Canadian Cycling Magazine

Training Tips

Getting from the trainer to the road

- by Andrew Randell and Steve Neal of The Cycling Gym

We hope you’ve had a productive winter of training with some good “miles” on the trainer. Riding during the off-season often means highly focused and organized workouts, which help make the time on the trainer pass quickly(ish). If you’re a rider who follows a popular online training program, you’ve likely done a heck of a lot of threshold and higher-intensity training. Even if you haven’t been pushing high wattage, you still haven’t done much in terms of overall time on the bike. Some people can ride indoors for hours on end, but it isn’t something we typically recommend. So, let’s say you’ve had a winter of decent training indoors. Now that the weather is warming up, what’s next?

Job No. 1 is to log some proper endurance mileage. To ride well, you have to have a balance among the different energy systems that you use during your rides or races. Throughout the winter, most of us do a lot of riding at a tempo pace or higher. Now is the time to put in some longer rides at a steady pace. If you were watching the power meter during the cold months, focus on the heart-rate monitor for these spring rides. We typically recommend riding between 60 to 75 per cent of your maximum heart rate for endurance training. At first, this effort might feel too easy. But, you must keep your heart rate in the proper zone whether on the flats or going uphill or downhill. Most of us ride steady on even ground, hard up the inclines and then coast down descents. During your endurance rides, apply constant pressure on the pedals. Ride steady on the flats, slow on the uphill sections and then push over the top and into the downhill runs. Several hours of proper endurance training can be plenty challengin­g. Over time, you will be able to push a bit harder at the same heart rate.

Other things you can layer into your training that simply don’t work on the trainer are sprinting and climbing. You can’t sprint with proper technique on the trainer, so you shouldn’t be doing much of this training indoors. Sprint training should be done in a variety of ways: while sitting, while standing, from a slow start and a rolling start. Efforts should be between eight and 15 seconds long. Rip the cranks off your bike.

Climbing can be done at a tempo-type pace and mixed into your endurance rides. Access to climbs, of course, depends on where you live. Maybe the hunt for big hills for some proper climbing work is a good excuse to head south for a training camp.

With warmer weather and clear roads, you should log those miles and do them properly. Layer in some sprinting and climbing, too. During your first ride outdoors, you may be surprised at how weak you feel. Don’t be discourage­d; give it a couple of weeks and you’ll be feeling just fine. You will start to feel your legs come round.

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