I'm road racing for the first time in 25 years; I must thank Roger Blow for initially twisting my arm, but I have to thank him for the enjoyment I am having from riding my bike with purpose.
I have always been one to practice what you preach or certainly experiment and trial my my own training concepts and philosophy. Everyone says to me that I have an advantage due to my coaching and performance background, but it is hard to coach yourself.
One of the biggest mistakes I see many people making is riding without a plan or structure - which inevitably ends up with riders doing someone else's training.
To get the most improvements, you have to do your training that is targeted and specific.
Most people understand cycling endurance performance and improvement is about riding your bike a lot - but the devil is in the detail concerning how you balance effort and intensity.
Riding in a group is excellent for motivation; having to meet up with a group at a set time certainly gets you out of bed. The issue with group rides all the time is that physically you are not riding consistently enough at an intensity to bring about solid and specifc training adaptation.
Solo riding at fixed lower intensities provides an engine-building training effect - that targets slow-twitch muscles to be more efficient. This increases mitochondria and muscle blood capillary density which is exercise physiology 101 - so why don't many people ride slow to ride fast?
Want to find out more? Send me a message to find out more.
Simon