What's the thing that really boosted your skills/fitness?

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

I cant agree with you more, learn the basics very well and the rest will come....

 

Nb. Even though i am an outside pedal down on corners, there is soem people that will argue that the 9-3 approach can also be used.

Sam Hill is one of those...

[Guest notmyname]

Core, core, core. Loose weight and ride more.

[Martin PJ]

For road it was spinning classes at full gas twice a week, easy class twice a week.

 

For MTB it was fitting a dropper seat post.

[Li Mu Bai]

cycleopsVIP

[Dgas]

Cycleops Powersync trainer and many hours of using it.

[Help.Me.]

Everybody mentions HIT on IDT.......can i/we have some indication of such HIT training plans please. Tried tested and it worked?

[T-Bob]

Everybody mentions HIT on IDT.......can i/we have some indication of such HIT training plans please. Tried tested and it worked?

 

Sufferfest's 'A Very Dark Place' mixed with knowing your zones has always made me feel a little tired. 

[alleyne]

Three things made the difference for me. First was committing to riding twice a week, one ride with mates who were stronger than me amd another on my own. Second was getting a proper bike fit done. Then Lastly using Strava to challenge myself, this meant pushing on segments that I rode weekly and setting the goal of getting at least 2 PB's on each ride.

 

Doing those helped me go from a 3:30 CTCT to a 3:04.

[Eon du Plessis]

Sufferfest's 'A Very Dark Place' mixed with knowing your zones has always made me feel a little tired.

I've only done it a few times and it definitely hurts. You quickly feel results though.

[Enduro_Jakes]

Bike fit and Core training at first...

Then being off the bike for 3 months due to injury, in this time I bought a new bike for a new discipline and my fitness is now soaring upwards...

 

New bike is always a win, you push harder to live up to the machine

[Mongoose!]

Ride with fitter dudes

Who make you cry behind your sunnies

But be careful not to make the fitter dudes cry...should they wait the hole time for you... very related to roadies...lol

[BrandonF_]

Jolanda Neff 

[RocknRolla]

My hubby will Def agree with you there.. and he rides it everywhere, going up or going down, made him very very strong on the climbs, just on the flats he looks like a hamster on a spinning wheel.[emoji102]

I assume you mean cute and fluffy?

 

Cause high cadence is an art on it's own ( one I am not the master of yet)

[JXV]

Ha ha....my most transformative cycling eye opener was a Tallboy LTc.....

[Rick Sanchez]

Identify your weaknesses and start working on them.

Used to suck at technical ascents and had to walk up most of them, but by working on it, I can now ride most things

[intern]

In my experience:

 

1. Bike fit is a waste of money, you can get within 90-95% of your ideal fit with freely available info on the web, combined with your own intuition of what works for you. Unless you're a pro, the other 5% doesn't matter.

 

2. If you want to be fast, train fast. Riding slowly won't make you fast. But it takes time to get there - your muscles have to have strength and conditioning.

 

3. CONSISTENCY is the absolute key. 5, 6 or 7 shorter rides in a week will do far more good than two long rides.

 

4. Rollers at high speed make you fast; it is very high intensity and because of the low resistance, very high cadence, too. It makes you pedal efficiently. It is not easy, though.

 

5. Learn how to push yourself on your own. If it is only you for 100+km, you do ALL the work.

 

6. When you think you can't any more, you still can. I watched a video from vegan clown 'durianrider' where he said the thing he finds aamazing about pro cyclists, aside from all the drugs, is their 'stuff it, just do it' attitude.

 

7. Strava makes that most important of things, interval training, far more fun.

 

8. Diet makes no difference to me at all. I eat whatever I want.