azikara

@pain I think that was my pal Darren that did that Thanks for the replies. CX on the way.

Hi, I'm coming to Cape Town from the US (come pretty often) and I usually bring my road bike for the argus etc. But I'm seriously considering bringing my CX bike where I can swap out clincher tires between road and CX in order to ride trails in the mountains as well as ride the roads. I'm thinking of something like the jeep track that goes from Tokai up into the mountains. I believe this goes to Table Mountain but stand corrected. I've ridden part of that on a friend's MTB but pretty sure the CX bike will be plenty capable up there too since it's not technical at all. What other trails in the area would you consider? Anything out Stellenbosch area? Thanks Tristan

Thanks....still can't believe it.

@Panda CT Now I remember. Didn't you say to me on Boyes, "Don't get dropped!"? Where did you come overall in E? E was a terrific group. I'm guessing the top 4 riders just got away on Chappies because it was a real melee with all the other D and C riders all over the map. I made a bad mistake of not positioning myself well at the base and couldn't see them go. Anyway, happy with my time. Congrats to everyone. Terrific ride.

Was it just me or was E really putting down the hammer up front?

@atraut were you the Brit on the Specialized?

@SirK I was the guy on the Willier who told you that you were an absolute BEAST going up Suilerbossie. I have 2:57:27 on my Garmin but who knows!!! All I did was look for the Bianchi. GREAT effort mate. GREAT ride to all my fellow E-mates. You were all STRONG! I loved it when we rolled through Suikerbossie and the announcer said something like, "OH, there goes D group...blah blah blah..." and then, "OH, and some E's, Those are the E leaders people!!!" Whooo hhoooooo! Best Tristan

Looks like around 3 w/kg. I still had LOTS left in the tank to go hard I was just cramping a bit. Haven't done a hard outdoor ride this year so very happy. This on indoor training only and nothing more than 2 hrs. Actually, that's misleading. 3 w/kg was for 2:57 not for FTP which is one hour. So to re-calibrate, my FTP during the race was only pi (3.14)! So I really DIDN'T need to put down any HARD sustained power for an hour. I only hit a personal best for 4 mins and 50 seconds which was 315 w.

Happy to report: 2:57. Great conditions. Great group. I'm sure there were plenty of fast times.

Happy to report: 2:57

Hi Peter - thanks for the kind words. It actually took some time to write so I am happy someone got something out of it. I started racing last year. Actually the Argus was my first race. I did the Chris Carmichael Time Crunched Cyclist for 11 weeks before the Argus. I did it pretty religiously. I started in T and came third. I got a 3:40. It was basically a TT because there was no one but my two other T guys (who beat me) to ride with and we kept losing each other. In retrospect we should have stayed together. I then returned to Chicago, did two criteriums and a road race and then several more criteriums. I learned a LOT! IF you want to know about criteriums then look at one of my other posts about training. I put some tips in there that I learned the hard way! I am now in E for this Sunday. I can't wait. I'm feeling pretty good and I am stronger than last year. The only thing that concerns me is the duration. I haven't done more than two 3 hour rides this year. Today I did a 2:45 and was quite sore...but something wasn't right. Perhaps the damp weather. Who knows. I still hit some personal bests and was above target on some of my splits. We shall see. The proof is in the race pudding!! I will PM you my surname. Take care and good luck wherever you are riding! T

Good point. I should have qualified this: My comment only applies if you want to be the best cyclist you can be on minimal hours. If you want to do other things that you need other fitness for then your cyclign will take a hit unless you up the hours. It's a trade-off. If you're lifing weights (squats, hip extensions etc) to get stronger legs than I think you can get better fitness doing hill repeats in a BIG gear. But if you want big quads then continue to go to the gym. They won't help your cycling much.

You're more than welcome. Just trying to share what I've learned. Feel free to call bull**** on me! Good luck this weekend if you are racing. Tristan

I have been trying to figure this out. Here's what my coach said: "4 minutes gives you a better workout…And It shows real fitness. I know tons of guys that can do super high ramps because they have super high V02…. But crumble doing longer ramps…. The 4 minutes gives us a better idea of where your fitness is at and you can’t fake 4 minutes at any level. Once it gets to hard… it is obvious. The goal is to see what power you can actually sustain and thrive." Not sure where I could peak on a 1 or 2 min test but defintiely higher than that. I do not think I've been training under because we have not been using this number to set training goals for intervals etc. He has me do a 20 min and 60 min TT to figure that out. My PT is reading 5-6% under (on the stomp test) so for the 4 min MAP I am seeing 303W and my 20 min (Jan 24th) was 279. My FTP is set at 264. Quite happy with this. Went out and rode Chapppies, Smits, Slangkop, Blackhill and Suikerbossie yesterday and felt very fresh. Each time I've done this MAP I've been able to go for 4 mins longer. So definitely things are improving.

Thanks man. For some reason, the brothers really dig it!

Showing up at the Argus on my trusty 2005 Cofidis TDF Team bike sans the Zipps since I need the power data and haven't laced up the PT hub to these yet. Then there's the Blue cross bike. Terrific fun!

Showing up at the Argus on my trusty 2005 Cofidis Team TDF bike sans the Zipps since I need the power data from my PT hub. Then there's the Blue cyclocross bike. Thought I'd share. This is a great sport!

Showing up at the Argus on my trusty 2005 Cofidis Team TDF bike sans the Zipps since I need the power data from my PT hub. Then there's the Blue cyclocross bike. Thought I'd share. This is a great sport!

Disclaimer: I am a second year racer. Second year with structured training. I am 40 years old and an ex-mid level squash player who turned to cycling after knee arthroscopy. I have an Elite/Semi-Pro level coach. I am learning a TON. Your results may vary OK, lots going on here and all good discussion, debate and experience. But I think we are mixing up a few things and causing a bit of a diversion in the response. So, to try and focus the conversation back to the original poster's question: He wants to do the best that he can with the current constraints of time. Obviously he is not a pro and has other commitments (family, work, other). He's read something that says you don't need to do the traditional stuff to compete reasonably at his level and he's interested in if this is true or not. Please don't bring the "you need base miles" etc argument in here because it DOES NOT APPLY in this situation. Sure, it is tried and tested that if you lay down the base, build up periodization, engage in specificity and fine tune, taper etc. then you can peak once or twice during a year. Great. That takes 12+ hours a week and not what we're trying to accomplish here.It is and antithesis of what he's asking about. That's another topic all together. So moving along: You can get great (relative to your goal) results on HIGHLY FOCUSED, HIGH INTENSITY, LOW VOLUME, training. How? Intervals my friend. From 15-30s highly neuromuscular micro and macro bursts to 3-5 min VO2max to 20 min threshold intervals. ALL of these workouts can be done in 1-1.5 hours and ALL will give you good adaptation. In fact, the 2x20 threshold intervals are well known to maximize workout efficiency (time) vs. the mental challenge of longer intervals (we're not all out there doing 60 min threshold, that is hard, nuts and not the answer we are looking for). Efficiency and Quality Squeeze as much juice out of the lemon as you can. Look at what % of time you are spending screwing around slowing for traffic, lights, stop signs etc while out on your 3 hour base ride. Have a plan for your hour. Jump on your trainer, pop in a DVD and GET IT DONE. Do not MESS around. You have one hour. You need 21 mins of VO2max. Can you do it? Sure you can. When you have a power meter you can set your average power to be shown on hte screen. Need 320W average for your 3 min efforts? Hit the lap button, nail the interval and rest. Then repeat 6 times. Simple. A friend of mine is an ex-US Olympic Speed Skater. I asked her why she doesn't coach. "Simple" she said, "I have ZERO empathy for slackers. This is very straight forward: do your workouts 100% and you'll be a champion". How many of us slack off? I bet there are very few of us who have the discipline for this. So set a definite target for your week adn plan it down to the minute. 2 Vo2max sessions, 2 2x20 threshold sessions, one over-under and a nice long group ride on the weekend with your mates while the missus and kids are sleeping. Perfect (6-8 hours right there). If you do this consistently, the results will come. But this is another area we slack off in. So I set a time every morning and I climb on the trainer. Some days are better than others. How? It's cool in SA that you can be outside more. Terrific. But I like the indoor trainer. I find I get more "Efficiency and Quality" indoors. It's just the way it is. End of story. If you're a pro, you can hang out and drink cappuccinos before you head to the hills with your training partners for 5-7 hours. We can't. We have responsibilities. Shock your body with some High Intensity Interval training (HIT). Get HIT! So, to this point: FORGET the gym. End of story. If you're at the gym instead of on your bike and your main goal is the bike AND reduced hours, then you are completely misaligned. There is more CYCLING-related benefit to be gained from you spending your gym hour on the bike than in the gym. Cycling is NOT A STRENGTH LIMITED SPORT. If you can walk up a flight of stairs then you have more than enough strength to ride a bike. You are trying to maximize your muscular, neurological, nervous and cardio systems here to increase efficiency. Fire those muscle groups more efficiently - generate more power (force x speed). Saddle time does this. Not gym time. When I'm in a full out sprint I am developing over 1,000W with a pedal speed of 1.6 m/s-1 and 670N pedal force (equavalent to 68kg with gravity = 9.81). I happen to weigh, you guessed it, 68kg! I met Chris Horner recently (top ten in the Tour de France) the guy has skinny legs. Perhaps he is in the gym as a pro but you wouldn't say the guy has super strong legs. However, he can fire those guys like no body's business. Excellent! I do this all the time. I travel a LOT and I don't always take my bike. I go to spin classes but politely decline to do the class. I do my own thing. 2x20 threshold and 7x3 VO2max are excellent to do in spin classes if you have HR because it's easy to tell if you are hitting the right power output via your HR alone. I know my 20 min threshold HR. So just settle in and hit that for 20 mins. Relax for 7-10 and then hit it again. Done! Can it be done? This is a terrific case study and there are many more: But, some of us are naturally gifted (not me) and some have to work a bit longer. I'm adding a bit more volume to my training (about 9 hrs a week) and we shall see how I do at the Argus. I am about 13% stronger over any interval from 5-60 minutes. Should be interesting. This is my current overall stress picture. You can see last year vs. this year and how I've increased the volume. But this is only because I wanted to get more threshold hours in and being on the road away from family I have more control over it. I live in Chicago. Ex-South African and I am currently working in India and Tokyo. So I travel with a Ritchey Breakaway steel roadbike, PowerTap and a Fluid Trainer. It's hard work but I am putting in 30-33 hours a month in my hotel room. I've also attached my Jan and Feb volumes at different zones (AR = Active Recovery, E = Endurance, TE = Tempo, TH = Threshold, VM = VO2max and AC = Anerobic Capacity) I think this is pretty efficient. I've only done two outdoor rides since Jan. One was 6.5 hrs long and was with a new group who were going pretty slow so there are a lot of "bad" hours in there. But otherwise I think this has been decent.

All I can say is: The trainer is your friend. Get nicely set up with a fan and some good training DVDs or make your own. My coach makes incredible ones with a lot of pumped up music by Eminem and the like. It is quite motivating. He also has some of cyclocross racing which is intense etc. You can get a terrific workout in 1-1.5 hrs on the trainer. I can usually get 90+ TSS in one hour. Another example of a fantastic 1 hour workout is the HOP (Hour of Power) workout. Ride tempo and then CRUSH a 53x12 or 11 every 3 mins for 30 seconds. Stand, sit, in the drops on the hoods - whatever. Trust me, this will keep you busy and the hour will fly by. You do no tneed a warm up for that ride. If you do the 7x3 VO2max work then you must wanm up for 10 mins with 3-4 30s 100+ rpm stuff to prime your lactate buffer. Then do 7x3 at 30-40w higher than your best 20 min effort.

OK. I did a MAP (Ramp) test that my coach prescribed. It starts at 100W and increases by 20W every 4 mins. This seems a LOT longer than the traditional 1 min ramp. So I'm not sure the result would be the same. I think I could hold a lot more wattage at 1 min vs 4. But I topped out at 315. I weigh 67 kg so this is about 4.7. FTP is still in the 3.9-4.1 range. Everything I read says your FTP should be about 0.75 x MAP so I think my MAP is actually about 5.2. I will try a 1 min test soon and see. Flying into Cape Town this Saturday. CANNOT wait to see the ocean and mountains. Hope the weather is great. Cheers all and good luck.

I think you can definitely compete on 6 hours a week of focused, intense training. However, when the events go longer than about 2.5 hrs then you hurt more than when you have a steady diet of the longer stuff. I'm a case in point. I train indoors in the winter (your summer - I'm in the Northern Hemisphere). I did the Chris Carmichael Time Crunched Cyclist program last year and was quite surprised at how I was able to cope with a lot of the anerobic surges. I raced mainly 45 minute criteriums last year so this training was appropriate. It was mainly 3 sets of 3x2 VO2max intervals (actually a little higher than VO2max - for me, around 320W) about twice a week with some over/under sessions which were something like 3 sets of 10-12 min 2 over threshold and 2 under. Plus at least one "group ride" on the weekend. Since I was in India working out in my hotel room, I couldn't get in the group ride so I would ride 2 hours of Tempo on the trainer and watch some cricket. Once I got to the Argus, my first race of the year, I was fine. Actually hit all my best ever peak power outputs in the first hour. By hour three I was not feeling that great but I put this down to zero group rides. So the bottom line is that if you can get in your intervals during the week on a trainer (the best place for intervals because there are no distractions, traffic lights etc) and do 1-2 long group rides then you will be fine. But just make sure you get quality. Don't mess a about. Just get the job done. Where I do feel this program is lacking is in the development of functional threshold power. This being defined as your 60 min TT effort. I think that FTP is the real key to going fast. So this year I got a coach for the first time and he had me doing a lot of threshold work. Mainly 2 and 3x20 min threshold intervals. My VO2max work has changed from the 2 min intervals to 7x3min. These hurt. I also occasionally do macro and micro burst (30s and 15s respectively). These might be 3x10 mins of 30s on and 30s off. The 30 on is all out. I think these are good for criteriums and for cyclocross where you need short bursts of massive power but I don't think they are very useful for road racing. Hope that helps Tristan

Sounds cool. Might show up. Thanks for pointing this out.

Re: Bonking. We should NEVER bonk. If I am following this correctly. My definition of bonking is when your glycogen stores are depleted. So, it makes sense to EAT and eat frequently. Take in something every 30 mins. You should never bonk. Seriously guys. If you are training, why throw away all that hard work when all your body needs is some good source of fuel. Mix up energy bars with gels with real food. You decide but put something in the fuel tank. Drink well too. I have an issue here in that I'm not sure I can finish on 3 bottles. Last year I had to stop twice. Trying to go on three this year. I use Hammer Perpetuum in my bottles. Good stuff. As for training. Someone asked what to do with 1 hr on the spin bike. I am in the Northern hemisphere. It's winter. There are several of us who haven't been outside on a bike since November. I do all my work on a trainer indoors. I did this last year and still felt super strong. I may not be at my peak as this is the first race of the year for me but I'll be fine. So it all depends what you do with the hour. I mix up 2x20 min threshold intervals for building threshold (60 min TT) power and then VO2max intervals like 7x3 min all out intervals together with some other stuff like 3x10 min macro bursts which are 30s on, 30s off. The on is at about 20-30 Watts higher than VO2Max and the off is Tempo. 10 mins of this should average out to your threshold wattage if you have a power meter. If you don't, you should average your threshold heart rate. Do this three times in one hour (5-7 mins between sets). Another TERRIFIC workout on a trainer or spin bike is the HOP (Hour of Power). Basically ride tempo or a bit above (lower than threshold obviously)and NAIL it sitting down, standing up, in the drops whatever for 30s all out every 3 mins. Grind the biggest gear you can. I like standing up and crushing (in my mind) a 53x12. This keeps you working and you will be surprised how quickly an hour disappears. Return to tempo. I have posted my best 60 min FTP this way. Anyway that's what I would do if I were on the spin bike and I am a lot. Mostly, have fun. REST days before the ride. I will take 2 days off before.