Go off road to make inroads
As summer ebbs away and the weather begins to turn, Hannah Reynolds presents nine compelling reasons to take your cycling off-road this winter
Riding off road over the winter can benefit your fitness, improve your skills, keep you motivated — and, best of all, will make you a better road rider by next spring. We’ve picked the brains of a selection of experts and off-road aficionados to come up with nine great reasons to head off road this winter.
1 Improve your pedalling
If you want to develop your pedalling technique so that you apply power more evenly throughout the pedal stroke, then forget doing endless drills on the turbo and get yourself a mountain bike. Bike-fitting expert and positional coaching guru Phil Burt (philburtinnovations.co.uk) explains: “Attempts to teach people to pedal actually decreases overall pedalling efficiency. Studies have proven that asking someone to pull up to decrease the negative torque seen on the returning pedalling leg are counterproductive and result in an overall loss in efficiency. That’s not to say there aren’t better and worse ways to pedal, just that merely coaching from the outside with instruction in technique — push harder or pull up — makes no difference.”
What does make a difference is riding off-road.
“Mountain bikers are consistently shown to have the most even pedal stroke of all cycling disciplines,” Burt continues. “This is because they need to maintain power through the upstroke to have grip at the rear wheel.”
If you just push down on the pedals as though they’re pistons, there will be moments when no power is being applied to your rear wheel. In wet and slippery conditions, or when attacking a steep banking, this will cause you to slip and spin out. To keep your grip, you may need
to slow down your cadence and increase your gearing, focusing on smooth, circular pedalling.
“Mountain bikers get constant feedback on their pedalling,” says Burt. “If they aren’t applying the power evenly, they cannot tackle steep obstacles. You’ll soon work it out — you’ve got it right when you can hit a bank or cycle through slippery mud without dabbing a foot.”
Action: During your off-road rides, deliberately tackle short, steep banks and ride through the mud rather than avoiding it, maintaining grip throughout.
2 Save time, go running
New research from the University of Colorado, in Boulder, published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, rocked the cycling world when it revealed that cyclists aren’t more efficient than runners. Efficiency (AKA economy) simply means the energy cost for any given power produced. The greater your efficiency, the less wasted energy. Though it was no surprise that cyclists were less efficient at running than the runners, it did come as a shock that the runners were as efficient at cycling as the cyclists were.
Dr Garry Palmer, physiologist and coach at Sportstest, has competed in running, cycling and triathlon, and he concurs with this research, offering an anecdotal insight: “Back in 1997 I ran the London marathon. I’d done a winter of running without any riding except for two hours on Boxing Day.
“I ran 3hr 7min, which I was very pleased with, and then two days later I got on my bike and managed 22min 30sec for a 10-mile time trial.”
Running clearly has benefits to cyclists and is a time-efficient way to get fit, but if you’re new to running, it needs to be approached cautiously.
“Most cyclists can go for a run [without prior training] and complete it at a quick pace, but they won’t be able to walk for two days afterwards!” says Palmer. “The muscle damage will set you back a long way. If you run too much too soon, you will be spending time on the physio couch that could be better spent on the turbo. Start by doing short run/walk intervals to condition your muscles and ligaments. As a cyclist, if you start to run without good biomechanics, you will end up in trouble.”
What’s more, you can’t be an occasional runner; you need to keep it up: “If you aren’t intending to run regularly, your time may be better spent on your bike.”
Off-road running is a legfriendly option, as there is less impact than on the road and the constant adjustment of your gait and stride length to handle the terrain makes repetitive injury less likely.
Action: If you have never run before, make sure you have properly fitted, appropriate running shoes, run off road, and build up to it slowly.
3 Slip, Slide, Smile
Cycling is a skilled sport but it is surprising how few riders dedicate time to working on their technique, even though they can save energy, and time, in a race setting. Cycle coach Caroline Stewart of CS Cycle Coaching says, “I use off-road for skills training throughout the winter.” Stewart prefers using a cyclocross bike because “it is closer to road bike geometry. For someone who hasn’t ridden a mountain bike, a cross bike feels more like a road bike, and that genuinely transfers to road riding.”
Stewart believes that riding often on varied, unstable terrain “helps riders cope with the bike moving around underneath them”. If you get used to how your bike reacts when sliding in a safe environment, you can apply that control anywhere.
James Spragg, former pro rider turned coach, agrees: “Road riders don’t often crash, but when we do, it is because of something we aren’t quite ready for. If you can ride off road a little, it makes you more prepared for how your bike handles in different situations.”
Skills training is also far more enjoyable than a head-banging 20-minute threshold session. “Cyclo-cross is mucking around on bikes for adults,” opines Stewart. “That’s where kids’ innate bike-handling skills came from. If you come to cycling later in life, you haven’t had that opportunity to play and put the skills practice in.”
Action: You may feel a little bit selfconscious playing like a kid on your bike, but give it a go — it will improve your cycling skills.
4 Condition your whole body
Road cycling is fairly uninvolving for your upper body. Your legs and glutes do most of the work while your top half stays remarkably still. Sabreen Qureshihitchens of Active Physio Clinics treats cyclists of all disciplines. “If you think about the average roadie, if they are not sitting on their bike, they are likely to be sitting at their desk,” she says. Spending long hours in a sitting posture is very bad for your body, whereas “doing something off-road, in a slightly more upright position, with more rotational movement and more changes of posture is really good for you.”
Of course, you can also get a wholebody workout from going swimming or to the gym — but that necessitates a buildup programme to minimise the risk of injury and will mean sweating it out in an
“Mountain bikers are consistently shown to have the most even pedal stroke of all cyclists”
artificially heated environment. By going off road, you can enjoy winter out in the fresh air and on two wheels.
Riding off-road won’t just improve your cycling posture but it is also an investment in a healthy future. “If you want to look after your body and be able to cycle for longer, it pays to reduce the impact of that static posture,” says Qureshi-hitchens. “Hip flexors can get very tight with road cycling, which can be a precursor to knee-tracking issues. Doing some cross training in different terrains and in a more dynamic style will minimise the impact of the prolonged static nature of road cycling.”
Action: Check your saddle height and riding position on your off-road bike. Use shifts in your body weight, in and out the saddle, both to control your bike and to get some dynamic movement through your back and shoulders.
evade winter hazards
Caroline Stewart races cyclo-cross for the Royal Navy Cycling Association as well as running her own coaching business. “If you do your base winter mileage on fire roads, for example, you won’t have to run the gauntlet on hazardous winter roads and deal with reduced grip or visibility,” she says.
Dr Garry Palmer agrees: “I ride offroad in the winter because of safety. Road surfaces get covered with wet, slippery leaves or even ice — a car coming round the corner at 70mph could easily lose control on those surfaces, as could you. I’d rather be off-road.”
It’s not just safety that makes offroading a good weather proposition. “For a given heart rate or power, your speed is much slower. You don’t get anywhere near as cold,” says Palmer, “and that means you don’t need as many layers to keep warm.”
There’s rarely a need to skip training because of poor conditions if you’re riding off-road.
Action: Use tools such as Strava and the route-finding facilities on the Sustrans website to work out an off-road training loop close to home — opting for trails, gravel fire roads or cycle paths.
Look harder, Stay Sharper
If you have been riding the same routes all summer, familiarity can breed complacency; you stop paying close attention. Three out of 10 of car accidents happen less than a mile from home, with more than a third between one and five miles from home.
Palmer thinks that riding off road is great for staying sharp: “Riding off-road improves visual acuity. Road riders get sloppy when they ride familiar routes, not looking far enough ahead or scanning for hazards.”
Easy-paced group rides can become particularly lazy, when banter can draw attention away from shouting out upcoming hazards. Scanning and assessing terrain is a key skill in off-road riding; you need to constantly scan the scene ahead, pick out which way the trail is flowing, while also spotting ruts and rocks in the immediate foreground.
Practising scanning leads to another important racing skill — good reaction times. “When riders aren’t looking far enough ahead, they are not reacting fast to the hazards,” says Palmer. Improving your visual acuity and your reaction times is critical if you are planning on group riding or racing, and can benefit you when commuting in traffic.
Action: Mix up your routes to avoid familiarity. Ride some trails ‘blind’ so you are scanning, assessing and reacting to what is in front of you as new information.
Don’t Drop the intensity
Former pro rider and coach James Spragg (spraggcyclecoaching.com) says highintensity training during the winter yields many benefits.
“We can get a bit hung up on just doing long steady miles, but a bit of intensity is good in the winter. You get different adaptations from intensity than from slow, traditional club rides. If you want to go into next season as fit as possible, intensity is key.”
Many riders turn to the turbo and Zwift for their hard sessions, but there are
good reasons for opting to go off-road. “The range of powers and torques can be quite restrictive on the turbo. That range is much bigger off road, where you have much more varied stimuli, whether that is attacking short steep banks, sprinting out of corners, or grinding through mud.”
A cyclo-cross race provides something a turbo cannot.
“Racing off road gives you a bit of camaraderie and competition. Closing down gaps and chasing riders makes you work harder than you would on a turbo. It also makes you move your weight around, exercises your core and keeps you supple. This is really important if you are a crit or road racer; keeping that rhythm while moving around is really good for you.”
Action: Swap your indoor interval session for a cross race or set up a short, technical off-road circuit and time yourself round it. Use corners and steep banking to force yourself to go hard.
Have A laugh!
Pro riders take a complete break at the end of the summer, whereas amateurs generally don’t need to. However, a mental break can be very beneficial to stop you going stale. Spragg prescribes off-road sessions to keep boredom at bay: “After the summer season, it is good to start back with a cross or mountain bike, as it’s a fun introduction to get back into the rhythm of training. Riders will come back after three or four hours of
“It doesn’t feel too serious — having some fun keeps your mind fresh”
mucking about on bikes with their mates feeling they’ve had fun. It is really good training but it doesn’t feel too serious.” Riders of all levels can benefit. “Even for high-end road athletes, I suggest riding cyclo-cross or mountain bikes in winter. Having some fun keeps your mind fresh. As a pro rider, if the weather was really bad, I’d ride out to a cross race, race and ride home. I’d do a good four-hour session but it didn’t feel like those long miserable, monotonous rides where your hands are cold and you are soaking wet.”
Action: If you are lacking motivation, head out for an unstructured off-road ride or rediscover your competitive spirit at a local cyclo-cross event.
Cannily dabble in Cyclo-cross
Sportive riding and road racing is a big time investment, requiring high-volume training and long-distance travel. Not so cyclo-cross.
“Cross races are short, sharp, and if you get lapped you aren’t out there for hours struggling to complete the course,” says Dr Palmer. “You only ever race for as long as the winner.”
In an hour or less, you can get a really good workout.
“You will have steam blowing out of your ears and you’ll work as hard or harder than in any intensity session.”
If your key goals are road racing or sportives, stay focused on those while using cyclo-cross to get your competitive fix in.
“Saturday races means you can still do your endurance ride on a Sunday,” explains Palmer. “Don’t get too engrossed in cross riding — it serves a purpose but remember what you are doing it for. Use it as a ‘What am I missing?’ experiment — ask yourself how it can help your road riding.”
Action: Give cyclo-cross racing a go and reap the benefits but don’t get too hung up on your results.