shovelhd

Bear Mountain is pretty but it doesn't hold a candle to Cadillac.

Racer Ex 

I'd be on board with this if it was another sport where mistakes are penalized by just not doing very well on the scorecard instead of really bad stuff. I was thinking about my earlier flight school analogy and it fits pretty well. Knowledge base applied to split second decisions. Add in training, bike handling, equipment, tactics, and just figuring out the rules and etiquette...our sport is much more complex than we give it credit for.

The problem with most of the training books out there are that they are generalized. The problem with writing a book on training is you have to generalize. And if you're new it's like reading a book on your uterus if you're a man. You sorta get what they are talking about, but only sorta.

So. You're a Cat 5 who is going to do mostly crits and a few TT's. You've got a unspectacular FTP. If you looked at the power files from a crit and a TT you'd see two completely different looking graphs. One is steady state. On is on/off/on/off.

Stand alone FTP, unless it's really big, is mostly useless for crits. I say this as a guy who used FTP to win crits. I'm a national level (age group) TT guy though. You have to hang first, get to the finish fresh enough to contest the sprint, then worry about soloing OTF later. If at all.

On the other hand a TT requires time specific power. So depending on the length of the TT's, you might need FTP or you might not. I train guys for 5k's much different than 40k's. TT's are also affected by pacing depending on the course and wind, and knowing how to pace. You can lose a minute over 20k on the exact same average power.

FTP is pretty overrated for most bike races BTW.

Simple, yes?

That's where a coach comes in, looks at your files, your personal goals, the calendar, your skill level, and gets to work. I could rough out a general plan on this hypothetical Cat 5 but it would be a general plan based on a hypothetical Cat 5. It would look (totally dumbed down) something like this:

Work on TT power/duration now, for the TT's you'll be doing. Then do a lot of on/off/on/off/on/sprint before crit season. Very dumbed down BTW. Super duper dumbed down, with all the other stuff that could help thrown out the window.

YMCA

ass

Racer Ex 

Best I could do with what I had to work with.

Generic is generic. I was working with two new racers at one point, doing the same crits. Both were visiting Offthebackistan a bunch. One had no snap but a decent FTP, and poor race craft and bike handling skills. The other had good bike handling skills, some race craft, plenty of snap, but would melt after a couple of hard efforts. Eventually they were both factors and finishing well. Pretty different approaches with people who looked the same on the surface.

From the coach side it's not hard to look at data and races/video and see holes that need to be filled most of the time. Experienced folks forget how little we knew when we started out and figure all this stuff is pretty simple. When I got my first power meter way back when I rode around with it for several months, looked at the charts, scratched my head, then sold it.

I could probably add that once you're fit enough to hang without vomiting, then if you're not GoPro'ng your race jot down some notes after about what happened during the race and dissect it. Read a book or two on tactics. Then go into the next race with a rough plan and some alternatives. If something works well stick with it until people figure out how to make it not work.

TT's pick a target wattage (how hard you think you can go for that particular distance) then try to stick within 10% high or low.

YMCA

Racer Ex:

I was just indiscriminately saying "ass"
because gsteinb says we can
thnx mods

Racer Ex 

I took it and ran.

shovelhd

See Spot run

Alaska Mike

From his comments, I got the impression that the OP was not in one of the cycling hot spots in this country, which can severely limit the number of qualified, hands-on coaches he has to choose from- sometimes down to zero. Any long-distance coach is going to take a little time getting up to speed with his strengths and weaknesses, something a good local coach could discover on a single training ride.

Why not round out his fitness before hiring a coach, especially while he's limited to a trainer? Even a generic training plan (say, for sprinting) would go a long way towards helping him be a factor in the races instead of just hanging on. He's not talking about doing a large number of races, so upgrade out of Cat 5 is not likely within one season.

I'm a big fan of my coach. She's never steered me wrong, and my failures are usually a result of me not doing what she told me to do (for whatever reason). I've made large strides with her that I wouldn't have otherwise made (at least in the same amount of time), so I consider it money well spent. However, I don't think I should have gotten a coach from day 1. When I started racing, I was a recently obese (and still very overweight) rider that really just needed to follow the "Merckx training plan" before I even considered hiring a coach. I needed to build a base and put in the miles first.

Now, the OP is probably light years from where I was (in terms of overall fitness), but I still maintain he can do a lot on his own effectively before hiring a coach. I could be wrong, though.


This might just be me, but what helped me a lot to graduate from diesel to someone who had a fair sprint was VO2max interval training. For a short period of time (30/60/90/120sec...), push out the maximum amount of power you can sustain. The dark tunnel should just about close off as you finish the interval, and the interval should look like a square wave on the power file. Puking is a nice indication you are working hard enough. Recover for 4 or 5 minutes and then go again. Recovery should be barely putting out any power, and if you did the interval right, you won't be able to. 5 or 6 intervals for an hour workout should be enough to get you started. Outside I like to do these on a hill with a relatively steady incline. The ability to put out maximum effort, recover quickly, and then go again is a big part of road racing. Eventually you can train this further by shortening the recovery period and/or placing the intervals at the end of a Tempo or Steady State workout.

pecos

If the OP is like most of us he'll like racing a whole lot more the better his results are. A coach can help that. Don't know how old he is but a coach can speed up the process to get you to a competitive level. Heck, even a training plan purchased on line can go a long way. BTW, speaking from experience here, not pulling something out of thin air or regurgitating what others have said.

mattm

But a lot of people have coaches and still suck.

shovelhd

Partly because some coaches suck.

Ygduf

op asked if people would get a coach. mod should go through and delete every non "yes/no" response.

revchuck 

Well, yes, I do. But I would suck a lot more, and not understand the reasons why and how to improve, if it weren't for my coach. And oddly enough, my level of suckiness is decreasing as time goes on.

Ygduf

Thank god I held off on coaching while I learned how to race and train better or I might ascribe all my success to them.

Alaska Mike

I give credit where credit is due. I had reached the point where progress had slowed, I was being upgraded into a much faster/more aggressive group, and had started to ride for a team that I was desperate not to shame with pitiful results. I got a coach, and have never regretted it. I've considered it a sound investment in my future as a rider. That is, it has made me enjoy racing even more, put me in the best shape I have seen for the last 20 years, and opened up new possibilities for me. Money well spent.

That said, I'm glad I waited to get a coach. I built my base, read whatever I could, watched the other racers and learned their characteristics... I had a lot to learn before I was ready to start to learn, if that makes any sense.

revchuck 

Fudgy - Your situation is different from mine. You're a lot more naturally gifted for this than most, your life situation is such that you have more time than most to train (and you work your ass off at it), and you live in a region so super-saturated with bike racing that one can learn much of what one needs by osmosis. My perception is that you've pretty much dismissed out-of-hand my first and third points as irrelevant to your success.

For those of us (like me) whose enthusiasm far outweighs their expertise, and who live in the hinterlands (BFL in my case) where racing is a once per month experience, a good coach can make a big difference.

gsteinb

the fudge doesn't like coaches, intervals, or anyone who has a better sprint than him

gtrob

Not sure how a guy who can't even see you race is going to help you race better...

Anyway, my recommendation is just go race and have fun. Its bike racing, not rocket science, or flying a plane. Open your ears and eyes, read what people do here and the ones you ride with, join a club. Why so serious.

gsteinb

is that post meant to be a parody?

furiousferret

Yeah that would be me, not the coaches fault. I was a lot worse before I got one.

grolby

Rather than give a specific opinion on whether or not the OP should get a coach, I'll just say this. One way or another, you are going to receive "coaching," i.e. you're going to hear lots of opinions in an authoritative tone of voice. When you're a Cat 4/5, you're pretty much always surrounded by an army of self-appointed experts who nonetheless don't have a lot of experience themselves. It's not that everything they say will be wrong, but a lot of it will be, and how do you plan to figure out what's sound advice and what's not? Getting a coach isn't a surefire way to solve the signal:noise problem, but it can at least allow you to apply a filter.

Ha. Bet you that's the road I used to do my 2x20s on. And it's hard to express how annoying it was to be in Acadia but unable to ride a bike three weeks ago. I really wanted to do that climb.

shovelhd

I bet it is. Unfortunately at 20 minute test pace it's about a kilo short so I end up going for 12 minutes and doing a U turn.

Ygduf

Untrue on all three.

Some people need coaches to keep them focused and motivated, and for them it's a good $$ expenditure that returns as much or more in fun/experience/success/whatever as it costs. Getting a coach is a decision OP will eventually make on his own. He asked for "would you...", my answer is "no". Some answer "yes"; there's no right or wrong at all. That's why I'm here, to point all the people telling OP to do xyz or attributing zyx to coaching when it could have been many other things. It's ignorant to presume we know anything of the guy's actual situation. Seems like he'll get a coach eventually. Great, whatever gets him out there racing is good by me.

Intervals are great. Efficient, targeted for specific results, likely build good mental fortitude slugging it out with oneself on a lonely road somewhere. They just suck for me in that riding alone, hard like that, is not fun and I don't care enough about success (and am having enough right now) to sacrifice the part of training I really enjoy.

I love people who can sprint better than me. Look at every single person I recruited to our team. Better sprints than I have!

mattm

Or they could read the same books a coach has read.

Teach yourself how to fish, instead of paying for fish, so to speak.

gsteinb

When needed, lawyers get lawyers; they don't represent themselves. It's hard to be objective about what you need to do. All the coaches I know that are good racers are coached by other guys.