I have been away getting married, took an extended honeymoon in the cook islands and then struggled to get back on the bike after what seemed like an eternity away from the sport.

Thanks to the loyal followers who have been enquiring my whereabouts via Twitter and email.

Power

Stage 18 if this years Tour de France climbed the Col de Tourmalet. It promised to be a great race, Contador wanting to defend his yellow jersey he controversially took 2 days before and Andy Schleck wanting to win back what he felt was rightfully his.

It was always going to be a showdown between the 2 best climbers in this years tour and the pace up the hill was no doubt going to be high. But how high? how much power would they be putting out? Would they climb so fast that everyone would start to wonder if one or the other or both where on some magical pill?
Flash back to last year when Alberto won stage 15 up the Verbier and put more than a minute on his rivals. I was quick to look at his VAM and calculated it in the region of 1900 (1878 to be precise). This makes him super human and better than supreme doper Bjarne Riis.

Rewind back to 90′s. We might not have the power data, but we do have the riders weights and the times taken to summit Tourmalet (and others). Doing the maths we can estimate the threshold climbing power at between 6.2w/kg and 6.6w/kg. This is quit high. If we look speciafically at VAM data we see the top 5 look something like this

1900: 2009 – Contador – Verbier
1845: 1996 – Riis – Hautacam
1822: 1995 – Pantani – Alpe D’Huez
1818: 1997 – Pantani – Alpe D’Huez
1800: 1994 – leblanc – Hautacam

Was this climb up the Tourmalet going to be another “i wonder what drugs he’s one?” or where we going to see something that more in line with what is humanly possible

How did it unfold

Saxo Bank hit the bottom of the climb leading the peleton. Nicky Sorenson was leading the bunch on the bottom parts of the climb at a speed in excess of 25 kph. He averaged about 415 watts for the 4.5 k’s. This puts his effort just over that “magical” 6 watts per kg.

Not long after Nicky peeled off,  schleck and Contador broke free and stayed away too the top.
Now we don’t have any data for either of them, but we do have chris horners data. Chris was in the group that finished about 1:40 down on the leaders. Watching it on TV it as clear to see that Andy and Alberto broke free and quickly put 45 seconds on the group. The gap then hovered there until Contadors attack, and by the top they had 1:18 on the chasers but more importantly 1:45 on Horner.

So why is Horner important to this I hear you ask?

Well we have his climbing data and we know how close he finished to the leaders. Using this info we can estimate how well Contador and Schleck climbed.

Horner climbed the Tourmalet at an average power of 360 watts. giving him a threshold of 5.7w/kg.

So are they doped?

Based on the figures i would say no, realistically Andy and Alberto would have climbed at no more that 5.9w/kg and a VAM of 1650.

Food for thought

• Andy did all the work. There was no reason for Contador to attack
• Alberto attacked once and seemed to put andy under some pressure
• Contador looked very comfortable even when Andy pushed the pace
• Andy never attacked once, was he on the limit of his physical ability?

I have attached some supporting information from SRM

I have been getting quite a few emails lately asking me to cover topics that i have already comprehensively covered on this website. so its with this post that i hope to steer users in the direction of the search box.

Using the search function on this site will pull up any topics that contain your search word or phrase. Cycle Krazy has more that 135 topics in its archive so go on give the search box a try. The search function is located just to the right hand side of this topic

cheers

Krazy

so you have taken some time off the bike for whatever reason, be it illness, work, time shortages, holiday or just a rest away from the sport, but now its time to get back on. How can we go about maximizing the time we have to get back into top form without hurting our legs. Keep in mind that form grows over time so don’t expect results in a week or 2. its going to take a month at least

the first thing you will realise when you get on the bike is that it feels big. The reason for this is that your leg muscles have shortened. This makes the pedals feel further away. I suggest dropping the saddle by about 5mm for the next 3 or 4 rides. That will help with the reach and make it easier to ride.

Day 1:

The first ride back needs to be done at a very leisurely pace. Don’t go out and flog yourself like you did months ago cause the next day you wont be able to work. You might still have the power to grind up the hills and push it hard on the flats but your body has lost aerobic fitness. Your legs will also be “out of tune” and wont be used to the motion required to pedal. They say “you will never forget how to ride a bike” this is true, but your legs forget. While out on the bike they might feel fine but the next day they wont. So spin it up nice and easy for about 90-120 minutes in heart rate zone about 65-70%. If you train with a power meter, try and ignore the numbers, they will only make you sad. If you feel like your pedalling on your ties then you need to drop your saddle a bit more

Day 2:

you will most likely wake feeling like you did a solid 150 km’s yesterday. You might even find it hard to walk up stairs. This is a good sign though. it means we worked yesterday and our body is adapting to riding. Today should be done at slightly higher intensity to yesterday but go a little shorter. i also suggest putting in a few solid 1 minute efforts followed by high cadence efforts. This helps train the legs and also works the muscles.

Day 3:

Rest. Don’t ride. Let the legs recover.

Day 4:

You should feel quite good today. The legs will start coming back and you wont feel weird on the bike. Your heart however is what is going to need the work. Do a longer ride for 2.5 hours try and get in a few hills maybe sprint a few times. This ride needs to be done at an intensity that leaves you feeling tired when you get home

Day 5:

Start getting back into intervals. Start doing the hill climbs again. don’t try break any records. Also don’t be upset when your more than 3 minutes away from your previous best of 8 mins up a certain hill. You have been that good before and you can be that good again, but its going to take some time to get there. Put your saddle back to normal height if you have not already

Day 6 —->

get back into your old training plan. if your plans are power based try and take off about 5% and work to that. If you feel that’s still too hard take off a bit more. The key is not to burn yourself out. The advantage of the time off is that you have very little training stress. So by training carefully we can manage the stress and turn it into good form. If you train to heart rate you will need to shorted your ride/interval time. Your heart wont have the ability yet to maintain the stress periods it could before.

Stay away from races for a month or so. If you really want to race then ask if you can be dropped down a grade. Just don’t come out and win it or else you wont be very popular.

The first week back is the most important. You come out too hard you will do damage, its better to ere on the side of caution

I have taken a leave of absence from both the bike and the site. My work means I travel a lot and with that travel comes long work hours, and those long hours mean no riding time….

Anyway, things have settled back into a normal sort of grind so i will be back on here with new informative topics that hopefully help out you, the reader.

back soon

Cheers

Neil

During the winter months it seems that some riders have the notion that they need to do these big long slow rides. You get the email or see the forum topic that says its low slow ride time.
They organize to meet up and head out at an average pace somewhere around the 16-18kmph zone and do about 4 hours

What a waste of time.

The thinking behind this is that you will train your legs up to withstand turning around and around for long periods of time. Fine, but they still wasted k’s. This is time on the bike that could be much better spent doing intervals or threshold training. The 4 hours at granny like pace will barely raise your heart rate, you may as well watch a thriller on cable and eat some celery

I agree that your winter training plan should be a little lighter than your summer schedule, but that does not mean you need to let your legs go to sleep. There used to be another thought that winter is “small chain ring” season. RUBBISH.

Even if you have massive amounts of training hours available to you in a week, i still recommend against joining these rides. Don’t even use them as a recovery ride. Spend a portion of that time at a higher intensity training a specific zone

so you have bought the carbon fiber seat post, stem, pedals, saddle, bars and you have saved yourself 112.6 grams.. well done. but has it made you any faster. no really. So what can you buy that will make you faster?

A power meter

These units are getting cheaper and cheaper and there are a few new players in the game that have some great products.

So the question most cyclists are asking themselves today is “Should i cough up some money and invest in a power meter”

The simple answer and the same answer i give anyone who asks me is YES.

Having power data to look over and knowing your FTP and other power profile limits helps you become a better cyclist in a shorter time frame. Since i moved over from heart rate training to power based training i felt myself improving. My best times up local climbs where getting better. my 40km time trial times where improving and i felt stronger in sprints during criterium races.

I have written a few other topics on power but don’t think i have ever told you to go and buy one.

you can save a few grams here and there and end up spending big dollars, but the gains to $ ratio will never be as good as if you spent the money on a power meter. yes the power meter will most likely make your bike heavier but that’s a price you have to pay to get better at this game

Options

There are  few options on the market. i will briefly touch on each one

Powertap: these a rear hub based. the old ones transmit via a wire the newer versions let you transmit via ANT+ very handy for pairing with a garmin 705. having the rear hub as your power meter means you can use it with any of your bikes (if you have more than one) but the downside is that if you want a power meter on your race wheels your going to need another hub

SRM: the oldest player in the game. you will see many a team on the TDF using these. They are crank based. meaning they convert a crank into a power meter. the strain gauges are mounted within the spider assembly of a new crank set. good if you have one bike and many wheel sets. bad if you have 2 bikes.

Quark CinQo: the latest offering in power meters. works the same as an SRM but comes in a few more options. also uses ANT+ so you can connect it to a garmin. same advantages and disadvantages as a SRM

iBike: these use newtons third law. they measure opposing forces from the computer on the bars and give you a power figure.

polar: they use a chain tension measuring device that translates frequency into power. every person i have met that has one of these has given me the same feedback. don’t get one.

There we go. move forward with that information and arm yourself with a power meter so that you can start to see some serious improvements in your riding

Its common knowledge that if you want to build muscle you need to push/pull against some some of resistance. Just like body builders do at the gym we can do the same with our bike

This topic is partly covered here, so i am going to be brief this time round. The previous version was for purposes of building power for sprints. Climbing hills uses the slow twitch muscles fibers so building them is slightly different.

To build power you need to ride at a cadence of about 50 to 70 RPM. Any lower than that and you will be damaging your knees. any higher and you get into what i call the sweet-spot. This lower candence helps create the resistance required to build muscle. You need to feel like the legs are burning. normally this requires you to climb in a gear higher than normal. Remain seated as seated climbing utilizes the bigger muscles in your legs.

You can break this up into a few sets of about 3 minutes. Normally i would do 5 sets. i like to finish the training session with a climb in my sweet spot

What is normal climbing cadence?

Sweet-spot as i call it is between 75 and 85 RPM. I find i climb my best at about 81 or 82. Often the gradient a gears don’t allow you to be this precise but when they do you need to milk your sweet spot. Any higher and your heart rate starts to get a little out of control, any lower and you putting too much strain on your legs and will most likely blow up before you summit, or on your way home

I was asked this question by a fellow cyclist the other day and after some thought i responded NO. Too which he was amazed

Let me explain…

Fixed gear bikes have very little in common with road bikes, yes they have 2 wheels, bars saddle etc, but when it comes to propelling them forward and developing pedal stroke the fixie is no help to the roadie.

1. You might think that as the pedals move around nice and fast in perfect circles this would translate into better circles when you get on the road bike. wrong, it actually makes your legs lazy. the fixie drags your feet around. On the road bike you are forced to pull up through the back of the stroke and pull over the top before you push down at the front. The fixie does all the hard work for you

2. The muscles you need to rip through the high cadence on the road bike are different ones that are used in the same cadence on the fixie. so you might feel like your building this amazing ability to ride in cadence brackets up around the 150 mark. but try that same technique on the road bike and you will find out why you have wasted valuable hours

the skills needed for a road bike and a fixie are different and very specific, especially when it comes to the high cadence work. Yes riders who are good on the track can bring those skills to road cycling and do well, we have seen many a rider do this in history, but for the average you and me looking to gain that little bit more, we shouldn’t waste our time

Unless your goal is to be better on the track or better at looking cool down at the expensive coffee shop with your crumpler bag, mac book pro, soy latte while wearing tight jeans and some t shirt with random words on it, don’t waste your valuable training hours on a fixie.

I took a ride up a mountain this AM and had a photographer (Ross Smith) with me. He was there to capture a few pictures of the CycleKrazy kit that will most likely go on sale in next few months via this website. (demand dependent)

here is a taste of the kit and a few arty shots using the light and back drop

Along with the topic i did called Carbon Care i have decided to add another one that is specific to frame protectors. if you have ot read the first one, i suggest you read it as well

If you don’t know what a frame protector is then i will explain. Its normally a small sticker that is placed on the frame under where the cables would rub. what this sticker does is protect the frame from wear. You might be thinking your carbon frame is safe and strong and no silly little cable is going to damage it. How wrong you are. As you ride more and more the rubbing of the cable will slowly wear a nice groove into your lovely new carbon frame. once it has a small groove the cable will stay in that groove and it will only make it bigger. The protector sticker kit allows you to save the frame from this damage.

There are other products on the market that you could use. one of these uses a rubber outer that you put around the cable where it would come into contact with the frame. It will do the trick just as well as the stickers, but if your looking for a nice clean finish then the clear sticker kit is the way forward.

check out wiggle for some options