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If you are a cross country racer then you probably think a lot about weight, even if you don’t want to admit it. I’m pretty sure that every xc racer has thought about running a 3lb. fork instead of a 4lb. fork, or lusted after some super light race wheels when spec’ing out their next xc racing machine.
If you’ve ever had similar thoughts, repeat after me: “I am a weight weenie.” Ok, now we can move on.
While riders spend a lot of time and energy (and money) finding ways to lose 100 grams from our rides, we don’t often think that dropping a bit of body weight might make more of a difference. And if you take a step back and think about it, it might even be more efficient (ie. take less effort) to drop body weight instead of weight from your bike.
However, dropping that weight can be a double-edged sword, as you need energy from food in order to work hard and recover. That, and cutting down on the ‘good stuff’ isn’t always easy. Fellow blogger Mags quotes a euro-pro friend who says ‘How much he eats affects how much he trains’. So you can’t cut back on food too much, especially when you are training hard. But a little bit over the course of several months can make a big difference. It’s just that sometimes it’s difficult to make those little steps.
For example, say an xc hardtail weighs in at less than 24lbs and an xc dual suspension comes in at under 25lbs. and a typical male XC racer weighs, on average, 150lbs. with a decent amount of variation to account for body type. Even if you are on the low end of the weight spectrum at 120lbs, your body weight is still almost five times greater than your rig. That means that losing one pound from your bike is a much larger percentage of the total bike weight (and is going to cost you an arm and a leg); on the other hand, one pound of your body weight is a significantly smaller percentage of your total body weight and doesn’t cost a thing.
To put it in terms that a weight weenie can understand, losing 4 pounds of body weight is the equivalent, in percentage terms, to dropping 314 grams from your 25lb. bike. Have you ever priced out what it would cost to cut 300 grams off your bike? Read the rest of this entry »
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Most mountain bike racers – cross country riders, downhillers, ‘cross racers – tend to focus a lot on things like training, bicycles, and components. And when we do spend time thinking about goals, most of them are based strictly on results – things like winning a certain race or placing top three in a particular series, or even besting our riding buddies.
When it comes to races, sometimes it’s really hard to think of anything other than the ever-elusive podium. Of course, this position is understandable because it is, after all, a race, where the measurement of success is how you placed against others in your class. Nonetheless, there is much more to goal setting than just your results. Over the last year I really changed how I looked at goals and can honestly say that this change had as positive an effect on my cycling as any of the training I’ve been doing during the same time period. In this entry, I’m going to discuss how I planned my cycling-related goals and how they’ve influenced my riding. Read the rest of this entry »
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Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about pacing during cross country races. As an introduction, this thread over at mtbr highlights the fact that there are as many different strategies as there are racers. Part of the issue is that mountain bike races are notorious for their fast and furious starts, and it is these high-tempo, high-energy starts that I think cause problems for lots of riders. Endurance-based events are more likely to have slower starts, but even there I’m sure there is some serious jockeying for the infamous hole shot.
When it comes to deciding how hard to push during a race, the dilemma lays in knowing how hard one can go before they blow sky high. Unfortunately, it’s not one of those things that has a simple answer — I’ve been racing on and off for almost 16 years and I still don’t have a handle on my pacing.
Some have said that mountain bike racing is the off road equivalent of the roadie’s time trial — go as hard as you can over a set course and the winner is the one with the best time at the end of the day. At top levels they talk about cross country races in more tactical terms — such as chasing down attacks (just like in road races) — but at my level I rarely think in those terms and it seems to be much more about finding that red line and holding it there as best as I can. Sure there are some tactics involved in trying to gap someone, get out of sight around a turn (out of sight, out of mind), or chasing someone down to be able to feed off them by riding their wheel. But for the most part I race in my own world without spending too much time thinking about other riders. Read the rest of this entry »
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A recent post over at PezCycling News discusses Smart Eating for the Holidays and offers strategies for combatting weight gain during the Food Season. The entry focuses less on turning people into fickle, holiday food avoiding drones and more on limiting the effects of downtime on a cyclist’s overall fitness.
Ways to eat smart over the holidays
- Keep a dietary log
- Limit the alcohol intake
- Eat before the party
- Emphasize quality and intensity during training over quantity
- Visit a health care professional for a check up
Of course, the chances of me actually following those points are between, well, slim and none, but I know that there are a bunch of you out there who will take the advice to heart.
I was back on a bike yesterday for the first time in a couple of months (injury). I felt pretty good, even though I just rolled for a couple of kilometers.
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Before I share my opinions on off season training, note that I am not a coach, or even a pro or expert cyclist. Just a regular joe with limited time. And I toss around terms like power, strength sort of interchangeably even though they are not. Currently, I am following the kung fu of Dave Morris a PhD in exercise physiology and former coach at the Olympic Training Center as outlined in his book Performance Cycling. I also wrote a primer on my program at my BLOG.
There are several philosophies about how to approach the off season for cyclists. The ideas that see a lot of debate are outlined in the list below:
- Strength training
- Cross training vs Sport Specificity
- Base versus intensity
In the rest of this entry, I’ll give you my thoughts on the subject. Comments and discussion are encouraged — use the form at the end of this writeup to add your thoughts. Read the rest of this entry »
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Back in the day, I spent a lot of time on a cross country bike punishing my body up old fire roads before winding my way back down gnarly singletrack. And then the Freeride Bug hit. I abandoned my Fisher Paragon for a ‘freeride’ hardtail and took to pushing my bike uphill and throwing it (and my body) off the most ludicrous things. The years passed, my bikes got bigger, and I went to school on the ‘classic’ Shore — rugged and rooty, drops to flat, mean — where riders and their bikes were routinely chewed up and spit out in a mangled heap.
Over the course of the past year or two, I’ve revisited my xc past and spent time working on cardio and climbing hills while continuing to ride the ‘fun stuff’ (which has changed a bunch in recent years). The effort was worthwhile — my fitness is greatly improved — and has given me the chance to relax a little more when I’m riding. I’m not sure whether this change is because I’m more focused on the way up, or because I’m not gassed for the ride down, but, whatever the case, I’ve enjoyed riding more during the past year than ever before.
Anyways, there’s a new article over at NSMB.com discussing the same sort of feeling. And the entry’s accompanying illustrations are out of sight.
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One of my earlier posts about the benefits of implementing a yoga regimen into your cycling schedule was quite popular so I’ve done a little bit of digging for some more literature on the subject.
Selected yoga and Pilates resources
Note: Despite the multiplicity of Yoga and Pilates DVDs available at your local supermarket, keep in mind that the best way to learn these exercises is from a skilled instructor (in person).
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Whenever I spend a long day on the bike, I can feel where I’ll be sore in the coming days. Typically, my shoulders feel tight and, occasionally, my legs feel as though they’re going to fail me. I used to experience tightness in my lower back after hard rides but I spent a good deal of time building ‘core’ strength to reduce the strain on my body.
SheCycles, Magicalia’s new project, has a good introduction to the benefits that yoga can bring to a cyclist. The piece discusses the benefits that a regular yoga routine can bring to a cyclist and illustrates how these benefits will help later in life. The entry seems to be the first in a series so it looks worthy of a return visit.
Source: SheCycles
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This entry isn’t a mountain bike entry per se, but it is interesting and it does illustrate what serious (and I mean SERIOUS) training can do for the body. Researchers from the University of Texas-Austin put Lance Armstrong's training regimen to the test, analyzing the changes in Armstrong’s physiological responses to cycling-based activity.
What they found does not raise any questions about doping; instead, the researchers indicate that Armstrong’s ‘transformation’ in 1999 (the year of his first of seven consecutive Tour de France victories) was a result of a marked change in the cyclist’s output capacity:
An independent physiologist familiar with the study commented: ‘This study shows that long term training has a lot bigger effects than we thought. They followed Armstrong – a well-known hard trainer – and the changes in his efficiency over seven years are really quite amazing. We wouldn’t be surprised if some major physiological changes happened, but here’s a real quantified example.’
He added: ‘Generally there are two ways to improve efficiency: Train your maximum capacity to be very high, or train your sub-maximal capacity to be very efficient. In Armstrong’s case, he did both. In the lab they measured his performance against standard oxygen consumption and by the end of the study he was much more efficient utilizing the same amount of oxygen. But on the road,’ he pointed out, ‘it means he can go faster and get more guys off his wheel.’
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The Rocky Mountain News published a list of the top 5 excuses people use to avoid cycling to work, along with a rebuttal for each of those excuses:
- It’s too far, and I don’t have the time.
- I need to wear dress clothes at work.
- I don’t have a place to shower.
- The weather is too rotten to ride my bike.
- There’s no place to park my bike at work.
Check out the original article (link above) to read the responses to these rather lame excuses.
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