group riding skills and tips

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Motivation Monday: Getting Dropped By The Group

If you've been following any of my previous Motivation Monday posts, you'll know that I had a big date with Monkey Knife Fight 9 earlier this year.  Suffice to say, the northeast winter put the damper on most of my training and I ended up bailing out on my first goal of the season after only about 55 of the 72 miles.

That was a bummer.  A big bummer.  And it kind of tanked my motivation for the next couple months.

However, if you've been looking at my Strava profile recently, you'll have noticed a big bump in the amount of riding I've been doing.  That's because I've been through “the reckoning” that most of us have been through in the past.  I've suffered at the hands of others.  There are times I've looked down at my legs and wondered why.

I've been dropped out of the group.

Click through the jump and let's figure out why getting dropped out of a group is such a motivating experience.

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Post Workout Recovery Tips

Many of us enjoy riding hard: climbing steep grades, pushing huge gears on the flats and trying to put our riding buddies into difficulty at every opportunity.  But that desire, along with unusually strong work ethic possessed my most cyclists can be a doorway to damnation: overtraining can rear its ugly head.  The key to preventing overtraining, as well as seeing marked improvement may not be your workouts, but what you do in between them.

Check out the post recovery tips after the break and learn how to get stronger and faster by resting and recovering harder.
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The Pre Race Warmup

Have you ever arrived to a ride a few minutes later than you wanted and just jumped on your bike and rolled off with the group?  Do you remember how you felt?  I'd wager that you were probably feeling stiff, awkward and it took you a long time to actually warmup to where you were comfortable and powerful on the bike.

Knowing the consequences of “rolling cold” why do coaches and friends alike have to constantly remind each other to warm up before we ride?  We all know better, and we shouldn't have to be asked the question “why should we warm up before we race (or even ride).”

It's staggering how often I hear this, and it amazes me that people still haven't accepted that they need to warm up before they hit the road in order to have a good performance.  Even more amazing is the number of people who are under warming up, or not warming up to match the effort they are preparing for.

It's time to put a stop to this; we'll explore why we warm up, what it does for our body and then see an example warm up workout.

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Analyzing Your Cycling Season (Podcast #52)

If you don't know the strengths and weaknesses of your fitness, how can you possibly begin to work on them?  If you don't analyze your season, how can you possibly know your strengths and weaknesses?  Sure, you can probably guess at those strengths and weaknesses and you might get some of them right, especially the glaring ones like “I can't climb too well”.  Some other weaknesses aren't as obvious, and guessing at your fitness strengths and weaknesses, training blind and  then hoping for the best is a ticket to failure, or if not failure, sub-optimal performance in races, group rides and fondo rides.

It should sound obvious that you need to do some evaluation of last season's failures, but you should also evaluate your successes so you can improve upon your best performances.  In this episode of the Tailwind Coaching Podcast I'll discuss some tricks for what went right and what went wrong last season, along with why you're reviewing your season now and how to change your training in the coming months.

Click through for show notes and more information:

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Lost Art of the Group Ride – Podcast #45

Everyone loves a group ride, right?  Group rides are chances to catch up with friends, get in a good workout, chase a  few stronger riders or tear the legs off your riding buddies.  But a group ride is as much a dance as it is a ride, and there are a number of things you SHOULD have learned along your journey as a cyclist. Whether you are a group riding sage or a newly minted rookie, you should observe the rules, the etiquette and the sanctity of the holiest of Sunday cycling practices (aside from watching the pros on Eurosport, of course…)

In today's episode of the Tailwind Coaching Podcast, I'll wax poetic on those things that you need to have learned in order to execute the perfect group ride, and I'll cover a couple of things in the cycling news sphere that caught my attention.

That said, today's podcast will include:

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