How to keep motivation high in lockdown, take a ride with Canyon//SRAM star Alice Barnes, consider how fit you have to be to ride a bike, and how to make the jump from turbo trainer to the road

Alice Barnes, national road race and time-trial champion, rides for UCI Women’s WorldTeam Canyon//SRAM. She shares her favourite rides and how she’s filling time during lockdown...

RACE RECOVERY

“I ride six days a week, often doing three days training, then I will take one-day of recovery. During race season, one-day races are more intense but, without the back-toback racing, it is easier to recover from sessions so less time is needed to get back to being 100 per cent again. In my off-season – which lasts a month – I rarely touch my bike. If I do it is most likely a chilled MTB ride with friends.”

RIDE HOME

“I live in Manchester and I train in the Peak District, which has amazing roads with a lot of variety in the lengths and gradients of climbs. It’s a great place to train. In normal circumstances I’d do a four-hour ride towards Hope Valley at the bottom of Winnats Pass; it’s challenging but is followed by the nice cafes in the valley.”

FRAME CHANGE

“I race and train on a Canyon Aeroad Disc bike. I particularly love my current bike in national champs colours. I have a smaller frame and a longer stem with a bit more seatpost out – this is how I’ve always had my bike set-up so I’ve continued this with the Canyon cockpit and I have a 120mm stem.”

WEATHER WEAR

“The crazy part about living and riding where I do is that you can go from full winter wear one week to wearing just shorts and a jersey the next. On some long rides I will need to take a couple of pee stops – so the Rapha bib longs are more than a lifesaver on the cold, wet days as I can avoid taking my warm layers off up top!”

BREAK OUT

“I’ve been able to head out on the road during the Covid lockdown but without knowing when my next race will be I have taken almost all the intensity out of rides. Myself and my boyfriend Ollie Wood (Canyon dhb/ p/b Sorren) have a bit of a gym set up in the garden. He was training for the track at the summer Olympics. The biggest challenge is the motivation to train when there isn’t an end goal, but with nothing else to do the gym is also a good time-filler, which stops us going insane.”