The Cyclist’s Training Bible, Fifth Ed.; The Cyclist’s Training Diary, Second Ed.

When Joel Friel puts out a new book, cyclists interested in getting fit pay attention. He’s one of the people behind Trainingpeaks, the online training tool. His list of works include go-to resources, such as Thepower Meterhandbook and Fastafter50. But the big go-to book is Friel’s The cyclist’ s training bible. He wrote the first edition roughly 20 years ago. For this fifth edition, he started rewriting more than a year ago to update the bible completely. The thinking behind the endurance training within includes contemporary ideas, such keeping that heart-rate monitor even though watts are the dominant unit for monitoring fitness. Of course, training stress score, a figure that Dr. Andrew Coggan developed to quantify volume and intensity and that Friel uses, features in the training plans as it does in Trainingpeaks.

One of the challenges Friel faced with this book, and one I think he overcame, was to write for novice, intermediate and advanced riders. There’s valuable information for all. I would guess, however, the novices come out the bigger winners because the glimpses into advanced techniques can be a bit of a carrot. Just think of the day when you’ll have enough volume in your legs that you can focus on intensity.

Friel’s The cyclist’ s training diary is a good companion to the bible. As Friel writes, the diary is for recording more than just numbers, but also impressions, feelings and background to your training, which can give you coach-like insights. While it’s low-tech compared with Trainingpeaks, it’s very empowering.