pedal on the downhills

BG, sounds like cho intake is suspect, see my postings and those of bikemax's on how much you should be taking during a day and during a ride. Take one of the unflavoured energy drinks to get around sweetness thing. more cho energy won't make you put onfat, it will just give you more energy for trianing, so your intensity will goup, recovery will increase, and you'll get fitter in the bargain. Shouldn't be such a tough sell?

they have snow, we have taxi's..

Sorry to hear bikemax is closing its doors in favour of online coaching. At least one of the flag-bearers of systematic training with power has made it much more accessible, in both senses. Come on gauties, how about an indoor power-training facility?

must be that helmet you wore that was making you irritable.. dunno if this is old news to y'all, but a study was done (cited on cyclingnews bout 2 mo back) which showed motorists gave helmetless cyclists and women (helmet or no) more passing room - which proves conclusively that wimmin are worse cyclists! aahh, gotta love logic..

not exactly pc, but that's The Onion for you... Avoiding eating in order to improve your appearance is part of being a woman, and it's natural for a woman to devote all of her time to achieving a figure pleasing to the male eye. While there are many ways to get hot, one of the simplest, fastest, and most effective is through self-starvation. However, anorexia, like all things, is best used in moderation. For example, you should never get so thin that you lose your tits. <?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> I've seen it time and time again: A woman of "normal" weight buys a scale, tapes pictures from W magazine to her refrigerator, draws a weight chart on her bathroom mirror, and makes a commitment to subsisting on iced tea and steamed broccoli. She resists the temptation to cheat, and slowly, her will power is rewarded: The butterfly emerges from its chrysalis. The pounds melt off, and she is undeniably hot. But then, sometimes, inexplicably, something goes wrong. Rather than maintaining her new slim, sexy body through marathon training and obsessive calorie counting, a woman will continue to shed pounds, starving herself?dreadfully, heartrendingly?way past the point of hotness. Reality check, ladies: If your ass resembles your scapula, you are in the danger zone. That kind of thing is not attractive. It's like I told my ex-girlfriend Lisa: Feminine fragility is a plus, but if I actually snap your arm while having sex with you, you've gone too far. A woman should have a pleasingly light, impossibly fragile appearance, much like a piece of fine china, but if her body has begun digesting the calcium in its bones to sustain its necessary functions, there is a good chance she has starved herself beyond the point where I would even want to have sex with her at all. Fat on the upper arms, hips, or waist is a turn-off, but there should be a thin matting of fat underneath the skin to prevent a man from being able to make out your skeletal system. A lot of girls don't know this, but slightly rounded, healthy appearing limbs are sexier than rail-thin ones, provided a man can still wrap his hands around your waist. Women like the emaciated thing, but guys actually like it if a girl's upper thigh is a shade wider than her knee. It's heartbreaking to see a chick who's too anorexic. Don't get me wrong, because a little bit is a plus, but when I see a too-anorexic chick, I always imagine her spending night after night running on her treadmill, trolling the Internet for diet tips, doing stomach crunches in her cubicle, eating head after head of iceberg lettuce?all the while tragically unaware that, at her weight, she could probably be eating 1,000 calories a day. At least 700. Ironically, all her work has left her so crazy skinny, she's as desirable as that fat cow Kate Winslet. Ladies, if you are suffering from too much anorexia, I urge you, in the name of all that is alluring, increase your calorie consumption by about 10 percent. Treat yourself to a bite of your boyfriend's sandwich. Drink a glass of skim milk. See what happens. You might see your ribs filling out a little, and that might frighten you, but please remember: We men like a woman who's obsessively fit and trim, but no one wants to bang a concentration-camp prisoner. Harness the power of your misery and poor body image. You've got a good thing going with that. But just don't go too far.<?:namespace prefix = v ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" />

You're better off skipping breakfast and riding fasted for a short while, like 45 -60 min, but the effect is small, and not worth the deprivation in my opinion - just ride an extra 30 min The timing of eating is important - insulin levels are highest 30-60 min after eating a cho-rich meal. Raised insulin inhibits fat oxidation, so reduce this effect by eating soon after the start of exercise. A study I did showed very slight differences in fat oxidation when riders ate from the start of exercise or from 90 min into exercise, but studies that had the riders eating before exercise showed supression of fat oxidation.

explains a lot.. i'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy

if 60 % is the upper limit of what you can do for long rides, that fine - there's always going to be a tradeoff between intensity and distance - but you're not going to get the greatest fatloss that way, unless you really do ride 25 h + per week. plus you wont get any faster, so 60 % is a bust - unless your fitness, like mine, means that more than that means knit one skip one.

Stickers aren;t going to do it, a hearts and minds operation will. Give time and money to PPA or CSA or drive alive to put adverts in print or on tv, aimed at cyclists as well as motorists - so many cyclists ride like absolute cretins and wonder why they get knocked down or abuse. Start a cyclist education program, approach your local municipality and ask them to put lega signs up warning of cyclists, or ask ppa to do it, they have better access to govt. Something more productive than stickers would be to thank motorists that cut us some sluck - once theyve recovred from the shock of a thank you wave they might even be inspired be nice to other cyclists.

ok the short answer is, go for as many hours as you have/can bear/will be domestically allowed without removal of conjugal or credit card rights. See my previous postings on fat oxidation, but for highest rate of fat oxidation, ride at steady 70-75, even 80 % mhr. Do that 20-25 h/week nd see what happens.. Do consecutive days so that you ride in muscle glycogen depleted state and burn more fat, but still take 50 g carbs per hour form the start of exercise. If you skip brekkers and ride an hour without any carbs you'll burn a few grams more fat, whoopee, rather have brekkers and be a friendlier person. Mix it up so you dont die of boredom, so throw in a hilly ride and a fast tempo ride (80-85 % mhr) per week as well.

depends, as all good scientists say. from what i remember about the col d'aspin, specifically, spinning out my 53-9 on the descent, i think 15 km/h at 217 watts is very generous, unless you weigh 45 kg, so something isn;t right with that power. OOps, sorry, justsaw the alt gain now..You can get a good check of what it should be, cos you can work out the approx power from total weight, slope and speed, assuming no wind. 217 w in an absolute sense is pretty low for climbing, but it would be good if it was say 85 % of you maximal power. what's your 20 km power on the tacx? What weight of you+bike have you entered on the system?

Lefty, your bad manners are matched only by your ignorance. Come back when you have learnt the difference between fact and opinion, as i don't have the inclination to spell it out for you. Given how long people have doing core strength trianing, funny how there are no studies showing it increases cycling power output. The point is being horribly confused here. No-one from the orthodox scientific community (or just the common sense one) disputes that core training is good idea, and it will help back pain, comfot, whole body fatigue and so on. But to state as fact that it increases cycling power is either just unsupported by any evidence - not anyone's opinion - so your believibg it or saying it doesn;t make it so. This really is getting futile. Next we'll be hearing those idiotic nose strips improve performance..

in cycling most of your power is produced indirectly by the core?? There is a serious logic problem with that statement right there.. To correctly phrase, most power is is produced directly by the quads. A stronger core will not reduce fatigue in the primary muscles per se! While it might have some appeal as an idea, where's the evidence to support this shaky premise? You'll have to show some evidence that supports this line of a stronger core will somehow change the recruitment of the primary muscles and so result in their fatiguing less.

Well, i'll add my vote to the "opinion reserved" column. I see ibike has coyly revised their statement about accuracy from +/- 5 % (i.e. 10 % range, exactly the same as polar, i.e. uselss for high-end and accurate training) to "comparable with other powermeters... blah blah "Comparable" is not a unit of accuracy! A steel bike bike is comparable to a titanium one after all.. Maybe the upgraded version is better? wait for some test results.

windbreaker: I cramp when I am pushing the limits BUT I have also cramped during warm-ups without any recurrences during the race or training session - figure that one out. I mostly cramp AFTER a steady state effort. For example I cramp regularly after the Smits climb down the back stretch (high speed, high cadence). hmm thats a new one.. sounds like your golgi tendon organ - the spring referred to earlier that sets the tone of the muscle - is the problem. This is one of the theories of the natural or unstressed cramper. The change of mode fromm pushing up a hill to spinning down the other side supports this idea.

Er, no. Most people that cramp are mildy but not physiologically signficantly dehydrated by the time they cramp. Also, many studies show no relationship between plasma mineral concentration and cramp. hyponatremia is dangerous, but extremely rare and an overblown risk, but it has happened in some ultra-endurance events when very slow people drink way in excess of their sweat loss.

WW, the fact that you took salt and nothing happened shows it's unlikely to be mineral loss, but yes, there are those who are natural-born crampers and the reasons are poorly understood. Still, if you;re loosing tons of salt, replacing some won;t do any harm, and will help your fluid retention to restore normal hydration status afterwards. Although cramping usually diminishes with increased fitness, if you don;t pace yourself sufficiently and ride yourself stukken in every race, chances are you'll keep cramping. The acid test is, do you cramp in easy rides and when not tired, or only when doing high intensity or late iin races when the muscles are strating to feel it? If the latter, then pacing looks to be the culprit. Another reaosn may be chronic under-recovery, i.e. the total load is just too much, so it may be that you have to reduce your trianing, not increase it. I have seen a pretty high-level vet rider with a million years racing and winning who became a chronic cramper, and with less training just abut instantly performed better and only cramped the next time he did a 4000m gain alpine randonee, finishing in the top 20 nogal..

Maybe Vermox? seriously, it could be that you're metabolically a reluctant fat oxidiser, or that you're simply doing more volume than before?

Cramp is mostly to do with fatigue, not mineral deficiency, but dehydration can play an aggravating role. Solution is totrain more, and even more importantly, no matter what your fitness, pace yourself - go too hard too soon and you will cramp. Staying away from bigger gears also helps.

Fat is burnt at the highest rate at closer to 80 % mhr, not 70 % (Romijn, 1993, 1995). The reason it is so often given as 60-70 % mhr is that the highest proportion of fat is burnt at that intensity range, but the highest absolute rate of fat oxidation is closer to 80 % mhr or 70 % vo2max. Training at 80 % mhr will therefore give you a double benefit of burning fat as fast as possible and increasing your threshold substantially (unless you're already pretty damn fit). In fact, you should only start with threshold trianing when your threshold stops increasing from this tempo training. Unless of course you have been riding for years, and your time is limited (training time, not time on earth), in which case you could go in for some reverse periodisation and start with short-effort threshold training and work from there - not pleasant, but effective..

Quite apart from the ongoing dispute about exactly what the paleolithic diet looked like, it's not so much about what the neo-paleolithic diet contains, as what it leaves out, although (as in the case of dairy), some of it's premises are not supported by physiology or common sense. It's the continuing mistake of coincidence being interpeted as causality - just because some practice is followed doesn't mean it is the best practice.

Wayne Pheiffer behind Robbie?

Hi all. I specify altitude gain in programs, but not everyone has altimeter-funtion hrm's or gadgets. In the spirit of info-sharing, how about publishing the total length and altitude gain of all the hills you know? This will help everyone who wants to use altitude, plus, it will provide hours of fun for hubbers (not to mentionthe weight weenies!!, may they be blown off their bike by 30 km/h x-winds) to compare times up hills and their climbing rates for comaprison with the Div 1's, and even generate a curve showing how power:weight declines with increasing weight. Anyone got Daniel's time up Graskop?? Although i Think a junior has the record-? Dan HEil has done some modelling along these lines already, so we could compare with that too. I'll ask admin how/where to put this on this site as a reference doc. This'll help the locationally-disadvantaged (thats you, gauties..) train more specifically for that li'l ol' ride by the mountain, aka funride world champs. I'll post my downhill times!! thanks in advance ian

most commercial drinks go for 8 % cho concentration, on the basis of many studies showing better gastric emptying at that concentratio , but at UCT we have always used 10 % glucose (bit sweet though), and Refuel is also 10 %, as the gastic emptying difference between 8 and 10 % is minimal, and overcome when drinking sufficient volumes, ie 500 ml/h, bcause the stomach empties faster the greater the volume you through into it.

yes but 8-11 g/day doesn't say at what rate you should ingest cho during exercise - see my earlier postings on this topic. You should be taking about 50-60 grams per hour from the start of exrcise, so read the label to determine how much you get from your drink. Turns out sucrose - energade - may be better than glucose ito of how much the bdy oxidises, but either way, no study has yet shown better performance with different sugars, so go for palatability and price and around 50-60 g/hour, and ideally, a pre-event meal. BTW, the GI of that pre-event meal does NOT matter, when you take an energy drink during exercise.