This talk about ‘race craft’….where exactly should I be breaking myself to stay with the group?

In a road race, I like to sit in wheels 8-12, maybe a bit further forwards if a move is looking like it might go. The minute or so I was further back than 12th wheel in both races I’ve done so far this year there was a crash, and I went down in both, effectively ending my race (bike too broken to continue). Stay near the front if you can. You’re less likely to crash, slightly easier and you can react to attacks.

For Crits, it depends how technical the circuit is, usually wheels 4-10. Definitely not further back than 10th wheel though.

I’ve got an e/1/2/3 120km road race on Sunday, hoping to finish…

cat3

3rd Cat – we are not American! Even if you are, you’re still wrong ;).

I’m not sorry for pedantic!

Didn’t realise there might be charges on top of that too? I’m in Sweden so i really hahve no idea what would happen with import costs. Anyone shed any light on UK import costs?

If you get pulled up, they’ll be exactly the same as the UK ones. I think it’s 12% on bike parts from China and then you might get stung with VAT too and a carrier fee. Although most in the UK don’t get charged/or charged significantly less.

The 9.9s I thought were all guaranteed to be under 900g, obviously not!

I think it was 1060g for just the frame. Project one frames are heavier than the standard ones, generally. Doesn’t really matter though, good bikes!

Budget?

All below 900g:
Trek Superfly SL

Have you weighed yours? I had a weigh of a project one one and it was comfortably above 1kg. Looked fantastic though and they ride very well, much better than the FS variant! Guess it was all that bright yellow paint!

For what it’s worth OP, I’ve ridden the following:
Giant XTC (both wheelsizes)
Highball
Stumpjumper
Superfly
Flash 29

Superfly and Stumpjumper were definitely most impressive. The highball was a bit meh, most sluggish but very stable. Really disappointed by the 29er XTC, the 27.5 however was good. The Flash was quite good – would never have one personally because you can’t run less than a 90mm stem, new lefty is better.

it’s often times not that simple – in cases of doubt, especially on new levers, or levers up to 3 years old, best to send the lever to one of the four UK SCs – otherwise warranty may be void.

Graeme
Campagnolo Main Service Centre UK

Part of the benefits of Campagnolo components for me is that most parts are replaceable, it kind of defeats the object if I can’t do it myself!

Graeme, are you guys a separate entity to Chicken or part of their set up?

If you mean to say, when you change down it takes you all the way down to the bottom gear instead of just the one, then you need new ‘G-clips’. You can get them from Sigma sport, they’re a PITA to fit, but it’ll sort it. Or you can deal with the real issue and upgrade to Shimano or a more expensive Campagnolo groupset.

Customer service is even better.

Why is this as a good thing? If a product is good, the consumer won’t know how good the customer service and warranty replacement is! You should only need good warranty service if you sell a product that isn’t up to the job.

There’s a good chance you’ll have issues with a stages pm, if it’s for a road bike, it’s about £100-150 more for a Power2max road crank – it’s a ‘no brainer’. I’d be tempted to risk it for a stages on an mtb, the price gap is bigger. Would probably still get a P2M though…

Like I said, they’re more reliable and it measures power from both legs.

-Everyone I know who has bought one has had to warranty it at least once.
-The Power2max costs only a little more and measures power from both legs.

I’ll let you decide.

Yep, I used to race stage races. Trans Rockies, BC Bike Race – that kind of thing. Ironically stopped racing due to an overuse injury (which was put down to being quad dominant, poor glute engagement & a weak VMO. Still hey ho, it was fun while it lasted!)

A lot of people told me I was stupid when I spent most of the winter doing exercises to improve glute activation during the pedal stroke! You must be the 3rd or 4th person I’ve heard of who are broken due to quad dominance. Quad dominance is a big issue amongst cyclist IMO.

It’s a lot like Knee Over Pedal Spindle – it’s not bad as a rough guide, but can be completely wrong in a lot of instances.

out of interest, who is your coach, I don’t know of any who would have an amateur do 30 hours?
Torq.

edit: past tense, was my coach. I don’t race anymore.

Endurance guy then? I know of world tour pros who don’t even do 30 hours a week frequently! I managed 25 hours in 6 days once on a training camp and I remember that putting me into a ‘rut’ for a while…

Miles are a red herring. Worry about time and your chosen method of measuring intensity (be that power/rpe/HR).

I typically do 9-12 hours at about 80% of FTP per week.

I tend to think in terms of hours instead of miles when it comes to training. Or rather did, the question always was during pre-seaspn was how many hours could I dedicate towards training. After that my coach took charge of everything & I just did what I was told (FYI I was riding in a peak load week nearly 30hrs)

out of interest, who is your coach, I don’t know of any who would have an amateur do 30 hours?

Most sports scientists (the others have studies funded by High 5 😉 )believe that ‘Exercise Induced Cramps’ are what occur when the neuromuscular demands of an exercise/exercises are beyond neuromuscular capabilities of a muscle or a group of muscles. Basically, your body can’t really control how muscle contractions ‘fire’ any longer, and it often inevitably means a really, really hard and long contraction of the muscle.

I often get cramps after races when sitting down at the end, which is pretty normal. Your muscles will be contracting in a different, much slower way than they were on the bike and if you pulled your leg back under a bench your hamstring may well just decide it wants to cramp.

I don’t think there’s been a study since the war that’s concluded that electrolytes prevent camp, at best weak correlations. Electrolytes are important for proper hydration though, so they have their place.

Narrow and very high arch. If shimano are a good fit for you, the older fizik ones (i.e. the ones that are super cheap on the net) probably won’t be a good fit.

Stump the extra and get yourself a power2max or quarq. Pretty much everyone I know, including myself bought a powertap, got annoyed at only being able to use one rear wheel(and get power data), sold it and bought a quarq/p2m. If you don’t think this will happen, don’t worry and by a powertap, they’re very good at what they do.

NB – get the 2nd gen Powertap/Quarq Riken or elsa/grey powertaps – reliability is vastly improved.

Also, on L/R balance, read this: http://alex-cycle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/left-right-out-of-balance.html

I personally won’t touch stages yet, everyone I know who’s had one has had to warranty it, and that’s not cool. Even with the new battery cover.

I definitely improved after getting a powermeter, but I also got bigger and stronger. Initially I didn’t really understand the thing and it was more of a hindrance, but now that I get it better, it definitely is a very useful tool.

Was it a Schwalbe tyre ?

Yes, I’ve had a couple just inexplicably pop off the rim, bead is broken after too. I know of others who have experienced this. No relation to heat though.

I’ve seen quite a few, plenty of people bring them into the shop I work in for truing.

Some absolutely shocking, most built to bad tolerances but some quite good.

My view is basically a big name brand, or wheelsmith!

What sort of stretches or exercise help with improving flexibility in the pelvis?

Obviously you can’t stretch a bone 😉 However, you primarily aim to stretch the glutes, adductors, lower back and hamstrings. Foam rollers and google are your friends!

Yeah, the reason you’re kneeing yourself in the chest is because you can’t achieve the pelvic tilt that the pros can when they run lots of bar drop. That mostly due to flexibility.

Although most people who can put their hands flat on the floor can tolerate more than 6cm of drop. 6cm is by no means a small amount, but it’s definitely not loads – unless you’re really short, then it could be quite a lot. However you may have long arms or poor glute flexibility (or both), thus meaning the greater drop doesn’t work for you.

You shouldn’t have to slam your saddle forwards to achieve the position, that’s usually something you do when you’re running too much drop for your glute flexibility.

That’s me in the kind of position you’re suggesting, knee is a few mm behind the pedal axle. https://vimeo.com/87893932

Specialized’s pros ride a variety of bikes. I don’t they’d force their top rider to use something he didn’t want to.

Specialized pros were told they’re only allowed to ride 29ers 2/3 years ago, whilst the 26ers were still on the market.

Trek Factory Racing and their predecessors did the same, I mean look at Emily Batty’s setup on that 29er, looks a compromise to me.

Giant riders also have to ride 27.5″ this year. It appears that Scott are the only big brand to actually offer their riders choice, well Schurter and Vogel at least.

Nope, being pro means you ride what the marketing department want you to do. Specialized have been really good at this – new bike, bring in the best rider in the world to use, win world champs/olympics. Sauser and the Epic 26er (world champs), Cav + the venge(green jersey/worlds) and then Kulhavy with the Epic 29er(world champs/olympics).

I guess you could call that last bit conjecture though!

So the question is does ‘base’ mean lots of slow steady miles out in the wet and cold?

Nope, ‘Base’ hasn’t meant that for at least a decade. The aim of the base phase is to maximise FTP amongst other, not mutually exclusive, things. Lots of LSD typically does not do a great job of maximising FTP unless you do loads of it, even then more could be achieved in less time.

So yeah, lots of efforts just below FTP, sweetspot during the week. Then longer rides with efforts above threshold to keep you sharp at the weekend.

First, this is a bluff by Osborne. If Scotland wants to use the pound it can, it will just have zero control of the central bank. It’s not as if Scotland will be left currency-less, a misconception the Unionists would like you to think. Even then I’d still like to see Scotland in the Euro eventually, it would do wonders for its current account position, there are definite winners and losers in the Euro, Scotland could easily be a winner.

I hope it is a yes vote, I envisage Scotland as more socially democratic Ireland, with a more sustainable economic model and I reckon that’s a good state to live in.

More equal society, less debt burden (although the UK’s debt issues are mostly private, not state debts) and a more sustainable balance of payments position. What’s not to like?

Oh and there’s zero chance of that Boris the despotic jester ever being your prime minister.

Shame I can’t vote.

all my moutain bikes I have ever owned have done this. They’ve all been 100mm travel bikes though.

There is no such thing as the correct wheel size, there are only good and bad bikes.

Industry’s gonna pump out what maximises profit, that usually means copying other brands to prevent significant product differentiation.

More sales due to new wheels size ? better wheelsize.

I’m not totally convinced of the real world application of the science there, adding 2/3 of pound = 1w additional power required?

By that logic switching to DH wheels (@6lbs heavier) would only require 10w additional power on the climbs?

Think of it differently, you wouldn’t notice if you had a full bottle or one with 200ml in when you’re racing. Further, you do not notice daily fluctuations in weight of yourself do you? These are usually a few hundred grams. Obviously rotating mass has different implications due to inertia, but I think these are often overstated, but hard to calculate due to variables.

But yeah, 6lbs more:
Rider 1 = 70kg, 340 watt FTP, bike = 10kg.
Total W/kg = 4.25

Rider 2 = 70kg, 340 FTP, bike = 12.7kg
total w/kg = 4.11

Now let’s rearrange it.
Rider without dropper = w/kg = 4.25, total weight = 80kg
4.25*80=340w
4.25*82.7=351.5w

So 11.5 more watts with a 6 pound heavier bike to operate at the same relative FTP. This is why most coaches say if you’re not fat, don’t try and lose weight, it’s far easier to increase power by 5 watts than to lose a kilo.

But yes the real world application of that is far more complicated and probably impossible to truly measure.

If we were looking at the difference of 300g of body weight on performance of two riders with equal thresholds, I don’t think we’d even have questioned it. 300g of non-rotating weight just doesn’t matter.

Agreed. Having seen the guys at the olympics tackle some of the course with silly high seats its clearly not a requirement for everyone, but for those less gifted (ie 95% of riders) it surely makes sense.

I reckon most of those guys could go faster on droppers, even them. Definitely a ‘marginal gain’ though. Mountain bikers aren’t exactly famed for marginal gains, but fashion, is something they definitely are famed for. Dropper seatposts definitely aren’t XC fashion though…

That said is weight really an issue on a MTB? As per an earlier post on another thread an additional 2KG on a road bike was proved to add about 4 % to a climb time up alp dhuez.
Given the percentage increase in weight in using a dropper would be far smaller, then surely the weight issue would be tiny….less than 15/20 seconds per hour at a guess.

Therefore, yes, weight matters massively (see what I did there physics fans?), if you’re at the sharp end.[/quote]

Nah, way less than that.

Elite at 70kg who can do 340 watts for an hour + 10 kg bike = 4.25w/kg

With a dropper (light seatpost = 250g, dropper = 550g) 70kg rider +10.3kg bike =4.23w/kg.

The guy with a dropper needs to increase output by just over a watt to sustain the same relative output as before, that deals with the slowing effect of a adding the dropper. It is de minimis.

If you increased/decreased your power by 1 watt, you would not notice it, it is not tangible. Dropping your seatpost for technical descents would definitely be tangible. I’d wager 1 watt would not add the same amount of time as dropping your post, by a lot. Obviously the more skilled the rider the less advantage.

Mine aren’t the same (they shouldn’t be – shoe/pedal stack will be diff from road to XC) but knee angles are the same at max leg extension.

I am contemplating using a dropper if I take XC seriously, for a couple of the national courses. I could ride all the A lines at Hadleigh with my seat at the proper height, but I’m confident I’d be faster with a lower saddle. Never going to be using it for Thetford though!

If you think about it, the ideal saddle to bar drop for optimal pedalling efficiency for XC racing and the optimal saddle to bar drop for jumps/drops/cornering etc are different and these two numbers could be very different if you have longer legs.

So instead most XC racers tend to go somewhere in between, but with a dropper, you could probably hit both numbers. Easily worth the weight penalty IMO.

So I reckon we’ll be seeing more and more dropper posts in XC races, been a few pros using them too. Tod Wells, Adam Craig and I think Geoff Kabush was using one too…

oh and this was the view at the top of the Col Du Mollard.

[list]https://plus.google.com/photos/112259044614742726425/albums/posts/5978891623567858450?banner=pwa&pid=5978891623567858450&oid=112259044614742726425[/list]

It’s one of them panorama thingys, so you’ll have to click

Base yourself in Bourg D’Oaisan where there are more classic Tour climbs than you can shake a mini pump at.

+1 stayed at the top of the Col Du Mollard, for a week, t’was epic.

Glandon, Col Du Mollard, Croix de Fer, Madeleine, Telegraphie, Galibier and the infamous ‘church climb’ (so awesome, and way shorter than the rest)all within riding distance. Alpe D’Huez is a bit of a trek, but a reasonable drive away if you don’t fancy the hideously long ride.

Church Climb: http://inrng.com/2014/01/roads-to-ride-lacets-montvernier/

I’m looking at a Cube, what’s wrong with them?

Nothing wrong, just not a lot right. Their carbon frames are noticeably flexy too. Brands like Giant for instance can typically match their spec more or less, have a superior frame and hit the same price point.

If you’re basically 5’10” and have a 34″ inseam, (exactly the same as me) unless you arms are outrageously long and you have incredibly good flexibility you probably aren’t going to get a satisfactory position on a tarmac with a sensible length stem. Although I am making a lot of assumptions because I can’t actually see you/don’t have bike fit data.

Cube geometry would suit you well (short top tube/longer head tube) but their bikes aren’t great in my opinion, we have them in the shop I work in and the only thing going for them are the components for the money.

Check out a Trek Domane, probably in a 56cm, absolutely cracking bikes, easily ‘raceable’ and suit people with short torsos and long legs.

Get fitted by a decent bike fitter, you need to work out your ‘ideal geometry’ and then pick a bike, rather than the other way round.

I speak to Liam occasionally and he’s not retired just hasn’t got a pro contract anymore

Really? That’s twice he’s been dropped now due to being injured/ill.

Word is that he got hit by a truck when out training and broke his femur. He has by and large had the unluckiest professional cycling career there is.

Surprised there are domestic pros in 2nd cat, plenty of folk with full time jobs seem to get to 1st/elite!

There aren’t… most of the elite cats have jobs and the one’s that don’t get paid very little if anything, there are very few domestic pros that get paid enough to sustain themselves from bike racing alone. The only exception is Mansell’s son, whose Dad paid his wage, he wasn’t actually good enough to be paid any real money to ride his bike though.

Well ollie51, until this week I was doing 3 x per week if the type of interval indicate on “Monday” above, plus a club ride.

However, there is summary at the end of a plan – which I’ve reached – which tells me to back off and recover for 4-6 weeks, I’m worried about losing my fitness and gaining weight as I’m not a naturally strong rider and have races through to The end of March. The plan above is supposed to be me resting a bit – replacing 1 x intensity with tempo – to reduce the toll on my body.

Interesting quote from joe friel re distance work for crits with reference to the last 5 weeks pre crit:

During these five weeks, keep the volume of your training low. The emphasis must be on sprint intensity. Piling on the miles will only detract from the quality of your anaerobic endurance workouts while providing no greater fitness.

Kinda goes against the advice above….

What Friel says is logical and proven by science, I would heed his words of advice.

The issue with rest weeks, particularly scheduled ones, for amateurs with full time jobs is that aren’t really necessary, your job and family will probably provide them for you, in a more ad hoc manner.

If you do feel absolutely done and in need of a week of easier riding, don’t be afraid to take it, being over rested is much, much better than being under rested.

Sat: Crit
Sun: Rest
Mon: Intervals, 15 mins warm up, 4 x 2min powerintervals, 8 mins rest then 9 mins over/under (2 mins under, 1 min over x 3)
Tues: rest
Weds : Intervals, 15 mins Z2 warm up, 30 mins Tempo, 15 mins Z2 cool down
Thurs: Rest
Fri: Rest

I see more rest days than training days, I genuinely think you could easily be a reasonable crit racer on 5-6 hours of training a week, but you need to do more and it needs to be intense stuff (it looks like it already is).

These are 1 hour long bike races, it just isn’t necessary to train for more than 2 hours on any given day, sufficient yes, but necessary, no. If you think that’s necessary, you’re misinterpreting the demands of crit racing.

Maybe chuck in a 90 minute tempo ride the day after the race, if you’re not up to that, a 2 hour level 2 ride is better than nothing.

If you imagine your training as a triangle. the tip of this triangle is the peak of your fitness. The wider the base is the higher your peak is.
Therefore base miles create this foundation. Thats why the pros create a steady base all winter by riding slowly for a long time.

I think the triangle analogy is getting a little tired. Foundation/base isn’t necessarily hours and hours of slow miles. I’m pretty sure it’s not the most time efficient way to build a decent base. Pro’s do it as there are a lot of benefits other than building a base, but those don’t necessarily apply to people who maybe only a couple of short races a week for a few months of the year.

Indeed, ‘base’ no longer means Long Steady Distance, in fact it hasn’t really meant that for over a decade, instead the main focus of the base period is to increase Functional Threshold Power.

So to the OP, FTP is the key determinant of Sportive performance, wherein you focus on a stead state effort in order to achieve the best time you can. Therefore you should focus on ‘Sweet Spot’ efforts as these have been shown to offer significant increase in FTP for little physiological cost. Once you get to 8-6 weeks away from any events you might looks at more specific effort e.g 5 minute power, by improving FTP you be the default focus.

PS – you don’t need a power meter to improve FTP, 5 minute power etc, does make it easier though.

Link to explain sweetspot in more detail: http://www.bikeradar.com/road/gear/article/sweet-spot-training-for-cyclists-34902/

Thursday sufferfest would affect your Saturday race performance IMO. If I was racing (time trialling) on Saturday I wouldn’t do a full interval session after Wednesday.

Stay to the left up the hill, be near the front for the downs, you do not need to brake for any of the corners if you are in the first 10 wheels (assuming you are surrounded by competent bike riders). The hill really isn’t that bad when you’re in the bunch. If it’s wet, don’t run silly thin tyres, flint will probably end your ride early. It is my favourite circuit though!