Hermes

Here a couple of cool videos with a nice interface to show power, HR, cadence, speed, % grade and etc. They are from local climbs.

This one is from last year's low key hill climb. It is just nasty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXLzH...eature=related

Here is one from the top section of our benchmark climb which I do quite often. I cannot do a sub 20 minute climb and as I watch the power production, it is obvious why. Boy I need a lot of work. It would be really nice if I could get about 10 more heart beats at my current stroke volume.

https://www.youtube.com/user/biketelemetry

AzTallRider

Email exchange with She Who Must Be Obeyed, who just finished a ride down the California coast, where she and her husband took the train north and then rode back. 5 days total:

SWMBO: In case you were wondering, I'm not posting your schedule for next week until after we talk tomorrow.
Me: I wasn't worried. Besides, if you don't have anything assigned, that means I can do a zone 5 hammerfest, right?
SWMBO: HaHa. NO!

Doing z2-3 LSD is NOT satisfying my need for speed!

Allegheny Jet

Doing Z2-3 LSD now will enable you to ride faster, longer and be able to do it again and again later this year. Trust your coach. One thing I've found out about cycling form, equipment and training is that eveytime I thought that I was unique, or needed to do it different because I'm different, it was not the case.

AzTallRider

You are right on the mark there, AJ. From a technical perspective, cycling is a conformist sport. Vary too much from the norm, and there is a good chance you are steering yourself in the wrong direction. When I started, I was sure that my height meant I should mash in a higher gear and slower cadence than everyone else. Wups.

Hermes

Yesterday, I met my wife for a lunch ride and did some z3 climbing - each climb was around 14 minutes with 218 W and 215 W average power for climbs 1 and 2, respectively.

AZ must be a lot tougher than I am since I thought this was a moderately hard effort. I was really happy not to do z4s on the climb with 30 second z5s every 2 minutes.

Hermes

At 6 feet 170 pounds, I am one of the bigger guys at races. And there are exceptions. The guys to look at are Hincapie 6' 3" 170 pounds and Roman Kilun, a local pro, who I have trained with is 6' 3" 170 pounds. Roman spins 110 rpm on the road and 120 to 130 rpm at the track. He competed in the Tour of California and did okay. At elite track Nationals, he was second in pursuit and his team won the team pursuit.

Hincapie is great at one day classics although he has not won any. And he is a lead out specialist for sprinters in grand tours.

When I was in LA over the Christmas Holidays and rode at the LA Velodrome, there were several tall racers. I had the privilege to draft one of them in the motor games. They were very strong on the track. At masters track nationals last year, I watched a very tall and strong guy in a points race. He was able to lap the field and earn 20 points. Unfortunately, so were three others so he did podium but did not win.

AzTallRider

I wish! Pretty sure you'd drop me like an empty water bottle.

I must admit, the trainer workout I did Wednesday worked my legs pretty hard without going into z4. She had me alternating 10 minute intervals: 85-95 cadence in z2, then 75-85 cadence in z3. It's designed to increase leg strength without undue stress on what I think she perceives as my tired old body. A natural assumption if she is comparing mine to hers! But I still think she is taking it too easy on my legs, for fear of aggravating a mild knee issue I created somehow. My legs are 'never sore no mo', and that makes me feel I'm getting weak. My motto had been "If you aren't sore, you're losing the war!" I better get that Quarq so I know how I'm doing, power wise. That's one of the topics for my talk with her today: gearing. If I go standard, I don't think I'll be able to obey her zone restrictions.

The one area I'm struggling with fitting into my schedule is the off-bike strength workouts. In fact, scheduling has become an overall issue, since more of my weekly effort is no longer done as my commute. I'm only commuting by bike 2-3 times per week instead of 3-5, and taking the short route most times. Job demands have affected that, on top of her instructions. I haven't been able to do a trainer workout, then commute the long route (in z1-2) to work, as I would be saying "good afternoon" when I got there, at a time when the job demands are great.

And, pardon a bit of venting, but it was very frustrating to be passed by someone on the way home yesterday, as I was spinning along in mid z2. First time I've been passed on my commute since I got my road bike, and I didn't like it! If I had seen him coming, I could have cranked up to the top of the zone and probably kept my ego intact.

Okay... vent over.

Hermes

AZ, you need to make a decision on the PM and pull the trigger. Quarq may have a waiting list. When I got mine, I had to wait about 3 weeks and I twisted their arm to be put up in the line since I had purchased others (wife) from them.

When I was climbing yesterday on the less steep sections, my power would start to drop and I would increase cadence and my HR would increase. HR is a function of cadence as well as other things. When you were doing the lower cadence z3 efforts, your HR was artificially lower so you were actually putting out more power.

I do not want to get preachy about PMs. The reality is once you get one, get really good with it, you need it a lot less. In essence it calibrates your brain to know what certain wattage feels like and how to press for more power. That is extremely valuable when competing.

If your legs are sore, you are overcooking your workouts with insufficient recovery which is the worst case scenario for a racer / performance cyclist. She took you out of that. Be thankful.

Allegheny Jet

Barry Wicks and Ryan Trebon would think you are short. One is 6'9" and the other 6'8 and they kick ass as pros on the cyclo cross tour. Jeremy Powers looks like a little kid standing with them.
https://cog.konaworld.com/archives/5250

AzTallRider

They probably don't even break stride going over the barriers - maybe CX is the cycling sport for us tall guys?

Just got off the phone with Coach. We spent a long time on nutrition, then talked about gearing. She basically said I better end up strong enough to get up the hills with a 53/39, while keeping my heartrate down, by standing up and using a low cadence. In other words, HTFU and get the big-boy crank.

Allegheny Jet

I think your coach is correct on the big boy gearing, unless you are climbing mountains for a long time and the race is all split up. We are not Lance and need to keep the HR down. I've yet to be in a race where the guys slowed up on a climb for everyone to catch up. You're either with 'em or watching 'em go away.

AzTallRider

And it's a myth that "you can catch 'em on the downhill". Ain't gonna happen. Get dropped on the hill and it's bye-bye, see you later.

Did an 80 minute base ride this morning, and I'm doing an organized metric tomorrow. I get to push it hard for an hour sometime during the ride, sticking to z2-3 the rest of the time. No mass start, so I'll just have to see who is around me I might want to chase.

Coach just scheduled the rest of the month. Looks fun. We're starting to work on 'force'. I'll do some hill work during my commute, shifting up a couple of gears higher than normal and mashing at 60-70 rpm while seated. And at the end of the month, my Monday trainer session will switch from pedal technique (which I'll start making a part of other workouts) to this: On flat road or on a trainer. Use the big chain ring and a gear that allows only about 50-60 rpm. While in the saddle drive the pedals down as hard as possible for 15-20 revolutions of the cranks. Do 6-10 of these starting a new one every 3-5 minutes after warming up. Heart rate is not observed.

Jet, I assume something like this is what you mean when you say "overgear"?

Allegheny Jet

Yep, your starting into overgear work. It will take using a complete pedal stroke to do it efficiently. In our trainer class today we did 4 overgear intervals totaling 16 minutes, riding in the 53/12-14 depending of level of strength. Started out for 1 min @ 50 rpm, 1 min @ 60 rpm, 1 min @ 65 rpm, then 30 seconds @ 70 rpm and 30 seconds @ 75 rpm then, repeat beginning @ 50 rpm and up.

AzTallRider

Just pulled the trigger on this:

Hermes

Welcome to the club. My 53/39 is on my TT bike.

Hermes

We do low cadence climbing intervals throughout the year with a bias for more early in the season. They are generally z3 or z4 power @40 to 60 rpm for 4 - 6 minute intervals. The Russians had us climb a 3.5 mile climb in 34/25 and then climb it again in the big ring. I thought 25 minutes at low cadence was too much, IMO.

Hermes

My wife and I started a 3 hour z2 ride as we feel ride and 20 minutes into the ride my PT quick working. Her Quarq was fine. After 20 minutes and the temperature warmed up, it started working again. I am seriously considering swapping the Quarq 53/39 from my TT bike to my road bike and sell the PT. I prefer the compact double since I can spin faster on climbs but this is getting ridiculous. I would then swap the Quarq between my TT bike and road bike as necessary. If I put on a 38 tooth on the front and used an 11/28 on the back, I am getting close to what I need for most of the steeper longer climbs.

seedsbelize 

+1
I plan to show up for the 60k this coming Sunday, just to see how slow I am. And to get myself on the mailing list. Unfortunately, at 58 1/2, I'll be one of the oldest in my age group. And certainly the slowest. But we've gotta start somewhere.

Allegheny Jet

Kinda like me when I decided to begin racing at age 55. If you keep at it you begin passing guys more and more frequently.

Allegheny Jet

This is a story of a ride gone bad.

I switched up Monday and Tuesday on my workout schedule due to the impending 4" - 6" of snow forecast for Tuesday. I was scheduled to do 1:25 hrs on the rollers on Monday with a 45 minute overgear interval. I did do my core/resistance work early on Monday and inclulded Tuesday's as well. The core/resistance work was all upper body and some abs work. The Tuesday workout was 2hrs on the road with a 1:35 Z3 interval in the middle. I don't like spending 2 hrs on the trainer alone in my basement so I went outside on Monday.

Monday's weather was not too bad, light winds and 26 degrees so I dressed accordingly. I plotted a 35 mile loop and began the ride intending to hit the Z3 interval around 20 minutes in, then finishing it up with around a 10 minute WD. At around 10 minutes into the ride I was already at Z3 so I began the interval. For whatever reason I was not riding very well and had to push the effort to ride in Z3 then got the point of failure. At around 1 hour into the ride I quit the interval and decided to finish the 2 hour ride @ high cadence, to keep the HR up, and just get back home since I was at the farthest point away. 10 minutes into the ride back home I knew I made a big mistake. Riding @ Z3 makes me sweat and my gloves and feet got wet and I began to get cold extremities. The last 30 minutes were some of the worst riding moments I can remember. Once home I needed my wife to help take my gloves, shoe covers and shoes off since my fingers had no feeling. I did the lukewarm water bath on the fingers and after 10 minutes I was OK but totally beat down.

Not sure why I didn't have any sustained power as I've done similar rides recently, with even more effort, without issues. I did ride Sunday for 3 hours mountain biking in cold conditions, with some teammates and my son, and may have been carrying some fatigue over. Oh well, we do have bad days sometimes. Just thought I'd share one.

Hermes

A'Jet, when will your Power Tap be ready.

AzTallRider

Sorry to hear about that one, Jet. Nothing that extreme, but I had one of those 'never got going' rides two weeks ago, when it was in the upper 30's here in the morning. I hadn't invested in any technical gear, since it is needed so seldom, and I just never warmed up. Sloooooooowww ride. I at least have leg warmers and a skull cap for under the helmet now.

Glad it didn't turn out worse, and your ride definitely qualifies for the HTFU thread.

Allegheny Jet

I inquired last week and they said it was scheduled to be built before the weekend. Hopefully I'll recieve it in short order. A PT could have shown that I was hitting it harder than my HR monitor was reading due to conditions.

Hermes

30x20x20 on the trainer. z2 for 3 minutes, z3 for 2 minutes z2 for 1 minute, standing z2 for 1 minute repeat. I am not sure why I did 30 minutes for the first set but it seemed right. Total time was 1.5 hours. After the trainer workout, I set up my wife on the trainer and I went to the gym for upper body workout, stretching and foam roller. Total time 3 hours.

My z3 power is back. Yea!

cyclinfool

With my big event in mid June I am more in a mode of base prep. Still loosing weight at a very slow pace but on track. Spin classes for aerobic fitness and skiing for some cross training leg strength and endurance and core strength training. My road riding is 3 months away so the key now is maintaining strength and loosing about 15 more lbs, that will put me at a good climbing weight and adequate strength.

Observation: in my spin classes I am not able to achieve the heart rates I hit when on the road even though the perceived effort is there (165 is about the max I can hit in spin, 190 is Z5 on the road). I asked the PT about this and she was surprised that I was not getting higher heart rates (except my stated Z5 of 190 scared her), after some discussion the thought was that the intervals in spin are just not long enough to sufficiently elevate my heart rate due to the type of riding I am conditioned for. Any thoughts?