rdtompki

My wife and took up cycling (in our 60's) about 1-1/2 years ago and are currently doing a mix of 100K and Centuries on our tandem. I've probably ridden 7500 miles in the last two years. I'd say we're good for about 4000' of climbing whether 100K or Century and we really want to be able to do some of the hillier rides. We ride 4x/week, usually a 45-60 mile ride on the weekend and 3 rides or so during the week of 15-25 miles. The weekend ride might have 1500 ft. of climbing. I'm not expecting my wife to get much stronger other than what naturally occurs by racking up miles and while I'm much stronger I'm also the weak link.

I've been known to cramp at 60-80 miles (mile 90 at the El Tour de Tucson), but I'm working that problem with electrolytes, hydration and trying not to work too hard in the early going. The real problem occurs while climbing. Assuming it's not hot my HR on a 10% grade is 150 (max., I suspect is 165 or so). Usually, there is a dip to 8% or less which provides for a short recovery. This climbing at 90% of max HR plus the constant small surges that the captain covers on a tandem do take their toll. I'm looking for one addition to my weekly riding that over time would allow us to incorporate more climbing in our rides. I could do a weekly climb up a nearby hill that involves 2600' of climbing or I could do hill repeats, but given my situation I'll gratefully accept and assess all suggestions.

BTW, we're probably a 350 lb. team (I'm 200) so we're toting 400 lbs up the hill, but in my youth (late 30's) I was a pretty fast trail running and did a 2:42 marathon (at 190 lbs.) so I've probably got some cardiovascular capability left.

Carbonfiberboy 

We're about the same as you, as you probably already know. We're smaller folks, though, only 305 right now. This is getting toward the end of Stoker's first year of what we might call Real Riding. My observation is that we get faster quickest when she gets faster. I can probably get another 10% out of me, but I'm already pretty highly trained. So I'd recommend continuing to train as a team. Power and muscularity now, working for weight loss probably starting in March or April.

My second observation is that 1500' isn't much for a weekend ride. Not meaning to be a pig about it or anything, but I know what it takes to train myself up for the big rides. I'll be wanting us to be doing 70 mile, 4000' rides by March, if we can. Right now we're doing 35-50 mile, 2000'-3000' Sunday rides. My practice is to do a big ride on the weekend, then only almost flat rides during the week for endurance and recovery. It's all about climbing. That's how I get strong, and it's working for Stoker, too. My MHR is about the same as yours. We'll take it up into the high 150s, low 160s on a tough climb where we know we won't blow. The really hard stuff is necessary.

We're in the PNW, though, and don't ride outside during the week in winter, just the one Sunday ride. You can see what we do instead on my winter training thread on this forum. Stoker doesn't do exactly what I do. She subs Tai Chi for one of my workouts and an hour of very high HR dressage (horse) work for another. She'll hit 170 HR on a horse. Major aerobic and leg hit. She can't get it that high on the bike.

I've been leading rides for years and now lead a tandem group. Group rides are the thing, I think. We keep it social, not just a ride. These people are our friends and we see them socially. We find these rides to be good team builders. We both have to want it. Doesn't have to be just tandems. Moderate singles can learn to get your mudflap in their teeth when they need to and will stay with you on the climbs.

Your cramping is mostly just a lack of conditioning. I've found a hard ride once a week is the way to go for me, and also is working for Stoker. But it has to be a pretty hard ride, one where you go LT for 10-20 minutes and then drop down 10-15 beats and recover there, then go again.

I wouldn't add another hard ride to your schedule. You won't recover, and then your stoker won't get the workout she needs. We find that neither of us can go harder than the other. I'll put out 300 watts to her 150, but we're both working equally hard. Our secret is that we both run coded HRMs and we periodically announce our HRs and we don't lie! So she'll say "142" and I know I should be doing 142 also. To simplify matters, and to give her a slight advantage because women naturally run higher HRs, we just keep ours the same. Seems plenty hard enough for her. I'll say "pedal" sometimes and sometimes "easy" or "back off". Or she'll say "circles" to me when I get tired and start hammering the downstroke. After an hour or so, our HRs will just naturally sync up.

We also take a spin class together and lift weights together. I think that helps us a lot, individually and as a team.

It's a team sport. Just climb more together, a lot more. Stoker finds Tums a great cramp remedy.

DannoXYZ 

On our tandem, I have the sync set up on a 4:5 ratio so I spin faster than my wife. This lets me spin faster since my wife isn't used to it. Spinning faster also lowers the pedal-forces required to generate any given amount of power, thus saving the leg muscles.

In your case, it's not so much the hills that's hurting you, but a matter of fitness and conditioning. Your muscles aren't used to the forces required for the duration required. I'm assuming that your muscular system is more limiting than your aerobic system. This is typically the case anyway, if you hit max-HR at the top of a hill, you just coast down, recover and your heart & lungs are ready to go. But if your muscles start cramping from over-use, they're pretty much are goners; your ride is over. You gotta limp home at reduced speed to not trigger massive cramps.

So, you need to do strength-training and speed-work. Replace 2 of your weekday rides with the following (best if done solo):

1. sprint-day, this is the shortest-duration, highest-intensity day, takes about 1-hr. Do 5-mile warm-up and find a loop or long straight road somewhere. Starting at your average-speed, do an all-out, 100% screaming bloody-murder sprint as hard as you can for as long as you can (about 20-35 seconds). Try to spin your legs as fast as you can 120-150rpms+. You may need to shift up one or two gears along the way to maintain the intensity. Rest to recover completely and do it again. About 5-10 sprints, then go home.

2. interval-day is 2nd-shortest duration, 2nd-highest intensity and works on your muscle efficiency. You can do any combination of 1, 2, 3, 5 minute intervals you want. Usually 5-10 of them depending upon your fitness and recovery state. These are done at steady-intensity above your AT/FTP level (average-speed) so that you hit max-HR by the end of the interval. So if your 1-hr TT speed is 20mph, you'll want to do the 1 minute interval at 90% of an all-out sprint, 2-minute intervals may be at 25mph, 3-minute at 23mph, 5-minute at 21mph, etc. If you blow up before the end of the time, go slower next time. If you've got something left to give, go faster next time. Keep a log so you can fine-tune your interval-intensity so that you blow up right at the end. Rest and recover between each one and do it again. Then go home, probably 60-90 minutes total.

After a month of two of doing these two workouts, you'll find a tremendous improvement in your average-speed and endurance; on the flats and up the hills. Speaking of hills, do some experimenting. Try one gear lower than before and see how your HR and leg-muscles feel. Then one gear higher and notice the differences. As you build up more strength from the sprints and intervals, you can use one or two gears taller than you are using on the hills currently. This will lower the HR at the same speed.

Also, if it's OK with your doctor, do a max-HR test to determine your real max-HR. Having a concrete number really helps in defining training zones. Although knowing your HR at AT/FTP is more useful. The 2x20 test is good for determining that.

rdtompki

Something to take away from these much appreciated responses.

DXYZ, since our mid-week tandem rides are usually easy I might try incorporating one mid-week workout on my single. I recently bought a trainer and this should be a good platform for interval-type work. I need to be mindful of recover since even at my most fit I would need 2-3 relatively easy days between hard runs with the "guys".

CFB, I think your right-on regarding doing more climbing. We're in the "country" 50 miles south of San Jose, CA so no other tandems in the immediate area; available rides are either 50 ft/mile or a dead end ranch road killer climb. ACTC (Almaden Cycle Touring Club) based in San Jose has tons of rides, but the climbing rides have a lot of climbing so we would wind up riding by ourselves even though we can probably do the ride average. Western Wheelers is starting their LDT series on January 8; their rides tend to have a decent amount of climbing and usually have 3+ tandems show up. First century of the year is 1 January, but it's in the desert with little climbing. Our real target is the Tierra Bella in April. We've done the 100K, but the Century adds 3000' of climbing for a total of about 5500'.

Our low gear is a 24-32, but if we could get to a lower climbing cadence I'd love to change our 11-32 for an 11-28 or 12-28 if I could find one. Closer gearing would be a big plus on rollers. We really don't need the 11 since our large chainring is a 60 equivalent.

Carbonfiberboy 

50'/mile is fine. That's 3000' in 60 miles, a very nice ride, and about the rate you are looking to do. For our group ride, we usually drive 30 miles, sometimes more, to get to where the other folks are. Driving Sunday mornings isn't too bad. I wouldn't do a century this early. Stoker morale. We run 52-39-26 up front and a 12-34 in back and can always find a gear we like except when it gets too steep. We like a 78 climbing cadence. Any lower than 70 and our legs don't last. Run a SS with the rings and cogs on some candidate sets and see how the middle and big rings break out the gear-inches. We don't need anything bigger than 52X12. We descend like stones: low frontal area. Stoker closes her eyes at 42.

My training program is built to peak us in July so we can ride in the mountains. We don't do our first pass climb until the end of May, when the snow has reliably melted from the target. Although this year we intend to ride the first two brevets of an SR series, a 100k and a 200k, both in March. Those will be extremely hilly rides by our standards. We'll just suffer a little. I might continue solo with 300k and 400k brevets. Stoker doesn't like me riding at night, so I probably won't do a 600k.

In any case, this time of year for me, I'm starting to do tempo and one-legged intervals on my rollers. I do tempo at 87% of LTHR + 5 beats, and at 70-80 cadence, the closer to 70 the better, so big gear. 2 X 15' X 15', building to 2 X 30' X 15'. I find these absolutely fabulous early spring strength-builders. I combine these with one-legged pedaling, 2' 50 cadence each leg, 2' legs together Z2, 2' 80 cadence each leg, 2' legs together, etc., gears big enough to have me crying for my mommy the last 15 seconds, and done continuously for 15', working up to 45 minutes. These both have to be done on rollers or trainer. No good outside. These are probably the two most important workouts in my climbing preparations.

I do 1-leg Tuesday, tempo Wednesday, so they don't affect Sunday. About April we'll start 50 cadence muscle tension climbing intervals on the tandem, done at about the same HR as the tempo intervals, having quit the tempo ones in March. More muscular endurance work. We'll do those on Thursday so we'll be recovered from Sunday.

I might get to Danno's high HR workouts or I might not, depending on the other hard group rides we do and my recovery. I usually incorporate those types of intervals right into our group rides in the form of hill sprints and attacks. I do start them now, but they're done with Stoker. We did our first ever standing hill sprint this Sunday. Stoker said, "I pulled up! Hard! We dropped them all!" This is the "racing into shape" theory. Adds motivation.

DannoXYZ 

Personally, I don't like to do sprints and short-interval workouts on group rides. It ends up being too long of duration and I can get over-trained. One of the key components in sprints and intervals is complete recovery in between and it's not really possible unless the group is doing that workout as well.

I'll do group rides for long-intervals (3-5min), tempos, hillclimbs or endurance rides (3-4 hrs). Up Big Basin across Skyline and down Pagemill is a fun one. Or straight across and down to Santa Cruz and back. Or Mt. Diablo to the observatory. I can't wait to move back to the Bay Area.

rdtompki

Hill Climbing Plan Update
I've started on a strength training program 3x/week. Found a trainer who is an experienced cyclist and she has set up a simple program using 10 or so different machines. Reps 3 sets of either 10-15 or 15-20 depending on muscle group. I think an improvement in overall fitness is in order and the leg-specific exercises won't hurt.

We tried our benchmark 3000' climb (in 11 miles) today and didn't fare too well. It's a very tough go for us under the best circumstances with an opening 1/2 mile climb 11%+, a high average grade and a final killer that hits 16% near the top. Our mileage has been off these last two months because of the weather and I had set my sights a bit too high.

We're definitely going to be doing more climbing and I think we'll go harder on the easier/shorter climbs on some of our normal rides to simulate something steeper. We'll see how it goes.

deep_sky

I would definitely recommend you join us on the LDT series, we do rides around your target distance/feet of climb that you are looking for (generally the C rides should fit the bill). I myself am starting training for the Tierra Bella century. However, I am a single, and my training seems simple in comparison to all the stuff a tandem team needs to go through

EDIT: dagnabbit, my sig didn't show up. I am a member of the Western Wheelers, for clarification

ericm979

I do weight lifting most of the year, stopping for only about 6 weeks around my 'A' race. But even though I can see big improvements in my leg strength in the weight room that doesn't translate to climbing speed on the bike. But I do it for general health.

I do think that having a stronger core helps on the bike. If nothing else it helps keep those muscles from getting tired on a long ride. Nothing like an aching back to take the fun out of things.

To improve climbing ability I do sweet spot training- climbing intervals at 90% of threshold. I do these with a power meter but you can do them by HR or PE. You get most of the benefits of threshold training (i.e. 2x20s) but with less stress. So you can do more of it. A 2600' climb would be perfect- you can work up from say 30 minutes to about an hour. Just be sure to pace yourself on the steep parts to stay around 90%. It's easy to go too hard there. Unlike an all-out climbing ride, you won't feel wasted after this unless you do a lot of it. But it helps a lot. When I added one 45 min SST session a week I got a nice boost in threshold power.

rdtompki

My "training" time is limited and the weekly, longer tandem rides can be a big workout. I don't have time to get too structured, but I'm beginning to realize that as we've gotten stronger on the tandem I've started to conserve on the climbing which is probably the very opposite of what I should be doing on these rides. The strength training isn't so much to get faster, after all what's the difference between 4 mph and 4.5 mph, but to lower my HR at that given power level. My max MR is probably 165 and when we're doing a long climb with long pulls at 10% my HR is in the upper 140's, this with very low gears. Realistically, I'm pulling the equivalent of a 75 lb bike on the climb. I love the challenge and would like to see us get through some of these centuries, a big accomplishment for two old folk.

Carbonfiberboy 

I'm thinking that you mean SST at 90% LT power, not 90% LTHR. Translating to HR, IME 95% or so would be closer for SST HR. Is correct? Thanks.

On a shortish 3-4 hour tandem ride, I'll cruise the flats at 88%-90% of LTHR.

Chini563

You'd be fine if you guys continue to tackle the hills keep pedaling...Oh btw on a climb you guys should unclip on one side and drive up the hill I call them hill intervals repeat with the other side and check your gears run a high rear cassette 11/25,27,28