Cite a study showing that. All the latest studies say weight lifting does nothing to help performance, execpt for track type sprinting

That's some good advice right there. Or at least, that's what I'd recommend doing

And I think the "forget what it's called" is usually referred to as a "captain's chair."

Read the links in my post above yours.

No, sorry. I don't have a power meter. But I've been riding with the same group for over a decade, so I always know where I am in the climbing order! I try different things and see how I stack up. I'm not a Real Climber - more of a sprinter - but climbing is what we do.

I'm changing just for the sake of changing. Felt like I was stale. This year I'm leading a series of single speed rides. I use my regular road bike and just don't shift. We are working up to climbing all the hills that we climbed on geared bikes, including climbs that we did standing in our grannies. So this is sort of weight lifting on the bike. After a mile or so of 34 cadence at LT, mixed sitting and standing, it feels like I've been in the weight room all afternoon. Note this is not fixed gear riding. I think SS is better. We can do our full 50-60 mile winter rides on SS, no problem.

The other different thing is that I've been captaining a tandem, also on hilly rides, and trying to take the energy and training load that I was expending in the weight room, and putting it on the bike instead, since I'm already "weight training" on the SS rides. Tandeming is a completely different way to load the legs, I think because a tandem doesn't accelerate when you push on the pedals like a single does. Maybe if you had two riders of identical ability and well synchronized. But that's not why most people ride a tandem. So I'm getting some additional strength training on the tandem.

This is such a weird country. When my wife and I ride the tandem, everyone smiles. But when I ride with a male buddy, all we get is nasty comments. I think other guys are just jealous of how good we cyclists can look in Lycra!

Anyway, I'll see how my climbing times, cogs, and cadence compare next year to what I've usually done. The jury is out.

I had a chance to read through your post on weight training. Nice post. Congratulations on the results, especially improving your climbing.

In reading your post what struck me was that your gains came mostly from high intesity training or HIT (makes sense as you're pulling up your FTP through vo2 max or Coggan L5 efforts); and from cutting back on strength training and adding more aerobic efforts (ie, time on the bike).

Given that how can you attribute your improved performance to weight training and not to adding more time on the bike or to the HIT sessions?

Maybe I read it wrong. Thanks.

It's hard to know. The worst subject from which to draw inferences is the single self-coached athlete. There are so many variables. I'm guessing that there were performance gains from weight training because the type of weight training I use means cutting back on the bike time or on intervals on the bike. If I simply add HI weight training, I overtrain quite quickly. There's a limit to how much HIT my body will absorb, and both that type of weight training and on-bike intervals are HIT. Spinning uphill at LT and 80 cadence doesn't develop the leg strength like weight training, though it is far, far better for developing aerobic ability.

I'm guessing that I do better with both types of training. What I'm trying this winter is sort of the same thing. High intensity weight training, using a SS bike instead of gym equipment, might just create more cycling specific leg strength. A disadvantage of the SS bike is that it's difficult to exercise to failure. Hills end, and walking the rest of the way is no fun. It also seems possible to break cranks and tear up bottom brackets. I'll know more in March.