furiousferret

Hey all,

Since there are a plethora of new cyclists on this board (myself included) who want to improve thier cycling abilities. I'll post this as a general topic (I know there is a training forum but I want to keep this road specific) as I want input from roadies.

A little about myself, I'm a 34 year (5'8" 190) old male, who's been cycling since January, consistently on the trainer until daylight savings, now I'm riding around 5 days a week. I've probably done about 500 miles so far. Basically, I'm a newb.

Even though I ride alot, I just find myself really just pedalling around with no real concrete goal or how to get there. I hammer, but with no real goal other then beating my previous time on a course.

I have a century scheduled for September but I'm not too worried about it, I really just want to train to be able to keep up with my friends, who are more experienced and become an all around better cyclist.
Honestly, I thought I'd be there by now, seeing how much work it takes to be average is really humbling.

So overall my goals are -
- Max Speed 35 mph on flats no winds (Currently at 29ish)
- Average Speed 20 mph over 20 miles (I can do 18 now)
- Metric Century in under 4 hours (I may be able to do this now)
- Improve climbing ability (I need to drop about 20 lbs)

Overall, I think this is probably the same goals most newbies are going for. It may even be alittle easier than I'm looking for (if it is tell me what is a good goal to set) I have an Edge 305 with Cadence and I think one of my biggest problems is I can't maintain a fast cadence. Its around 70ish. Usually I just ride 3 or 4 basic rides

-Short climb (8% grade over 2 miles) total 8 miles. Takes me about an hour.
-Long climb, 20 miles on bike, 3 miles of climbing
-Sprints on Flats (usually for about an hour)
-On weekends I usually go on a 30 miler with my wife. She hammers, but hasn't gotten to my level yet but the time in the saddle does seem to help. It's more of a rec ride until she gets faster. Still I can break off and do sprints.

I just rotate these as I feel and would like some suggestions on more structure and what I would need to do to achieve my goals. I have all the tools here, insane climbs, flats, and areas with little traffic. I just need to know how to use them.

Post you best weekly / monthly riding plan here for a newb like me here. Also include any pertinent tips as well. Diet optional.

jeremyb_nz

Get the Lance Armstrong performance handbook by Chris Carmichael and a heart rate monitor, all thats left to do is everything

Snicklefritz

I started training seriously about a year ago, had a crash in may (bad dog hit my bike and I went down), then resumed training again in august. Here are a couple of things that I did that really helped. Feel free to PM me if you would like more details.

(1) Getting used to spinning at a higher cadence will help out a lot. This can take time. Begin by trying to spin at ~90 rpm for a 5-10' period in your tempo zone, or basically in a 10-12 bpm range below your LT. Start at 5' then work up to 1'. As you gain fitness and train your nervous system, trying moving up to 15' intervals like this. Your nervous system needs some time before it will be able to fire that rapidly. After you're comfortable with 90rpm then try going up to 95. After 2-3 months (or when you feel comfortable), try some short intervals (~3-5) at 105 rpm.

(2) There are a lot of climbing drills that you can do. Hills are a great way to train and develop your sustainable power as well as threshold power. It used to kill me to TT at 17 mph. Now I can do them at 20+ (depending on terrain) and feel a lot better. Most of this, ironically, came from practicing on hills even though I climb slowly.
(a) for threshold power you want to do 5-8' intervals at your climbing lactate threshold which is usually several bpm above your measured LT on the flat or in the lab. this is because you typically use more muscles when climbing, so your HR is higher. Try to spin at 80+ rpm. Follow with an equal amount of rest. in the beginning this will be really hard so just do maybe 3 reps. As you gain fitness you can do things like 6x5' of 80+ rpm at climbing LT. If you can't maintain 80+ or even 75, then consider lookin for something with a more gentle grade, or changing your gearing.
(b) for sustainable power, do some longer climbs but at at lower HR. These will generally look this this: 3 or 4x15-20' at 70+ rpm in ME or approx what people call tempo. The idea is to be in a range that is 10-12 bpm wide but below your LT. follow with about 5' rest or so between efforts.
(c) For developing strength: big gear low cadence on a gentle grade. 1' at 50-55 rpm with HR <tempo
increase by 30" each week.Every two weeks increase the number of reps. Go up to 4-5' intervals. Do this very gradually so you don' stress your knees. Some pro teams do this in place of leg presses. For example, the Mapei team sent a bunch of guys into the gym to do weight and aother group did these big gear low cadence exercises. The guys who did them ended up increasing their power output noticeably more than the guys who just did weights.

Sprint practice is good, but doing it for a full hour probably isn't. Treat them kind of like dessert. A little bit is good, but too much probably isn't. There are several ways to mix up sprints. Here are some that I do for various purposes:
(a) uphill sprints. Typically 30" to 1' in no particular gear. Just do whatever it takes to go 100%. Rest 4'. The rest period is critical because it can take several minutes fro your body to generate the ATP that is required for these types of efforts. This is good for developing leg strength.
(b) Sprints on the flats in a big gear. Good practice for developing speed.
(c) sprints on the flat in a small hear. These help you develop teh ability to spin at a really high rpm. My coach has me to these periodically to develop a smooth spin. The idea is to be in a gear that enabled you to reach a really high cadence.

Weight loss will help you tremendously when it comes to climbing. Keep track of what you are eating. For a period of at least a few days, write down everything that you eat. I mean everything. You might be surprised how some stuff sneaks up on you. Everything adds up which is why I try to keep junk food, sodas and other things out of the house. A bite here and a bit there can kill you in the course of a day or week. Do a MedGem test if you can in order to figure out your resting metabolic rate. Your RMR may be very different from what the equations predict. In my case, I went by the equations and had a ton of trouble losing weight. Turns out my metabolism is quite fast and I need several hundred calories per day more than what the equations say. The nutritionist said that I had been cutting calories so much that my body was going into starvation mode and storing every calorie I injested. So by actually eating more I began to lose weight! Sounds weird, but that's what happened.


These are just a couple of ideas to get you going. Since you are just starting, keep a training journal. It will be valuable as you try to figure out what works for you and what doesn't.

operator

Excellent... saved me from asking the same question.

botto 

Time to step it up my friend. If i'm only doing 70 RPMs it means I'm climbing. On flat to rolling you should aim to hit anywhere between 95-110 RPMs. I personally try and keep it at +/- 105 RPMs . YMMV

furiousferret

Botto, yeah its 35 in a sprint.

So far from these posts the biggest thing looks like increasing my cadence signifigantly.