Road Cycling - what's a good book about training?

I am new to road riding and want to train, not for racing but to get in as good of shape if I were to race. I pretty much know nothing about how to get started; what kind of rides I should be doing, how to build up lactic acid tolerance, etc. Any info would be great!:)

Try the Heart Monitor book for Cyclists by Sally Edwards, or any of her other books about training with a hear monitor, or any of the books by E. Burke, or Lance Armstrong's Training program. Another good one to have is Bicycling Medicine by Arnie Baker.

Fred Matheny's "Complete Book of Road Bike Training" available from roadbikerider.com. An excellent book with guidance and training programs for cyclists at every level - recreational to advanced racer. It turned out to be exactly the book I had sought for over 2 years.

The Lance Armstrong one is good. I have one also called 'High Performance Cycling' by a dutch coach for Rabobank. That one is more academic and gets into such detail. I'd read the Lance one first and then if you're really into it go for the other one.

Speaking of Sally Edwards...I have 'Heart Zone Training'. It's not cycling specific but very good just the same. Another one I like is 'The Lance Armstrong Performance Program' written wit Chris Carmichael.

You can also try the more specific book by Sally Edwards/Sally Reed- The Heart Rate Monitor Book for Outdoor and Indoor Cyclists. To fully understand the book, you may have to start with her early book- The Heart Rate Monitor Book. From reading the earlier book, you get a better idea of what they're talking about, and it will help you to better structure your training program.

Koffee

Thanks everyone! I appreciate all the info.



outdoorplayr

Another vote for the Lance Armstrong Performace Program - it's an awesome book that not only deals with training techniques, but general ridings skills as well.

High Performance Cycling is good, but a little more technical than I thought it would be.

I've found that most of the "pre cut" training plans aren't great - at least for me. I tried following one from the Lance Armstrong book, but it focussed entirely on endurance riding with no sprints, one-legged pedalling, climbing, etc.

I think the best thing to do is figure out your heart reat zones, get to know several different excercises (Tempo, FastPedal, etc.) and then do these based on how you feel. If I wake up well rested, I'll do endurance or sprinting that day. If I get out of bed sore and tired with an elevated heart rate, that's a day off. Just use common sense!

Good luck,
Mike

You can get an idea of Sally Edward's method from this site:
http://www.heartzone.com/index.shtml ,
go to the heart rate calculator section.

An excellent read, thanks aerobat!

Originally posted by RainmanP
Fred Matheny's "Complete Book of Road Bike Training" available from roadbikerider.com. An excellent book with guidance and training programs for cyclists at every level - recreational to advanced racer. It turned out to be exactly the book I had sought for over 2 years.

What he said. Great book!