Cycling Thread

Yukon John · Post by **Yukon John** » March 18th, 2006, 1:42 pm

Just like Johnny Bike's Running Thread, this is a continuation from the last forum. Anything bike related can go here including; cross-training with erging, cycling workouts, events you enter or are training for, technique, equipment, road, mountain, indoor, or recumbant biking. . . . .

Today I'm going to try a 1/2 marathon on the erg. I've been doing more cycling than erging lately, partially due to a sore back and partially because it's bound to warm up here some day (-40 C yesterday!) and I'd like to be able to be ready for a few races during our short summer. It will be interesting to see how the 1/2 goes with decreased erging. Probably not as well as I would like, but maybe it will be a good test of overall conditioning, if not, a good workout!

John.

Yukon John · Post by **Yukon John** » March 18th, 2006, 7:12 pm

Well, it worked! I think the cycling has helped my rowing. I did a half marathon just now and took off 5:20 off my time (1:21:23.5.) I felt like quitting a few times, but luckily hung in there. I've rowed about twice a week for about a month or so, so the cycling must be the reason for the improvement.

Citroen · Post by **Citroen** » March 18th, 2006, 8:54 pm

Yukon John wrote:Well, it worked! I think the cycling has helped my rowing. I did a half marathon just now and took off 5:20 off my time (1:21:23.5.) I felt like quitting a few times, but luckily hung in there. I've rowed about twice a week for about a month or so, so the cycling must be the reason for the improvement.

Well done John. That beats my 81:47.7.

hanktoberfest · Post by **hanktoberfest** » March 21st, 2006, 9:38 pm

Thanks for starting the thread. I started erging about 2 months ago to keep in shape for the cycling season. I try to get in a few races a year with a single speed bike. my question is that about 10 minutes into a bike ride my butt/upper thigh is really sore when I jump off the bike to walk/run up a hill. When I jump back on the bike it's like nothing hurt at all. Never really had a pain like that before so I'm linking it I guess to erging. Anyone else get this? I'm pretty comfortable on the erg without any problems or soreness. I love the ergometer, 30 minute session watching Sports Center every morning. Also, anyone see any crazy benefits from erging in the morning and riding in the afternoon or is that just pushing it? Thanks for any help.

Hank

ps. good riddance T.O.!

Yukon John · Post by **Yukon John** » March 22nd, 2006, 12:38 am

Also, anyone see any crazy benefits from erging in the morning and riding in the afternoon or is that just pushing it?

Hank

Hi Hank,
I'm not sure about the soreness in your legs, I haven't run into that. On your second point about doing two workouts / day, erg then bike. I do some of that myself and it works well as long as I plan in some recovery time and not hammer too much. I shoot for about 3-4 hard workouts a week depending on what my goals are. Right now I'm trying to fit in some longer easier bikes with 2-3 shorter interval sessions. If I were looking at getting in an erg race, I'd up the speed work there. I think that doing 2 workouts / day is a good way to increase fitness quicker then one longer session and cross training with both sports uses the muscles in different ways and is easier for your body to tolerate. Xeno said in one of his posts that when he was training a lot he included and got a lot of benefit from cycling. I think it can work both ways. There are a lot of people who have more experiance then I do here, hopefully they'll jump in with their experiances/insights. John.

Yukon John · Post by **Yukon John** » March 28th, 2006, 12:09 am

I cycled a 100k on Sunday, the farthest I've yet to go. I'd better qualify that. It was done on a wind trainer, so, with the ability to vary the resistance, it was "roughly" 100k. One thing that really helped with the long time on the bike was eating some modified Francois's Power Bars. I looked on the old forum to try to find his original recipe and couldn't find it. I've mutated it over time to suit my taste buds (a bit sweeter

) and to go with locally available ingredients and this is what I've come up with (not better then Francois's, just a bit different.) The easy part of this is that you throw everything into a bowl, mix it up, put it into a spray oiled 11X13 glass pan and you're almost there. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here is what I put into it (with a few comments.) This can easily be cut in half, but since my kids love these, I make more so that I can get some!

Francois had down soy protein power. I couldn't find that here so I use some stuff that's a mixture of rice protein and pea protein.

1 C protein powder
1 C Flour (I use whole wheat or Rye)
1 C Bran (wheat or oat)
1 t Cinnamon
1.5 t Salt
1+1/2 C Brown sugar
2 C semi-sweet Chocolate Chips (peanut butter or carob chips work too)
1 C Dried Cranberries
1 C raisons
2 C Seeds/nuts (I use about a cup of flax seed ground up in a coffegrinder
and one cup of sunflower seeds
Francois had 3C of soy yogurt, I can't get that so I use
1 package soft tofu (mashed up) and
1 C of either Rice syrup, honey, or maple syrup (if you use the 3 cups of soy yogurt, it would be too wet with the addition of the Rice syrup)
1/4 C of olive oil
1/4 C of Vanilla

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes, then
cut into bars (it works well to wipe the edge of the blade onto something, ie. edge of a pot, then dip it in HOT water between cuts)
Cook for another 30 minutes.
Do the cutting thing again, then turn on to cooling rack.

I like this recipe because it's pretty wholesome (except maybe the Choc. chips, and sweeteners!), it's easy to make and the bars hold together well. Other Granola Bar recipes I've tried tend to fall apart. Now that I've got a power bar recipe that I like, I'd like to find or come up with a home made drink mix that's cheap and works. If anybody has anything like that, please let me know. John.

Jim Barry · Post by **Jim Barry** » March 28th, 2006, 3:16 pm

100k on a trainer? Nice work, John. I can do about 90 minutes before I lose my mind. I love a 3 hour ride however. Boy, does it suck the calories out of you.

I had been running in February quite a bit but a persistently sore knee made me switch to the bike. I have a course I like to race myself on and at the beginning of March on a blustery day I took my first ride of the season and did it in 68 minutes. (my record set last summer is 59 minutes in calm wind). That actually aggrevated the knee more and was then diagnosed with ITB syndrome, (frictional rubbing of tendons on the outside of the knee). I ended up just laying off exercise completely for 3 weeks. In that time I kept my spirits up by searching on new/used road bikes on ebay. As the three weeks expired I landed a good deal on a cannodale CAAD 6 bike and had it waiting for me in my garage.

Here it is:

http://x11.putfile.com/3/8521061375.jpg

On Sunday I took it out for a trial on the course and this time the winds were steady and very often in my face. I did the course in 65 minutes which is a 3 minute improvement in 3 weeks (HR avg was the same at 80% HRR). There are two things at play here. One has to be a loss of fitness over the weeks (3 minutes maybe??) and the other is clearly the effect of having a competitive road racing bike under me. Could the bike be good for 6 minutes of positive gain? 10% efficiency effectively? If I break it down the aero wheels and fork have to be about 3%, the hi-tech frame translating the power more efficiently about 3% and the 30% reduction in weight about 3%. I suppose it could be that much faster. Over the years I've ridden one course where I know the triathlon times and was only good for 80% of the winner's speed (winners are national level competitive). Considering that this ride was just one leg of their event I was mightly impressed with their cycling. But the question of how much faster is a race bike vs a run-of-the-mill Trek "sport" bike was still an unknown. Based on my little trial here I'm thinking the race bike effect is significant. Top level triathletes are still amazing though.

Yukon John · Post by **Yukon John** » March 28th, 2006, 5:08 pm

Nice looking bike Jim!!! Did you notice any difference in comfort compared to your old bike? When I switched up to my Giant bike I couldn't believe the difference. There is lots of Carbon fiber in the front fork, spokes, rims and hubs. Someone told me that Carbon Fiber gets rid of a lot of vibration. A lot of our roads up here are made with chip seal. It's a bit rougher then regular roads and I used to get off of the old bike and still feel like I was shaking. Not so now. Have you considered Aero bars. I really like them, it's like switching to an easier gear when they're used. It would be interesting to find out how much of a difference the different features on a bike make (in terms of speed.)

I'm looking forward to getting on the roads, you're making me a bit jealous. I had to plow snow off of my driveway yesterday! Our first local race here is April 26th. Hopefully we'll stop having snow and they can get the gravel off of the roads soon! Probably another 2 weeks or so before that happens

Bummer about the ITB syndrome. Is there any physio involved with your recovery, or was switching to the bike and some rest enough to let it heal?

Jim Barry · Post by **Jim Barry** » March 28th, 2006, 6:24 pm

That's tough to still have the snow. I was into the mt bike last year and we had 2 feet in the woods at this time last year. I was like a kid that could not wait for xmas. All dreams. I feel for you.

Do you have the TCR?

The carbon fiber front forks are nice and the wheels are super strong and with the grippy tires I have a lot of nice road feel. The rear triangle is "flared" so it takes some shock while still giving lateral stiffness. At 2.6lbs (1.2kilos) this frame does quite a bit with so little. Aero bars are undecided right now. My riding partner just got a Cannondale R5000 so we'll just want to match technical aspects so our training rides have parity. My other riding partner/neighbor does tri's and may go serious this year and go full aero. I'd probably have to get the bars to keep up.

It's an interesting bike as it is one of the factory Cannondale bikes that raced in 2001. A little digging around shows the Wheelworks/Cannondale team racing the USPS team in the San Francisco Grand Prix. This bike may well have raced against Lance Armstrong. I do not know if any of you use your imagination when you ride, but this bike gives the daydreams I have a twist of reality. I just can't be Lance!

Jim Barry · Post by **Jim Barry** » March 28th, 2006, 11:30 pm

On the trainer for 35 minutes today. First time in 10 months. Still tough to get the HR up for at least 15 minutes, something that I find strange about the trainer. Then I got a groove for 20 minutes working on a keeping a steady 90rpm and then began that all too familiar sweatfest.

Francois · Post by **Francois** » March 29th, 2006, 11:21 am

Yukon John wrote:Have you considered Aero bars. I really like them, it's like switching to an easier gear when they're used. It would be interesting to find out how much of a difference the different features on a bike make (in terms of speed.)

With the aero bars, I am about 2 km/h faster.
So, assuming Jim was averaging 36 km/h, he could save another 3 minutes on his 65 min ride!

Francois · Post by **Francois** » March 29th, 2006, 11:27 am

Jim Barry wrote:On the trainer for 35 minutes today. First time in 10 months. Still tough to get the HR up for at least 15 minutes, something that I find strange about the trainer. Then I got a groove for 20 minutes working on a keeping a steady 90rpm and then began that all too familiar sweatfest.

Are you using a fan (or two)? There are a must when on the trainer and for erging!

Yukon John · Post by **Yukon John** » March 29th, 2006, 11:59 pm

quote]
Are you using a fan (or two)? There are a must when on the trainer and for erging![/quote]

I use two different things for trying to keep the sweat level down. Since we're still into winter here I just open a window and get the room temp. down to somewhere around 8-10 degrees Cel. Today when I raced a 2k on the erg I did that and had a large fan blowing full force, felt a bit like being on an ice floe with a nor-easter raging

.

As far as mountain biking in the snow goes, some people here are really into it. I don't think I have the patience (or the skill) to be a successful snow biker. In Alaska they've had a race called the Ididabike, which follows part of the Ididarod (sp?) sled dog race. Some people even invent bikes with double wheels for flotation, fun stuff.

When my wife and I were going to school in Fairbanks AK. We lived one year in a cabin about 4-5 kilometers from the campus. We used our mountain bikes to commute back and forth. This was ok until the temp. dropped below -50F. That was not fun

. We'd stop several times along the way to thaw out the parts of our faces that had froze and the bikes!!! You had to stand most of the time in low gear because the grease on the bikes was so stiff. To top it off, while working hard to move the bikes, you were breathing in the thick ice fog (carbon monoxide anyone?). I'm glad those days are past and I live in the Yukon now where the winters are somewhat milder.

Francois · Post by **Francois** » March 30th, 2006, 6:52 pm

Yukon John wrote:When my wife and I were going to school in Fairbanks AK. We lived one year in a cabin about 4-5 kilometers from the campus. We used our mountain bikes to commute back and forth. This was ok until the temp. dropped below -50F. That was not fun . We'd stop several times along the way to thaw out the parts of our faces that had froze and the bikes!!! You had to stand most of the time in low gear because the grease on the bikes was so stiff. To top it off, while working hard to move the bikes, you were breathing in the thick ice fog (carbon monoxide anyone?).

Talk about character building!

Going through all this hardship must have created special bonds between the two of you!

Yukon John · Post by **Yukon John** » April 12th, 2006, 4:22 pm

Talk about character building!
Going through all this hardship must have created special bonds between the two of you!

It wasn't that pleasant, but a lot of people were in the same boat (poor student syndrome

)

Question: Lately before doing a race (ranking attempt), I begin by doing a half hour to hour spin on the bike first. I then row about three k on the erg with a couple of 200 - 300 metres intervals at or slightly faster than race pace. I remember Calgary Rob mentioning that he does at least part of his warm up biking. Does anyone else incorporate this into their routine? I find that the routine mentioned above helps to get me prepared both physically and mentally. Not to mention making me feel like I'm helping to prepare for some summer biking activities.