Originally Posted by 531Aussie
Stewart Cook, who used to own Gran Prix Cyles in Caulfield Sth, and was a strong time-trialer, often told me about his very long training rides which only averaged about 28kmh. Coming from a gym background, to me, this made about as much sense as doing 10,000 reps to improve your max bench weight. It just never sunk in, and he basically ended up telling me I was a d1ckhead.
My 'lack of understanding' problem was augmented by hanging out with "scientists" (physiology lecturers who never rode bikes), who laughed at the suggestion of training 600 or 700km a week for 45km event.
Like I've said before, when training for the criteriums and track stuff, I used to absolutely KILL myself for less than 200km a week.
Do track riders still do heaps of kms?
I know diddly about track riding, but Ric Stern always was on about sprint and endurance riding and the differences between the two, especially in weight training and muscle bulk (good for sprinters, bad for endurance riders). And sprint was anything under ???? 500 metres? Endurance was anything over that?
That's probably the answer. Look at Ryan Bailey's physique in winning Olympic gold medals, then the Madison and other longer-distance riders like Brown, O'Grady, McGee et al, who are built more like lean road riders (in fact, they are). (Sorry to be sexist in the examples -- Mears and McTier and Carragan probably display the same traits).
So the answer, by my deduction (and according to the Stern creed) would be two-fold. Sprint track cyclists would concentrate time on building muscle bulk and power (most likely in the gym), and the endurance riders would do what they always have done -- ride, ride, ride.
Howzat?