Training & Nutrition - Beginners Training program

Hi guys,
I AM A NEWBIE WHO NEEDS A TRAINING PROGRAM FOR MY FIRST 3-6 MONTHS OF CYCLING. I HAVE PLENTY OF TIME TO RIDE AND OR DO ADDITIONAL WEIGHT TRAINING SESSIONS, CORE WORK ETC...
CAN ANYONE SUGGEST A PROGRAM OR LINK THAT WOULD SUIT MY BEGINNER NEEDS SINCE I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS MOST EFFECTIVE.

ANY HELP WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED!

Give us an idea of your training goals - lose weight, race, ride a century, general overall fitness? They all mean different training. Where are you starting at? Are you fit from other activities, or are you a couch potato?

Ride - and increase your distance/time about 10% per week to avoid injury. And I'm sure some searches here will give you lots of insight to start from.

And please...stop SHOUTING! ;)

thanks for the reply,
I guess my primary goal is to ride a century and if in doing so I seem to develop ok as a cyclist I would consider racing. My age, height and weight are 27 ,5'10 and 180lbs respectively and I am of average fitness, since I have not played football or sport for a while and the sports I did play were more of an mix of anaerobic training than cycling. I'm not fat but I guess I would need to lose some weight to cycle more efficiently but there would be no fat on me if I lost more than 10-15lbs. Can you tell me if it would be possible to ride 230kms (145miles) after a year of training? I guess I would be happy if after 6months I could keep up in local group rides.

thanks again.

I have been riding since September 2004 (7 months) so I should have some insites on the issues...

I started dreading riding 10 miles to the store and the sight of a freeway overpass...
I joined Riverside Bicycle Club 7 months ago and rode with the slow (very slow) group for about 3 weeks, builidng my milage to about 30 miles in that time at slower speeds.
After 3 weeks I started riding with the medium speed group and built to 60 miles.
After about 4 months of 16 - 17 MPH riding I started riding with the fast group, 40 - 60 miles at 20+ MPH.
In november, having my road bike for 2 months I competed in my first time trial, and suprised everyone with my speed, averaged over 21 MPH after 2.5 months on the bike. I started training to race 4 months ago doing base training. My first race, 7 months after first being on a road bike is this weekend... I have come along way in 6 months.

I am 22 years old and while healthy not a very active or healthy individual. I was 255 pounds, now 220 pounds in 6 months. I can ruteinly ride with the race group and have developed into a intense sprinter, of course climbing is my limiter. I will improve in the continuing years. I am a little different than most though, people saw potential early and I really pushed myself. Now I ride 6 days per week... and am part of a racing program. Forty to Sixty miles are now a normal ride but it comes with time.

You can improve alot in 6 months. How fast are your local group rides? I was able to ride with the longer group rides 2 months in but they are not that fast. In six months you should have no trouble keeping up, the key is to find out the speed on the group and just work on getting to that speed.

Amazingly when you ride with a group that is faster than you you learn to keep up and improve fast.

Also in reagards to the milage it is also obtainable. I did my first century 5 months after getting on a road bike. It is not hard assuming you have a good arobic base under you. Long distances are mental but you need the milage under you. I would make a century a goal before thinking about the 230 km. If you can do a century you can do 230km. Make small goals and work towards them, 50 miles, metric century (62 miles), century (100 miles) etc.

The best thing to do is not now get out and ride, just get time on the bike and you will improve. Of course the more you ride the faster you will impove, just do not go overboard right away and you will be fine (rest is important).

Good luck and have fun... :)

Thanks for your suggestions, I will put them into practice. Good luck with your first race it should be a blast. I'm not sure exactly how fast the local groups are but a friend of mine cycles and he said their group cruises along at 40km/h (about 25mph). I don't know what is fast on a bike but that sounds very fast to me. Also, I'm saving up for a bike (i'm borrowing my uncles 20year old Cecil Walker) and I'm aiming at spending $3,500 australian dollars ($2,500 us dollars) will that get me a good bike that will last awhile and go fast enough to keep up with the guys on the $8,000 dollar bikes- does it really make that much difference or is it really just hype over new technology?

cheers

25 MPH is quite fast for a group ride, our pacelines generally move at 25 - 30 MPH, solo efforts are generally in the 22 MPH range. Most people (could be where you are) do not ride 8000 dollar bikes.

I started riding at 14 MPH, then to 18 MPH then to 20 MPH then... Remember that you can go significatly faster in a group (paceline) than not in a paceline. If you can ride at 20 MPH solo then you should be able to survive a fast group ride.

Good luck!

Kalpa,
in most markets, there is a relationship between price and performance. It's not linear. As you spend more, after a certain point, you get smaller benefits. Going from $500 to $1500 gets you
big benefits. But each grand after that buys you a smaller benefit. $2500 will get you a terrific bike. If you shop carefully, your bike will not hold you back... at all.

Btw, most guys go out and hammer. It slows their progress down a lot.
A cycling specific training program is a very good idea

thanks again for the suggestions, can anyone suggest a great bike around the $2500-3000 (1750-2100 usd) mark. Are Giant a good bike, I know they have small frames and are strong, do they make a good all round road bike? What is the difference between a steel, aluminium and carbon bike besides the price?

thanks.

I've been using Joe Friel's "The Cyclist's Training Bible" to set up my routine. It explains periodization pretty well. I've found that even if I don't stick to it exactly, it helps me keep focus what I should be working on. Instead of Crits and TTs I set my calander up with centuries and other rides.

I usually get four days of riding in per week. Two one-hour sessions during the week (either a trainer or short ride). I use those to work on specific techniques. On the weekends I do my longer rides - fat burners and endurance.

Ed Burke's "The Complete Book of Long-Distance Cycling" is a good reference for doing centuries and long rides.

Friel's book is very good but it is too focused on racing... I like it and follow many of their sugestions on training, etc.

A trainer is an awsome idea but can be boring. I would recomend getting on the road as much as possible rather than that...

A lot of good books talk about periodization, a very good concept IMO...

Friel's book is very good but it is too focused on racing... I like it and follow many of their sugestions on training, etc.

Yes, I keep having to re-read my copy and I'm not remotely close to figuring out all the nuances. Friel's "Cycling Past Fifty" might be the version of Training Bible for the rest of us. He has a simpler set of training programs for preparing for distance rides, fast centuries, and touring. Many of the same workouts as in Training Bible, but without quite the focus on racing. Recommended.

I think that as a newbie, you'd be best served by just putting in long miles and having fun with it for your first year.

In your first year on the bike, your body is going to do so much adaptation no matter what you do, that you'll see positive gains whether you train seriously or just have fun on the bike.

Put in one or two thousand miles while getting your butt used to a bike saddle, finding good rides in your area, finding people to ride with, getting bicycling clothing, getting a bike rack for your car, participating in a few organized rides in your area. While you're riding and having fun, you'll be forming new blood vessels in your legs, increasing mitochondrion density in your leg muscles, increasing your aerobic capacity and giving yourself some raw material to train into really -good- shape later.

O.K thanks talyrath, but I spoke to the guys at the local bike shops and they told me that there are several group rides that I could try-the problem is that they ride 50kilometres at 27km/h and Icannot ride that fast and therefore need to have a plan to get me that fit so I can ride with the local group, which I would love to do. Does 8weeks of riding on a trainer and solo seem long enough to get me up to speed? Also I am looking at getting a bike, is the TreK 1500 a good bike or is there a better bike for the money??
cheers,
Kalpa

The Trek 1500T is a really good first road bike. I've done centuries on mine. (I don't have a lot of money to spend on cycling... :( ) I wouldn't really recommend a cheaper Trek bike for someone who is serious about riding. The 1500 is the first bike in their lineup where you get decent components, a carbon fork and an almost decent wheelset.

*runs quick conversions in his head* 50km is 30 miles at ... around 17mph. That's not incredibly fast, especially on a road bike, but it's not loafing around either.

Whether you can get there in 8 weeks depends on your base fitness level and your capacity, really. I've got a number of health issues, so I probably couldn't. If you're reasonably healthy and active, I don't see why you shouldn't be able to. (One of the reasons that I've gotten rather scientific about my training is that it's hard for me to improve, so I need all the help I can get if I"m going to keep up.)

OK, I start training and see how I go- I think in 8 or 9 weeks I'll improve a lot! My wife has given me the green light to buy a new bike, so tomorrow I'm heading straight to the bike shop :D