Some background:

My brother is a bit older than me and has always been massively into his fitness- a keen rower, runner, loves the gym and has some kind of qualification in teaching kettle-bells or something. You get the picture.

I’m one of those people who basically spent his twenties drinking, smoking and taking a lot of drugs but lately have gotten into running and mountain biking and really love it.

In a strange turn of events that nobody would ever have anticipated I’m going to do the coast to coast with my brother in about 7 weeks. This will be the Way of the Roses over two days so circa 80 miles a day.

Naturally I am keen to pedal my brother into smithereens. Despite my first paragraph he’s never been that into cycling so I think I have a fighting chance.

So my question is what would be a good, simple training plan to achieve this? Firstly of course I just want to be able to go the distance but am confident I can do this.

It will need to be a simple plan and reckon I can commit to 3 sessions a week of whatever is needed. I have started doing some spinning sessions at the gym and actually really enjoy it (in a way) so that is one of the weekly sessions sorted I suppose?

What for the others? Will a long ride and shorter, faster ride be sufficient? Or should I do another spin session and a ,longer ride?

Or possibly say: 1 spin session, 1 hill-repeat session and a long ride per week?

Any info gratefully received. For context I’ve done about 45miles and 3800ft climbing on my mtb in one ride recently but a chunk of this was on road to be fair.

PS I have a road bike now which is what I intend to do most of my training on.

Take your plan,treble it and go till you puke,every day.

45 mins spin classes will make you great at 45 min spin classes.

But in conjunction with a long ride and another session of some sort per week they would be useful or not?

It’s weird in that if I run a half marathon there’s like a million plans on the internet to help you achieve any goal, but it seems quite hard to come by these for cycling events.

For example: I have trained for several half marathons by doing two interval sessions and a long run a week for about 8 weeks. I basically need the cycling equivalent of this, or the closest you can get?

Take your plan,treble it and go till you puke,every day.

don’t do that.

you need to build it up. don’t underestimate the benefit of rest and easy sessions.

spinning will burn fat, will increase your VO2 max and will get you fitter. look to supplement this with at least one steady ride a week, and some longer interval work, at threshold…

Of course it would be useful, only to an extent though.

cocaine

Found this on Velominati

@Chris
Here’s one for all of you who actually know how to train: I’ve put my name down to ride for the club in a two day race (a TT and two road stages) on 7 June. The calibre is going to be fairly high. As of Wednesday though I’ll be on Gardening Leave until 2 June. How would you set about training?
Well done – sounds tough. What category?
Your timing is perfect – basically you have four weeks, as you need to leave the fifth and final week to ease back and taper so you need to start building up from now.
I’d say forget the TT as a training objective – unless you are aiming for an overall GC place. You’re in control there so you can set your own pace and do it the way a climber or sprinter would in the Tours.
What you need to do is focus on the up and down of bunch riding. some exercises my coach has given me were:
Under/Overs: Under means 90% of threshold, Over means 110%. 1 min Over, 4 min Under, 1 min Over, 2 min Under, 2 min Over. Have 10 mins easy riding in between. Do two sets Week 1, then three sets Weeks 2 and 3.
40-20s: 40 seconds at very hard pace – 125% of threshold – then 20 seconds easy. For ten minutes. Two blocks. Rest for 10 mins in between. If you can, increase to 12 mins in weeks two and or three.
Catch Ups: go out with a group. Every 10 mins freewheel for 30 seconds, then catch them. In week two and three increase to 40 and 50 seconds, but at 15 minute intervals. Ride easy in the group in between.
Each session should have a gradual 20 min warmup and 10-15 min warm down.
The other session to do is just a steady endurance ride @ 75-80%. 70 mins Week 1 then 80 and 90.
Start the week, say Sunday with Catch Ups then light recovery ride for 60 mins Monday. Rest day Tuesday. Weds do the Endurance. Thurs Under/Overs. Friday Recovery. Rest day Saturday.
Week Two swap the 40-20s for the Under/Overs.
Week Three do Under/Overs instead of Endurance. That should be your hardest week. If you can, make the Friday Recovery an Endurance ride.
Week Four do Catch ups on Sunday then go back to Endurance riding on Weds and Thursday. Keep therecovery and rest days.
In the final week on Sunday do a 50 min ride at 80% and every 10 mins do 30 secs at 120%. Rest Monday. Tuesday same but for 40 mins. rest Weds. Thursday easy Recovery ride. Friday 50 mins including warmup and do two 5 min blocks at 90% with 10 mins rest in between. Start carb loading from Thursday and eat as much as you can after the first two stages – you need carbs and protein with 20-30mins of getting off the bike so a drink like CNP Recover is ideal.

It was under the article recovery rides. Check it out.

Eddiebaby- cheers, that looks very interesting and is kind of what I’m after. I’ll take a more detailed look on the website now..

What bike do you have?

Lets try and pimp your wheels, getting the right bike is very important. Getting the right gear ratio (compact or standard) for the route, the right tyres etc. Where to spend some cash etc.

What bike does he have?

Its all about marginal gains.

Is he on strava or equivalent and do you follow him? Make sure you ride more than him.

Good luck

heavy metal poisoning should slow him down 🙂

You can have too much heavy metal?

What date are you riding?
I’m doing Bowness on Solway to Newcastle on 21st June, for charidee, with a few mates.

Ride your bike really hard, recover, do it again. Repeat ad infinitum.

Just get as many hours in the saddle as you can between now and the C2C, preferably carrying a similar load to that you’ll be taking with you, and ideally getting plenty of hills into your training loop. Training on the bike you’ll be using will also be more beneficial, and of course getting in a greater mileage than your brother 😉

45mins spin sessions will improve your overall fitness but not specifically for long days across the lakes, moors and dales. Better to get out on the trails and whatever weather you might experience in my opinion, and make sure you build in recovery days.

Good luck by the way, I’m doing Wainwright’s Coast to Coast in 4 weeks so I feel your pain!

Paceman

1st 3 weeks so a lap of the mary townley loop every weekend.
2nd 3 weeks, do 2 laps 😀

Just ramp up the hours and miles, bit by bit.
Gets you comfortable on the bike, make tweaks to geometry components (bars, saddle, stem etc) as you go.
Learn your limits. As I trained for the LEL I established that i can ride for 3 hours at a time aslong as I then get off and have some proper food. Then I can do it again and again, covering 50 miles each time. Any more than that has me crawling along at snail pace.

Fit non cyclists still tend to find hills hard work.

So do lots of hill training and destroy him on the first long climb.

Remember to look back over you shoulder at him, Cheater Lance style.

It’s important to focus on your goals when training – in this case it’s not necessarily reaching peak performance levels, but BEATING YOUR BROTHER.

As a younger brother of a fitness obsessive I understand your predicament. My brother is usually fitter than me at any one point in time (roadie, triathlete, etc) but he generally avoids riding with me now due to my tactical success in beating him at critical moments. You need to look at the big picture – you don’t need to be the freshest at the end of the day, you need to be able to beat him when it matters – as richmtb said, it’s the hills that matter, and the steeper the better.

The last big ride I did with my brother was a big road loop taking in Holme Moss and Snake Pass. He had me beat up both those, but what stuck in the memory was leaving him for dead on any short steep climb. He hated it. Don’t change down, out of the saddle, grind it out. Singlespeeding equipped me for that.

So think about strategic wins, focus on your strengths whilst making sure you can just about hold your own elsewhere. Remember, it’s not about challenging yourself and the roads – IT’S ABOUT BEATING YOUR BROTHER.

Maybe record that and play it to yourself on a loop in your sleep 😉

As far as I can tell, it’s not a proper training plan if it’s comprehensible…

As a half-assed person, mine is largely about what I’ll actually do, not what’s best- I did a bunch of tabata things for a while and yes, it’s effective but it’s also horrific. So mostly I do simple stuff that I can do while watching TV, and I avoid the horrible. So it’s lower quality, but I get more benefit from it than from a beasting session I skipped.

Also remember to spend time working on a serene facial expression that disguises your suffering, as you hang on grimly for five hours after burying yourself beating him on the first climb of the day.

“What bike do you have?

Lets try and pimp your wheels, getting the right bike is very important. Getting the right gear ratio (compact or standard) for the route, the right tyres etc. Where to spend some cash etc.

What bike does he have?

Its all about marginal gains.”

typical STW reply.

Its really not a bike thing. wish people would learn that. ive turned out on some shockers and like to ride those who make snide remarks about my equipment are generally about as useful on a bike as a fart in a spacesuit.

miles in the saddle is far more important for the style of ride youare doing – no point in sprinting for day 1 and being unable to get out of bed the next day !

Cheers guys, lots to think about here. I never really considered the extra-equipment and baggage aspect so will need to think about that.

I especially like the suggestions of psychological warfare and gamesmanship. I could not utter a word to him for the entire car journey up to Morecombe, or communicate exclusively via cold, thousand-yard stares across the dinner table in the evening. Maybe turn the heating up to 40 degrees in his B&B room, that kind of thing.

If he beats me I’ll just say it’s because I didn’t have 29″ wheels.