a vague goal of riding a bit faster this year, and one of my ideas was to ride some time trials. Used to do quite a few, haven't done them in years (other than a 2 man with Rick two years ago). So today there was one in Freeport, easy riding distance from my house, so I pedaled up and rode it. 16.5 miles rolling. They had a Merckx Division, so easy to ride on road bike without messing with aero stuff. Anyway, main thing is I loved it. Rode a lot harder than normal for me, and pleased to see I still enjoy that type of effort. Not sure I could ride that hard on my own. So I may do some more, and recommend these to anyone wanting to mix up their normal routine a bit. Cool timing device you strap on your ankle.

6/15/14 1:10 PM

IMO, just adding intervals a few days a week is the ticket. Been doing this for a month, and I am getting pretty strong again. I do seated full circle pulls on hills hard and some out of the saddle efforts. Less of the latter as it is a strong suite for me, so I work more on my weak spots. With the seated hard pull intervals I believe I am seeing a noticeable strength increase on climbs. Although I am avoiding big climbs until I get to 200 lbs. 11 lbs to go...

YMMV


Having typed all that, the Litespeed Old school TT Blade is sitting in the Shop for me to get on at some point. It has probably 6 miles on it. Between that and CX, I will get to it when I make a hard goal. I will have no excuse to CX at the end of this season barring issues unforeseen. TT bike, dunno yet... But no plans to sell it off.

6/16/14 6:46 AM

Maine has a very cool race series that Dan participated:


http://mainettseries.com/schedule/



here they are sweeping the course this weekend!



https://www.facebook.com/MaineTimeTrialSeries?fref=nf

6/16/14 10:10 AM

quote:

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Rode a lot harder than normal for me, and pleased to see I still enjoy that type of effort. Not sure I could ride that hard on my own. So I may do some more, and recommend these to anyone wanting to mix up their normal routine a bit.

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6/16/14 10:32 AM

"or technique) to work on that sustain efforts"

I can say what works for me. And my strengths are 180^ from yours. I can tell you gap closing accelerations and maintaining the speed seems to be the ticket. The intervals condition you to recover from the efforts faster, or do me. For a rider my size it is all about that.

Maybe try working your power slightly raised off the seat to more than slightly raised to maintain pace, and recover [while maintaining pace] when you sit back down. For me the intervals I do make the recover while still under power to maintain speed possible. No sure how that would work for a smaller climber type.

But as slower as I am on hill at my best, a almost always roll by smaller riders on the way back down just via gravity, weight, momentum et al.

On be example might be when doing a 20k TT course in NJ when I was there. 1/2 mile 4-5% hill in one section. 3 laps=20k, so you hit that hill 3 times for the course. I got talked into not big ringing up it with a recovery after the crest [which was my technique] by the guy that held the course record in our group. That totally did not work for me and I got passed by the next guy behind me released 90 sec after. Which made matters worse of 'course'. ;) My 20k time went from 29:32 to over 31 minute, and I let it bother me more that I should have, probably. ;O

Last edited by Sparky on 6/16/14 12:10 PM; edited 1 time in total

6/16/14 11:47 AM

I also tend to work on hills and recover on flats when riding alone. I think that's why over the years I've tended to get relatively better on the hills (along with losing weight) and worse on the flats. With my weight, I should be better on the flats, and I always was when I was doing faster, more group oriented riding. But now on centuries, etc., I find myself sometimes climbing better than lighter riders, and then getting passed by them on the flats. That is a reversal of the natural order of the Universe, and I think it's just because I seldom ride hard on the flats.

So I'm trying to work on that a bit. The main ways I know to ride hard on the flats are fast group rides, intervals and tts.

6/16/14 12:16 PM

Agree, pace line. But a sympathetic one that won't drop or make you pull too long, if at all depending on the pace.

Few weeks back I was on the lead guys wheel 20+. We hit a hill I had no idea about length, but could see the grade. He was grinding and I let him go thinking, OK I am getting dropped. I rode my pace and no one went by me. Only to find out the top of the hill was a left and return descent, with a regroup wait/rest. So the 20 seconds I lost to the stop at the top with him waiting got put into prospective as we waited 5+ minutes for all to regroup. And that was the folks that did not skip the hill which I did not know was an option.

Trying to hold a wheel you can't is a bad idea that costs a lot of what you probably do not have left. Just like hills you gotta pick your battles. ;)

6/16/14 7:20 PM

t is my conclusion that a lot of people (perhaps the vast majority) do not know what it means to go "at the limit." They've never done it and they never try to do it. Perhaps some people are just wired to avoid the near-red zone. Perhaps they have never had a rabbit to chase. It is a learned skill/feeling and if you don't want it enough, you never get there.

6/16/14 7:29 PM

When I go hard continually, I just ride my heart rate. And I am in zone 4. Once you get used to it, the fright of it goes away. Knowing how to back it off just slightly to continue rather that blow up is the best thing TTing taught me.

When Elaine started hitting hills last year, zone four used to scare her, until I showed her how to recover with out adding adrenalin and fear into the equation.
She actually cried at one point, and I explained to her your just have to back off the effort to lower the rate and that you won't actually explode. ;) Funny how many folks thnk Danger Will Robinson at the edge of anaerobic HRMs. I played basket ball a lot when a teen, so I learned early no to feel the fear aspect. Just diaphragm stitches/cramps. ;O

6/16/14 8:48 PM

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It is a learned skill/feeling and if you don't want it enough, you never get there.

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6/17/14 5:41 AM

I found that as I got away from hard riding, it became easy to think that I couldn't do it. In the past few years I've done lots of long, hilly rides, but not the kind of "on the rivet" riding you do in fast group rides or races. So riding the tt was an experiment, but gave me some motivation to try riding hard. I found I could ride the course 4-5 mph above my normal pace, and feel good. If I hadn't taken a whack at it, I wouldn't know that.

6/17/14 7:06 PM

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Aren't the two parts of your statement contradictory of each other?

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6/17/14 8:12 PM

What happens when you go OVER that limit?

Put in a different way. I've never felt anything great when going "hard" on the flat. Nothing like when I'm pushing hard climbing...

6/18/14 7:49 AM

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/health/nutrition/21best.html?_r=0

6/18/14 8:21 AM

6/18/14 9:42 AM

Perhaps it is like riding in the rain. You don't allow it to effect you, ignore it pretty much in your head. You are analytical about it, and just back off slightly to control not going over the top physiologically.

When you see a ride/stage like the last two of the De Dauphine. Seeing a rider just going all out uphill knowing he may pop. He knows he may pop too, but he is at the precipice. Imagine the level of pain that is not in the foreground mentally that would be for most humans. Just like the rain, you can not do anything about it, so allowing it to effect your psyche is something you learn to disallow. The result of being able to do this can be akin to runner high et al.

6/18/14 11:57 AM

I got that often enough climbing, but don't seem to get that on the flats.

6/18/14 7:06 PM

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What happens when you go OVER that limit?

Put in a different way. I've never felt anything great when going "hard" on the flat. Nothing like when I'm pushing hard climbing...

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6/18/14 8:15 PM

And the pain goes away when you see your time at the end if an improvement. ;)


Again, like Talansky the other day. A yellow Jersey cures a lot I guess.

6/18/14 8:32 PM

This is what it feels like...

http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/photos/interviews/tyler-tdf.jpg

Minus the doping of course...

6/18/14 10:37 PM

quote:

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my conclusion that a lot of people (perhaps the vast majority) do not know what it means to go "at the limit."

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6/19/14 3:08 PM

Puking wasn't my reaction for "over the limit". Mine was usually a 'greying' of the world and then going REALLY dark... (usually by then I already stopped). Clearly O2 deprivation to the brain.

On climbing, it's fairly easy to figure out how hard I can go. Either I'm out of gear/legs, or I'm not. When I'm out of legs, I drop down on gear. When I'm out of gear AND legs, I simply can't turn the crank and forced to stop.

On flats, it's different. I can always keep going at lower gear. But if I spin faster at higher gear in order to stay with the group, at some point, I'll be out of O2 and black out...

6/20/14 12:38 PM

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I simply can't turn the crank and forced to stop.

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6/20/14 1:42 PM

I expect everyone experiences limiters a bit differently. For me it's always the legs burning. I've never felt "out of air" on a bike that I can recall. I certainly breathe hard, so that I'm exhaling hard and letting the air suck back in, but I've never felt short of air (even at 12k feet where I got sick as a dog and puked my guts out from altitude sickness).

I've never quite related to the "riding through pain" discussion on time trials (longer ones anyway). If my legs start burning, it really doesn't matter how mentally tough I am, I can't ride very long at that pace or my legs tie up. So I back off a bit by necessity and there is some mild discomfort, but I can't call it painful and it doesn't make the ride unenjoyable to me. I really enjoy a hard tt (again, longer ones, say 15 miles or more). The most painful tts I've ridden are 5 mile trainer tts we used to do at the LBS. Those were short enough that I could ride them with a significant degree of pain and they were excruciating. I really would not look forward to the next one, and was glad when the season was over. I'm no expert of course.

6/20/14 2:13 PM

"most painful tts I've ridden are 5 mile trainer tts we used to do at the LBS."

Trying to picture that, doing laps around all the bikes in the middle of the floor... ;)