The Great Indoors

 Kurt Kinetic trainers all lined up at a local drop-in, indoor bike training session.

Full disclosure right up front - I've always hated indoor bike training! I have always been an outdoor-guy. No matter the weather, generally speaking I would prefer to be outdoors. However, living in the places that I have lived most of my life, that has meant dealing with white (with snow) or very wet (with rain) winters.


Back when I was far more serious about my training, my winters consisted of a lot of running and a lot of cross-country skiing. I would sprinkle-in some swimming and, a couple of indoor bike training sessions. In those days, indoor bike training was done, in solitude, in a dark, basement on a "wind-trainer" that roared like a 747 at take-off! Because, I did not really find the whole experience that enjoyable, I made it short and sweet - get-on, warm-up, knock out some really hard intervals, or a 20 min all out TT effort, warm-down, and done! Total time - one hour maxium.

With all the skiing and the steady diet of higher intensity indoor cycling efforts over the winter, I found that I could jump back on the bike in the spring ( mid to late March) and ride up-wards of 100K at a decent pace. I had not really lost all that much despite a low volume of cycling for nearly 4 months.

Today, for triathletes and road cyclists, indoor riding is all the rage. Some still do the solo-thing in their basement pain-caves and dungeons, but they can get very sophisticated these days wth all the training tools and software at the modern athletes disposal.

What seems to be even more popular are group training, with trainers either in ad hoc places (see picture above in a local church hall) or at more sophisticated and dedicated indoor training venues, built out specifically for this purpose, often with dedicated trainers by Computrainer, or other suppliers all hooked up, so that everyone can monitor wattage or other metrics and even, "race" one another!

Knowing what we know now about training with power, these indoor training sessions, away from the distractions and variables of the open road, can be very beneficial for triathletes and cyclists. Training loads and sessions can be very specific. The group environment can help as well. With a great group and a good ride leader ( A roll my wonderful wife Paolina Allan has fallen in love with - in another life she must have been a drill-Sargent!) people can be encouraged along, to levels of effort that, may not have been achievable training on their own, on the open road. In fact, it's not unheard of for some really dedicated folk to be more fit in the spring, coming off a winter of super focused indoor bike training, than later on in the year after logging more outdoor miles!

Of course, for me, personally, nothing beats the open road, and the wind in my face. However, I've learned to move my loathing of indoor training, to not quite love, but something that I will put up with for a few months, so that I can maintain, those gains from all the riding done in the great outdoors in spring/summer/fall. I've even attended a few group-sessions over the last couple of winters and, they have been fun - I can see the attraction. We are social animals. Getting together with like minded people to work hard a sweat for a couple of hours, can be "fun"!

My routine is still more or less the same as years ago. A few higher intensity sessions each week on the trainer, mixed in with some time on the rollers as well. Rarely more than an hour at a stretch. My inputs are not power or heart-rate, but some good music. That's all I need to keep me motivated. There is even a web site for that - check out Velo-Beats. Great tunes for riding indoors. The goal - as it was back then, be ready to hit the open road in the spring, ready to ride!

How's your indoor cycling going?

 If you like what you see here, please feel free to share this blog with your preferred sharing app from the buttons below:

Rolling with the Rollers

I'll get this out of the way right up front - many triathletes and cyclists have lousy pedaling technique. It's not their fault - they got the bike, the gear, and right away started riding hard and long. Triathletes , because of the time-trial-push-a-big-gear approach that many take from the get-go are particularly bad at this. What they didn't do was take the time to develop a smooth and efficient pedal stroke - something that will make them a better and faster cyclist. Indoor bike trainers, which many are riding on at this time of the year can, depending on the unit also contribute to cycling in squares as opposed nice round circles.

What to do? Get a set of bike rollers and work roller riding into the routine. Now, many cyclists and triathletes are terrified of rollers. All they have heard are horror stories about them and what a waste of time they are. Many rollers are bought, tried once and then left to gather dust in the basement. I'll be honest - it does take a bit to get the hang of riding rollers, but if you stick with it, the rewards are significant.

Here's a few tips to get you going.

1. A road bike is "better" for riding on the rollers. However, you can use a tri-bike if you wish. The problem is that many triathletes are ill-positioned on their tri-bikes and have poor weight distribution - in short too much weight too far forward on the bike. This will make the handling of the bike on the rollers a bit squrrily. Proper tri-bike fit should not have the weight grossly shifted forward. Suggestion: Look into your fit in the off season.

2. Set the rollers up in a door-way. This way if you start to fall, you can hold yourself up by grabbing the door frame or leaning with elbows or shoulders on the sides of the door frame.

3. Get up on the bike - this can be a bit awkward, but once you are and you are clicked into your pedals, put one hand on the door frame and one on the bar( holding the top bar of a road bike just away from the stem - this is more stable). Note - the back wheel sits on the two rollers and the front wheel on the single roller on the front of the roller unit!

4. Start pedaling using a gear in the middle of your range. Keep one arm on the door jam and one of the bars and try and keep the front wheel in the middle of the front drum. At lower speeds it will wander a bit but as you build up speed . . .

5. . . .The faster you pedal and the higher the speed of both the wheels and the pedals, the more stable you will be - this is the centrifugal/gyroscopic effect at work. That being said - compared to riding on the road, it will seem like you are riding on ice!

6. Whatever you do - keep pedaling. Unless, you do come off. Then stop!

7. The moment of truth - let go of the door frame and put that hand on the handle bar tops. Look ahead - not down. See how long you can keep it going straight.

The first time will be very frustrating. You may only keep it going straight and not off to one side, for a few seconds, but keep at it. If you are well positioned in the door way, you should not go anywhere. Click out of the pedals, if you have to and set up and try it again. The learning curve for rollers is very steep, but short. Thus, it seems impossible at first, but it will come and in a much shorter time than you think - you just have to hang in there and keep trying.

Benefits: You'll figure out pretty quickly how smooth your pedal stroke is almost right away. If you have a herky-jerky pedals\stroke, you'll know - as it will seem like you are almost bucking yourself off the bike. Every little flaw in the pedal stroke is high-lighted when riding the rollers. Via your own feedback you should be able to fix some of this on your own.

Balance is key both forward and back and side to side. You quickly find out, again, that a lot of the weaving you may have been doing on the road, is due to shifting weight on the bike from side to side. Being quiet on the bike is key. The only thing that should be moving is your legs! If you are still riding in the door frame and you drift too far to one side, you can just stick an elbow out, lean on the door frame with your shoulder, or quickly and quietly put a hand out, and keep pedaling. The key is to not over-react and then get back centered again and on your way. This is a key group-ride or road racing skill - you do, from time to time, touch shoulders, elbows, even handle-bars with other riders in a pack/peleton - what causes crashes, is people panicking and OVER REACTING in this situation. If you remain calm and just focus on keeping balanced and the bike going forward, you'll be OK. Regular roller riding will give you that balance and that confidence

Roll On!

"Training"

Last night I did an hour of "Song In - Song Out" on the Kurt Kinetic Trainer. This is a favorite indoor bike trainer workout of mine.

Warmed up for 10 or so minutes and then started to ride hard for one song and then spin easy for the next song on my new MP3 player - and just keep repeating that for 60+ minutes. It's a good workout. I try and go max effort for the hard bits. Problem is you never know exactly how long the song is going to be - could be three minutes or it could be six! So you can get yourself in trouble and blow easy if not careful. Secret is finding the Edge, and not going over it and then surf along that edge for the duration of the song on the hard section. Pushing not bad gears - 53 x 18 or so, on the hard bits.

Finished up with a 10 minute mini core routine.

Winter Bike Training

If you live where you get real winter you may have to make some changes to your bike training for the winter season. One option is to keep riding. The picture above is of Cervelo sales Manager Rodney Merchant's RS Road bike on a mid winter ride near Toronto. Few are as hardy as Rodney, but a great attitude and the right apparel can go a long way to riding outdoors in less then ideal conditions. However, let's be realistic - most triathletes will be doing their bike training indoors if that's what they are going to be facing outdoors.

So what to do on the indoor trainer? Personally, I have never been a fan of spending a huge amount of time on the indoor trainer. I know that there are people that grind out, 3, 4 and even 5 hour indoor rides. I would suggest shorter more focused and more intense efforts. Done right these workouts can be very effective.

If you have been off the bike for a while it might be good to put in some time just working up to being able to ride at a good pace for 45 minutes to an hour. Once you can do this, then there are three different kinds of workouts I suggest. They revolve around 1, 2 and 5 minute blocks of time. I set my timer on my watch to the count-down-and-return function so that if I set it at 2 minutes, it will run for 2 minutes and then beep and keep repeating the beep every 2 minutes and so on.

I would start with 2 minutes and after a 10 -15 min. warm-up, start to do 2 minutes at hard effort and then 2 minutes easy spinning. Do 4 - 6 of these and see how you feel. Next time play around with things, Maybe do four minutes hard with 4 minutes rest etc . . . One of the best workouts that you can do with these 2 minute units of time is 4 minutes hard with 2 minutes recovery. If you can do 6 of these at close to max effort and fully recover in the 2 minute easy period - you are doing well. Spin down for 10 - 15 minutes and you are done.

The one minute time period is good for working on your power and your sprint. Set the timer for one minute and then go as hard as you can for one minute - really max out. Then rest of 1, 2 or even 3 minutes and repeat the one hard minute. Repeat this cycle until you can't go all out for the one minute hard. This set can be worked in at the end of the previous 2 minute workout, or on it's own in the middle of an easy recovery ride.

Finally the 5 minute time period is good for building up your longer Time-Trial fitness and learning to work and sustain a moderately hard effort right at the edge, without going over - this is key for triathlon cycling. Start off going for 10 minutes at a moderately hard pace. Then take 5 minutes to recover, then go hard again for another 10 minutes. This should be the type of effort that feels easy at first but by the time you reach the last few minutes of the ten minute hard portion, you feel like you are really working hard. The gold standard of what you want to build up to here is 20 minutes hard with 5 - 10 minute rest and then repeat the 20 minutes hard. If you are doing this right, you should be surfing along right at the edge of your Lactate Threshold and not blowing up and going over it.

The other option for indoor riding is rollers. Many triathletes shy away from rollers, but they are one of the best training tools for developing a smooth and efficient pedal stroke. Typically they don't offer much in the way of resistance, so this is usually not as hard as a workout on the indoor trainer.

I have noticed from observing thousands of triathletes, that many don't have very smooth and efficient pedal strokes. Riding rollers really helps smooth things out. They also make you very confidant on your bike by teaching you what the keys to great bike balance are. You know you have a good aero-postion, are well set up on your bike, and have a smooth and efficient pedal stroke, when you can ride in your aero position on the rollers. Many can't do this - but it is worth striving for. If you look at the best triathletes and bike Time-Trialers they have one thing in common - they are all very quiet, still, smooth and efficient on the bike.

If you do have rollers, what I like to do is alternate roller sessions, with sessions on the trainer - so two rollers sessions a week and two trainer sessions a week. None of these sessions need last longer than 45 minutes to an hour. If you do that through the 3 - 4 months of winter, you will definitely maintain your bike fitness, you may even elevate it!

Hope this helps.