Dear Athletes,
Today we are continuing our series of bike emails (this is week 3, email 3). For the past 2 weeks, we have looked at the importance of the bike segment of the triathlon. I have introduced you to my 2 simple principles of racing, being fitter than your competitors and also knowing more than your competitors.
Last week we looked at developing bike fitness and the importance of you able to ride at times without ‘help’ from other athletes. We have discussed that specific fitness comes through training on difficult terrain (which the outdoor sessions provide through hills, wind, and skill development through exposure to nature’s elements) and noted it takes time to develop through basic technique development and consistency of work.
This week we are going to look at some key skills you need to develop as your bike fitness progresses to ensure you have a ‘complete’ set of bike racing skills for triathlon.
Regardless of your swim ability, there will be times in a triathlon where you find yourself being chased, or chasing during the bike. Therefore, it is absolutely vital you have the skills to perform in this inevitable scenario. To ensure you have them all, you need to be able to time trial (TT), attack /bridge, corner, climb/descend.
If you are able to ‘outperform’ your competitors in these skills, you will most likely be able to chase or hold a lead pack’s advantage throughout the bike portion of the triathlon. Or, put more simply you will be able to ride faster!
Below is a table illustrating the time difference between completion times over 40km for athletes who ride at increasing speeds. It shows that if you are able to ride the course event at only 1km/hr faster than your competitors you will make at least a minute and up to 2 minutes over those you are chasing. Riding faster does not necessarily mean you need to simply ride harder. You can ‘out-skill’ your competitors by riding the course smarter. This week we will look at time trialling and attacking/bridging and next week we will look at cornering, the following week, climbing and descending.
| 40km @ km/hr | Time to complete 40km (rounded) |
|---|---|
| 35 | 68min |
| 36 | 66min |
| 37 | 64min |
| 38 | 63min |
| 39 | 61min |
| 40 | 60min |
| 41 | 59min |
| 42 | 57min |
| 43 | 56min |
| 44 | 55min |
Time Trialling
To be able to time trial, you need to be able to hold a ‘fast’ speed over a period of time. In an earlier email, I discussed how to develop pace in running by breaking the run down to run faster (email link here). In order to develop your time trialling skills, you need to adopt a similar approach. In order to develop your time trialling skill and strength you need to firstly work on shorter interval lengths, ensuring the focus is on maintaining speed and intensity. If your efforts at this stage are too long, you will not be able to maintain the strength required for each pedal turn, thereby losing speed and effectiveness of your time trial effort. When working with developing athletes, firstly I ensure they have spent at least 12 months developing their basic riding base (refer to last week’s email). I will then generally have my athletes work on 2min efforts on the road with equal rest. Athletes will have been tested and will work to a power (a later email will discuss training options if you do not have power meters, using heart rate and as a last option and less reliable speed). The focus on these sessions should be to maintain the effort output for each repetition. So for example if you had 6 efforts you would have very similar recordings of time, HR or power (whatever you are using to train to) for each. As you develop your TT skills you can increase the TT effort distance and gradually reduce the recovery time between. Ideally when racing WTS events you would be able to TT for 60minutes.
When time trialling in training, fit your WT legal aero bars. Work out what is the most comfortable position to hold, know which gears you TT well in and make sure you are feeling the effort in your glutes over your quads. You do not want to overload your quads, because this will negatively impact your ability to run fast. Adjust your position if this is the case (refer to earlier emails).
Time trialling is useful, but it has its limitations at times. For example, in a drafting race, if you truly want to break up packs, jump packs or attack a group it would be very rare to simply TT off the front. You need a change of pace – and a sudden powerful one if you want to get away cleanly without taking the group with you. Let’s look at what you need to develop your attacking, bridging and jumping skills.
Attacking, Bridging and Jumping skills
In order to have the ability to attack when a group is potentially riding fast, as a minimum, you need to be fit on the bike, and have developed your time trial skills, because if an attack or bridge works, you will need to finish it off to ensure you are not caught in the case of an attack, or you do catch in the case of a bridge/jump.
Some simple ways of doing this are –
- Use the course - Inclines provide opportunities for strong, fit cyclists to break up packs, breakaways and simply alter the pace of the bike section. Attacking inclines consistently will have an impact on a field. This must be trained for. Declines or downhill sections are very useful sections of the course, not only for recoveries from attacking uphill sections, but also for providing momentum to take into an uphill attack. Even very slight downhill sections are useful for smart cyclists who are attacking a bike section.
- Use your gears – You can make very large time gains by making some all-out powerful attacks in an oversized gear. This must be practised in training, and is best used in a section of road where your competitors will be caught up negotiating a change in the course direction (e.g. corner – we will look at this in more detail next week), course conditions (e.g. wind direction) and elevation (e.g. slight downhill for momentum). This type of ‘attack’ requires you to stand on the pedals, hold the drops and really commit to making a devastating attack on the group you are riding with or those riding ahead of you.
- Use undulating terrain - This can be practised in training when time trialling on undulating terrain – rather than changing down a gear, you can simply stand and ride a slightly heavy gear through the undulations. This will develop the all-important strength required for sudden aggressive pace change in cycling.
- Use your training partners - Another good training idea is to have a rider pass you towards the end of your time trial effort, requiring you to attack yourself to get onto their slipstream – this I call the ‘double attack’ and when perfected works a treat! Swap with them in the next effort, and you attack them…It is very important to remember when attacking in a race, pick your place to do it well, and don’t expect your first attack to work, it is generally the 3rd or 4th effort that ‘breaks’ your competitors.
- Enter bike races – bike racing forces these skills upon you. You should be able to find some local races. I prefer the suffering a typical road race gives you over the criterium style racing. There is nothing better to teach you the skill of riding a bike well than the suffering that results when you are dropped and have to creep home alone in the wind!
I hope the above helps with developing your bike skills. Fitness is key to your development first, then pace change and TT skill can be worked on. Maximising your ability to ride a course technically well is also paramount. Next week we will be looking at the essential skills of climbing, descending and cornering. Master them and you are one of the key athletes on the circuit, because you have the ability to control the race out on the bike – the longest segment of the race.
Ride well!
Emma
