LEARN FROM THE BEST

WeaskedtheUK’s mostrecent grandtourwinners–Geraint Thomas,ChrisFroomeand SimonYates–fortheirtipsfor racing, trainingandlife

What wisdom can we glean from the way our active Grand Tour winners go about their business?

“Being able to block off time for whatever session you’ve planned is hugely important. Maybe it’s waking up an hour earlier to go on the turbo trainer before going to work, but if you make the time to do something, you’ll get there” Chris Froome

JOINAGROUP

“You need to find a good group to go out with. If it’s raining and you know you’re meeting at 10am and we’re going to this coffee shop, a group really helps to get out the door. The hardest part about cycling isn’t the actual riding but getting out the door. Once you’re out, it’s fine.” Simon Yates Few things are more demotivating than opening the curtains on a miserable day that promises damp gear, sketchy roads and a muddy bike, but committing to join a group at a specific time is an incredibly powerful motivator. The banter helps take the edge off the weather.

“It depends how motivated you are, but if you know you are going to be finding it difficult at times, then joining a group is a brilliant way to get going,” says Julia Shaw, a multiple national time trial champion, and now a coach.

She also points out joining a club or group has another benefit as it’s a good source of information and experience. “Most clubs have a range of ages and genders… by just going along you get to learn a lot,” she says.

DISCOVERWHATYOU’RE GOODAT

“Going through the British Cycling Academy, we just raced and it happened naturally that we found what we’re good at. You race for a traffic light, you sprint up a climb, and you get to know where you excel.” Simon Yates

“By going onto the track you can replicate interval training. On the track you’ve got the heart rate a lot higher than the zone 3 that you tend to find most club runs and average training rides will fall into” James Roberts, coach

Newsflash: we enjoy something more if we’re good at it. Hardly the most earthshattering insight, but with so many styles of riding around – road-racing, gravel, criteriums, hill climbs, sportives, time-trialling and track-riding to name a few – knowing where you’ll excel and what you’ll enjoy is probably going to be a stab in the dark to begin with.

Shaw’s advice is to have a go at as many different events as you can. “Go and try a few races, or if you’re new to racing, a sportive. It’s a start, and then you can progress to trying road racing.” Even if you’re a beginner there can be an entry point into a new world. “If it’s on a closed circuit, a Cat 4 race, women’s only race, or a club 10, it’s all good. Club 10s are fantastic, there are a lot of them and they are accessible.”

WORKTOWARDSAGOAL

“Pick a goal that motivates you and is not something somebody’s just said, ‘Why don’t you go for this or that’. If you commit to something and really want to do it, you go out and do what’s necessary. And if you understand why you’re doing something, you can commit to it more.” Geraint Thomas On those days when training’s a struggle having a fixed target will give you that extra boost to step out of the front door.

“When we get new riders in, the first thing we do is try to find a nice target or goal that’s exciting to them,” Julia Shaw explains. “It should also be realistic but a bit of a challenge. A nice compromise between those three so it’s achievable. The key to improving is doing something you enjoy and enjoying the actual process of going from where you are now to where you need to be to achieve the target,” Shaw says.

GETONTHETRACK

“If you can get to a track it really helps. All that time on the track riding team pursuit certainly helped me stay in position in a time trial. It also really helps your skills of riding in the bunch, and leg speed. Another big one is that it helps you deal with stress – there was nothing more pressurised than a World’s final or the Olympics in London.” Geraint Thomas James Roberts explains that riding on a velodrome can also help you maintain a good level of fitness, particularly in winter.

“A good solid winter base on the track will give you your top-end speed for spring and summer,” he says. “By going onto the track you can replicate interval training... you’ve got the heart rate a lot higher than the zone 3 that you find most club runs and average training rides fall into.”

EVEN IF YOU’RE HECTIC, BLOCKOFFTIMEFOR TRAINING

“Being able to block off time for whatever session you’ve planned is hugely important. Maybe it’s waking up an hour earlier to go on the turbo trainer before going to work, but if you make the time to do something, you’ll get there.” Chris Froome

As the saying goes, ‘If you fail to plan, plan to fail’ and, according to James McCallum, founder and head coach at What’s Your META, organisation is crucial to freeing up time to get on the bike or hit the gym regularly. “It’s not usually the training that’s the difficult part, it’s the organisation of everyday life that you’ve got to work with,” he says. Try simple things like doing food preparation ahead of time, laying your kit out the night before, making sure your bike is ready and checking what the weather’s doing, and having a plan B if it’s raining cats and dogs. It all helps claw back and maximise quality training time. “Chris has to ride seven or eight hours a day sometimes. Most amateur riders are on the bike one maybe two hours a day, but it’s amazing what you can achieve in that time.”

LEARNTOUSEAPOWER METER

“I identified using a power meter would really help when I was in my teens. When I started training properly, I started to learn a lot about power training and numbers. Naturally, it takes time to know what the numbers mean and what you’re seeing.” Chris Froome Do you know the difference between your FTP and your IF and how the latter differs from your TSS? Or do you see those acronyms and think, WTF?

“You can deep dive into these things and suddenly it feels like you’re looking at the stock exchange,” says McCallum. Almost all his clients train to power. He advises them to keep things simple. “Understand that all functional threshold power is, is a baseline number for you to work on different intensities... and understand that different intensities relate to the various energy systems your body needs to get better at working at in competition.”

He says he hears a lot of riders say they need to improve their FTP, but certain events like hill climbs, criteriums or circuit racing bear little relation to the FTP number. If you’re starting out using a power meter, “Speak to a coach to really break it down,” he advises, “Or, worst case scenario, read Hunter Allen’s book, TrainingandRacingwithaPowerMeter.”

WORKONYOUR WEAKNESSES

“For me, it’s about being consistent with my weight. Understanding my body more and knowing what I need to eat and my ideal weight. That all comes from trial and error. Another one was climbing, which is obviously to do with weight but also being able to put out that power for a sustained amount of time.” Geraint Thomas For McCallum mitigating a rider’s weaknesses can be done in several ways. For a start, pick events that play to your strengths. Not a climber? Target the Tour of Cambridgeshire, not the Fred Whitton Challenge. And if there is a piece of road coming up that’s going to expose a weakness, deploy some race craft.

“If you’re in a race or training situation where it’s hilly, and you know you’re not great at hills, put things in place, like go to the front to give yourself some sliding room. That works both ways, so if you’re not good on the flat, you have to learn to hide. Knowing what you’re good at is just as important because then you can start planning.”

And, finally, McCallum, a crit specialist, suggests some old-fashioned stoicism goes a long way. “I used to get sent to hilly road races and I was like, ‘Here we go!’ I just knuckled down and suffered through it.”

GETTOKNOWYOURBODY

“Make sure you understand your own body and when you feel good and bad. If you don’t know how you feel and you’re just looking at a number it’s probably not great. Your coach can’t tell you during a race that you feel good – just go off feel.” Simon Yates Don’t be a slave to the numbers, agrees McCallum. “You have to listen to your body. Ninety per cent of pros don’t race to power unless they’re in a break or

specifically targeting a stage.”McCallum also points out riders often think they are one type of rider when they may actually be another. “Most people don’t actually know what their strengths and weaknesses are, but give them a little bit of training on something they’re not comfortable with and they go, ‘Actually, I’m quite good at that.’ Maybe it’s just because they haven’t done that on the bike or in the gym.

“You’ve also got to have an honest conversation with yourself. ‘I might like the way a certain race looks on television, but am I really that kind of rider? Have I got that kind of muscle make-up?’” In the long run, it pays to really know who you are.

VISUALISE THE PERFECT PERFORMANCE,NOTTHE ENDRESULT

“I’ve never really visualised the end product, like standing on the podium; it’s more just visualising the perfect ride. Every turn, every corner. Same with the Tour. I visualised being in the race and getting that little extra out of things. The first time I thought about being on the podium was when I actually was.” Geraint Thomas Former pro and co-founder of international training consultancy Dig Deep Coaching, Stephen Gallagher, says visualisation becomes second nature to elite athletes. Further down cycling’s hierarchy, visualisation is not automatic but just as beneficial. “Take time to look at the road on a map. Just looking at Google Maps or a video of the descent will help. And whenever you’re on your bike going down your local climb, use visualisation to build your confidence, so if you do it right on your local climb, you can say, ‘I did it right there, I can do it right here in the event as well.’”

FUELFORTHESESSION YOU’REDOING

“When I was younger I used to race on the track and I would get 20 chicken nuggets after every training session. As a young guy, eat whatever you want. Make sure you feel good, make sure you enjoy it. Maybe when you get older and you want to improve, you’ve really just got to fuel for the session. If you’re doing a lot of high-intensity stuff, you need a lot of carbs. If you’re just riding easy, rather more fats and proteins.” Simon Yates There is no one-size-fits-all eating and drinking strategy for different riders doing different rides at different intensities.

“Know yourself, know your fuelling and know what the food is going to do for you,” says James Roberts. “And experiment. Don’t leave it until the day of the event to then start eating some gels. There are very few toilets on a sportive!”

The consequences of not getting your fuelling right are straightforward. Eat too much of the wrong thing and your body won’t enjoy it, or don’t eat enough and you’re going to struggle to keep riding.

EATANDDRINKACCORDING TOCONDITIONS

“Knowing what conditions are like and tailoring a fuelling and hydration strategy that works for you is important. I’m still tweaking mine and it changes so much depending on what conditions I’m riding in.” Chris Froome When Froome won the 2018 Giro with an 80km attack on stage 19, it was hot. His nutritionist and coach worked out he needed to drink every 10 minutes or he would blow. To save bottle weight, Froome was handed a new one at appropriate intervals all the way up the Colle delle Finestre. Drinking according to conditions is vital. “You just assume that because I drank one bottle on my training ride last week, I’ll drink one bottle this week, regardless of conditions,” says Gallagher.

He points to a common mistake. Cool temperatures and a high volume of low to moderate intensity work associated with winter training lulls riders into not drinking enough. Appraise your wee, he suggests. “If you’ve just done a five-hour ride, you drank four bottles of electrolyte and you’ve still got a dark urine, that means actually after four hours you’re pretty dehydrated. You’ll need to look at that before doing six hours in the Alps.”

SMASHTHETURBO

“Now it’s so much easier with Zwift around. Meet your friends on there, do intervals, you can do an hour. You’ll keep very fit, you won’t lose much if you stay inside. If you commit to intervals it’s hard, and also it’s a short session, so you have time for other things like family and friends.” Simon Yates Indoor training in the days of yore used to mean solitary confinement in the shed enduring excruciating boredom. Smart trainers and Zwift racing have turned turbo sessions into something fun, something to relish. “The arrival of Zwift has been overwhelmingly positive,” agrees Gallagher. But he did have a note of caution for riders with an outdoor goal. “It is almost too easy to do lots of intensity,” he said. “What we’ve found is that people in winter do intensity consistently and potentially at times they shouldn’t be doing it. If you’re doing full-on intervals four days a week you’re building your anaerobic systems and it can actually take quite a long time to recover.” As a general rule of thumb, for riders who are moderately fit, a 36-hour gap between high-intensity sessions is sensible.

“You have to listen to your body. Ninety per cent of pros don’t race to power unless they’re in a break or specifically targeting a stage” James McCallum