pedal on the downhills

you have totally missed the point. Deon and his ilk don;t want cyclists on the road as we're in the way of their smooth progress to do important things like drive to the cafe, so giving him "ammunition" is stupid. Be productive and send it o PPA/CSA/race organisers/traffic, anyone who can have a constructive effect. Racing dumb is dumb, but inevitable, and if there is a crosswind and some kind of apparent rolling road closure by virtue of a lead car, then racers are going to exploit the terrain to drop others. Thats called racing. That said, having been in that situation before many times, and seen the near-collisions, and the il-will it creates, it's up to whoever is directing the race to take charge, ruthlessly.

I suspect you mean specific, because it's pretty structured already. The short answer is it depends - it depends on your previous racing level, age, time availablity, current capcity, and when and what the races are that you want to compete in. sorry, spot the scientist but hey, thats what all the coaches will tell you If you raced at high level, are smart and intuitive and listen to your body, you'll get pretty good results with the method described, and seeing as you've been off for whole while, stick with that until your gains peter out, and then it's time to get more specific, i.e. more time at the business end of training. Plus it's year-end, the season is long, enjoy this approach in the meantime, cos the racing season is long, and no matter how fast we want to go, we do this for fun. Er, hopefully a logbook of sorts features inyour current approach - that way you'll be able to track your capacity and it will fall out of that pretty smartly what more-specifc riding you need to do. ian

Nope. neither is a polymer. Some studies show slower fructose oxidation, some show the same. But it does seem like i might have to review my statement about there being an ideal mix, because having more types of sugars does increase the oxidation of ingested carbohydrate (cho). However, the feeding rate was 72 grams per hour, which means 900 ml/h of most commercial energy drinks, what are the chances of that for most people when racing, so a better approach would be a gu plus liquid. The downside is possible gastric discomfort from the increased cho concentration in the stomach and reduced gastric emptying. There is a significant increase in the quantity of cho that is used by the body when sucrose or fructose is added to a glucose drink, even when the total cho intake is the same. It was always said (i.e. measured) that 1.1 grams per minute was about the maximal rate, while now, with a high rate of combo-cho ingestion (144 grams per hour) that rate increased to 1.7 grams per minute, which is pretty exciting for us sport scientists. On a practical note, that amounts to about a litre of energy drink and 2 syrup sachet's per hour.. What this suggests, but was not measured, is that muscle glycogen might be spared by using this combo drink, which in turn should make you perform better. However, it has yet to be resolved whether this combo drink actually makes you ride faster. UCT should provide the answer in a few weeks.. For starters, go to the link below, and play from there; medline is a great resource for physiology of cycling. Metabolism. 2005 May;54(5):610-8. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?itool=abstractplus&db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=abstractplus&list_uids=15877291

dunno.. i'll send my spies in..

Huh?? the notion that there is some ideal "balance" of carbohydrates is pure marketing baloney. There a million good sport science studies that show that the effectiveness of energy drinks is not related to GI or any mix of different carbs, but simply the rate at which it is ingested - with the notable exception of fructose, which is inferior. There is no difference in the rate at which pure glucose or glucose polymer are oxidised, and the rate of delivery to the intestine from the stomach is dependent on the concentration of the carb drink and the drinking pattern, i.e. the more you drink, the faster it is delivered to the intestine (ok up to a point). At the concentrations we use these drinks, the different sugars are absorbed equal rates. However, Asker Jekendrup recently found that sucrose, of all things, had have a greater rate of absorption at the intestine. This study is being followed up on at UCT to see if that translates into increased carb oxidation and improved performance. And sucrose is.. table sugar! Gatorade? sucrose. Energade? sucrose. Powerade? Sucrose. Game? sucrose. Coke? sucrose. All of them qualify as drink of champions, but the flavour and sweetness may not be so lekker. So, go for the drink that suits your palate and pocket, and make sure that you get enough by taking about 40-50 grams of carb every hour.

Ok, maths lesson time. Speaking in units of bottles and sandwiches is way too imprecise. Your MAXIMAL carb requirement (per mouth, not what your body is using in total) is in the region of 60 grams per hour, MAAAYbe 75 if youre (a lean) 85 kg plus, so 750 ml of energy drink and a gu would be way too much for most people, but the extra carbs wont kill you. Then theres the fluid story: Work out your sweat rate and drink as close as is comfortable to that rate, rather than some fixed number. Sweat rates vary hugely: I have measured sweat rates in riders exercising in hot humid conditions aat the same relative exercise intensity that varied from 5000 ml/h to over 3.5 litres per hour. Try drink 750 ml per hour from the start of the dc and you'll soon be vomiting that up.. So, do some reading of labels and work out how you can get about 50 grams of carbs every hour from the start of exercise and you should be fine.

As far as i remember, the usn product doesnt claim to increase your vo2max as such. it's active ingrediaent is phosphate, which has been shown to improve high-intensity performance.

Belief is the enemy of objectivity. Results vary, but in some case the "heavy breathing" does produce an increase in performance, even in moderately trianed cyclists, and in others it does not. So there is an effect, and benefit to be had. The real question is, is it better than high-intensity training? Probably not, in my opinion. It's like weight training: yes, weight/strength training can, in some cases increase aerobic cycling performance, but it depends on the training state of the rider, but is it better than on-the-bike training? nope.

how would a fat burner hamper performance?

how about you add 20 hours per week? In the immortal words of PB, it's not about how good you look next to the bike, it's how fast you make it go..

Lem is absolutely right; some riders test so-so (in elite terms) yet race well, and not just because they race smart, and others test really well and race poorly. Bottom line is, lab testing has a limited role, but it it still avery important one.

Jamie Pringle's article can't be faulted mostly, but I've been lucky enough to talk to some team physiologists and visit a few olympic training centres, following which lets just say I have it on good authority that 495 watts is the figure. Bigger riders like Indurain and Backstedt might do more, in fact another physiologist in a certain lab whispered 503. If i remember right michel rogers has done 480. Also recently on cycling news a football player turned cyclist did indeed clock a vo2max in the 90's (in an exercise lab, not as reported in huisgenoot), as do X-C skiers.

Chronic high intake of hi gi carbs will NOT necessarily cause diabetes, you can sleep easy. a sedentary lifelstyle and obesity are the main causes.

Yes it does, but the effect depends on your current fitness status.. Initial studies were poorly designed but subsequent studies showed an effect. At very high exercise intensities 20 % + of total oxygen uptake (or was it cardiac output) is used just by ventilation, so improving your ventilatory fitness allows greater work to be done by skeletal muscles. But the far far far greater benefits will come from the right training load, rather than some deep breathing

Dr Seuss is wrong, natural talent is massively important in determining success at endurance sports; all that trianing will do is enable you to reach the limit of your ability - but that doesn't mean give up because youre born to drink warm coke, because most people respond well to training.

Overtraining is real. it is easily measured in terms of effects on central nervous system and structural changes within the muscle among other things, and is not simply a case of being under-recovered. There is a shipload of literature that shows what happens when overtrained, but the point is there are long-term and even permanent effects on exercise capacity Possibly the most idiotic article i have seen on the subject is one that was posted a while back which said that athletes who listened to their symptoms of fatigue were just recreational neurotics, and also, that recovery periods should not be included. This only ignores vast evidence to the contrary and represnets such ignorance or muddled thinking that it doesn't deserve further response. Pros get overtrained too, but not as often as amateurs because by the time they get to that level they've learned to manage their training loads according to their capacity better than amateurs.

natural talent is when you step up and untrained clock 5.5 -6watts kg, and accounts for a huge part of performance. Still, the effect of triaining is so big that a test in the untrained state is a poor predictor of ultimate ability. I have seen many riders go from mediocre to high level with a few years of training. Unlike the pinko liberals would have us believe, we are patently not all born equal, otherwise we'd all have a VO2 max of 80 + - or 60! Champion riders (and those good enough to be pro) always test higher and ride better than the genetically challenged, which is why aa deeply untalented rider can flog himself for years and still get clobbered by an unfit superior rider.