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Getting Back in the Saddle After a Crash

About 8 weeks ago I was post surgery for a busted clavicle and in the midst of a five day hospital stay after crashing out of the Cherry Blossom Challenge.  About 3 weeks ago I got back on the trainer for the first time since the accident, and since then I've been progressively trying to turn around 5 weeks of absolute inactivity (healing doesn't count for inactivity though…)

It's been an eye-opening experience, to say the least, and it's made me think long and hard about the process I've been going through.  Click through to read deeper into it: (more…)

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Ride Stronger: VO2 Max Workouts

20090906000556_bicycle-racerAmong the many weapons in the armament of the cyclist who wants to ride stronger, one of the least practiced and most important is VO2 max repeatability.  The ability to accelerate and push your body to the limits, recover at threshold and repeat that process over and over is one of the most versatile and important skills for a cyclist to possess.  It's also the one that's almost always lacking in the cyclists that I consult with or coach, and it's one I drill home in my training plans.

The real question most people follow up with is “why?”

Before I answer, first let's delve into VO2 max a little bit.  For our purposes, a VO2 max level effort (or a Zone 5/Z5 effort) is a suprathreshold effort that is sustainable for around 3-8 minutes (depending on the intensity of the effort.)  It is a mixture of aerobic and anaerobic energy production and is most often used in pursuits, attacks, bridging small gaps and short climbs.  By the numbers, it's an 8 to an 8.5/10 on an RPE scale, 105%-120% of Functional Threshold Power and >105% Lactate Threshold Heart Rate.

After the jump, I'll give you some more detailed information and a couple workouts to help you build your Zone 5 Repeatability (Z5R).

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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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The Cost Of Bike Racing? (Podcast #56)

So you're thinking about racing a bike, but you're concerned about the cost.

You're not the only one, apparently.

Recently, an article in the UK based Telegraph caused a little bit of a stir in the cycling world, claiming that the cost of racing was approximately £25,000.  £25,000!!  Adjusted to USD, that's around $39,000!  That's a salary for a lot of people!

And that's completely insane.

There's no earthly reason racing a bike needs to cost that much.  In fact, if you read other articles by the same author, you get a different impression: the author is racing at an elite level, attempting to recapture a lost opportunity of his youth.  He's not starting off racing a Cat 5 criterium, or a weekend stage race where you're competing against other guys who are coming out to have a little fun and maybe sprint for a pair of tires.  We're talking two different worlds here.

But the article did get me thinking about what IS the cost of racing a bike?  And if you wanted to start racing a bike today, what would you need to lay out in terms of dollars and cents.  That's what I'll explore in today's podcast, along with some helpful tips to get you ready to race for the first time.

Click through for a breakdown of what it takes to race on the elite level, and what you need to race on the local level:

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Crashing Out

Crashing out is a terrifying thing to experience, but it's something that every racer, at some point in their career will experience.  I'd heard the stories, read about the pros' trials and tribulations in returning from crashes and comforted friends and teammates who suffered ill fortune and broken bones.  I've even tasted the bitter pill of defeat before: A couple  years ago I released a podcast in which I described the ignominy of DNFing a race.  Almost 2 years to the day I last DNFed a race, I did it again, but this time it was something a little bit different.

This time I crashed out, or more specifically, I WAS crashed out.

And this time, my season crashed out with it.  You can see in the video below the sequence of events that put me on the sidelines for 3 months:

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