Anyone attacked their mates at the start of a 'training ride

chrisw12

Picture the scene, three young men (one rather handsome :oops: ) 40 mile flat ride then a 30 minute climb to (more or less) finish off.

Well as it's supposed to be a training ride so I spend the 40 miles on the front keeping the pace high, the others do come to the front but it's basically to slow things down and have a chat.

So by the time we get to the hill I'm pretty fcuked and they are fresh (they're much much better climbers than me anyway.) so they drop me. I don't see them until the bottom of the other side of the climb.

I'm thinking next time I'm going to attack them at the very start (use traffic lights to my advantage) and make them chase me.

So my questions are

1) Am I being a bit childish in attacking them at the start
or
2) should I tell them that we should all pull our weight from the start.
or
3) not worry about it as i achieved my training goals
or
4) something else?

whyamihere

1. No.
2. No.
3. No.
4. No.

Getting one over on your mates and psychologically hitting them so hard that they want to give up cycling is all part of the fun. Attack hard wherever you can make an advantage.

capilinconnemara

The whole point of friends on training rides is to inflict pain when ever or where ever suits YOU.
Up the anti when you at the front, rest when they come to the front and attack on the flat before the final climb and give yourself that bit of time to get your rythmn on the climb.
Enjoy

320DMsport

I like the sound of this, i don't climb aswell as some of my mates but i feel i'm better on the flat but tend to be abit shy and hold off.

Maybe next time i'll go abit faster on the flat and power along if i'm feeling good and see what happens.

chrisw12

I've tried the 'ride (constant) really hard from the front' approach and it has worked when there was only one of them and the wind is in the right direction. But today, same approach failed because they were able to work together on the hill and share the non-work when they were forced to the front. The problem with this approach is that they just rest off you. What I was thinking, is. if I attack, get a gap it'll force them to work as well.

Thinking about it, my best mate who I normally ride with on our own, has been very clever. He does his turn at the front, so you can't accuse him of taking the p. but it's never quite fast enough, so I end up going harder on the front, he then uses this as excuse not to come to the front as often. He always makes sure there's a big hill on the ride somewhere as well :twisted: so he can leave me.

Bronzie

chrisw12 wrote:

He does his turn at the front, so you can't accuse him of taking the p. but it's never quite fast enough, so I end up going harder on the front, he then uses this as excuse not to come to the front as often. He always makes sure there's a big hill on the ride somewhere as well :twisted: so he can leave me.

This is why testers never win road races - not even Hutch.

BeaconRuth

Chris - there is only one situation where it is important how you go compared to your mates. It's called a race. Everything else is irrelevant.

Ruth

Shavedlegs

I'm with Ruth.
You're getting the training you need. Come race day you can attack at will (not having sat at the front) and then it will hurt them a lot more.

GavH

Maybe I'm not understanding something basic here, but if I had mates who used me then left me when it suited them, I'd find new mates. :?

Have you thought about playing them at their own game? DON'T do the work on the front, put up with the easier pace, then attack them before the hill and make them work to catch you? If you are going to go hard from the start and build in a gap from outset, you may as well go for a ride on your own and leave them to it elsewhere.

But hey, I'm new to this and still ride solo so perhaps I'm missing the point!

Gary Bartram

Unless you all have a similar attitude towards a group ride it's always going to be like that.
Maybe try to establish some ground rules before starting a ride with these paople?

My golden rule of group training rides is - Never ride to someone else's plan......

I hope that my training partner of today isn't reading this!

Chubby on a compact

Does not really matter what you do. If they are pretty good climbers they will soon real you in on the climbs. If you really want to keep up with them on the climbs, best thing to do is, do some training on the hills and lose a bit of weight. 12 months ago I was not very good at climbing, lost a stone in weight, did quite a bit of training on the hills, now its me who does the dropping.

BeaconRuth

Chubby on a compact wrote:

Does not really matter what you do. If they are pretty good climbers they will soon real you in on the climbs. If you really want to keep up with them on the climbs, best thing to do is, do some training on the hills and lose a bit of weight. 12 months ago I was not very good at climbing, lost a stone in weight, did quite a bit of training on the hills, now its me who does the dropping.

It's time you changed your name then!

Ruth

chrisw12

Update:

My best mate (the one that dropped me!!) has phoned me twice and sent various messages. I'm employing the same tactics that my wife learnt in woman school and am ignoring him. :oops:

But joking aside, how motivated do you think I'm going to be this week in training!! :evil:

So yes Ruth you're right. choose your training partners wisely, they can provide some good motivation!

shockedsoshocked

If you're doing all the work on the front to keep the pace high no wonder you're going out the back on the climbs.

Either make them come through, share the work and keep the pace high, or don't come through yourself. Then again, if the pace always drops when they're on the front perhaps you may need to find some new training partners.

Chubby on a compact

When I lose a bit more weight I'll change my name. I'm still a little bit chubby. As for changing who you train with, I would stick with the guys you train with. How are you meant to get better at something when there is nothing to drive you on. You need to ride smarter. So what if the pace drops a little when they take a turn on the front, use it to recover and prepare yourself for the climbs.

skavanagh.bikeradar

How it works for me:

We all stick together excpet on hills where it is everyman for himself.

This means the big bloke is slower than would like on the flat and gets dropped on the hills (I'm the bigger bloke). However I'd rather this than 4 hours in the rain and cold on my own.

Also train like a man possesed on the turbo and/or hills and start dropping them on the hills. The fun you get from inflicting the pain for once is brilliant. Mwwwhaaah, ha, ha, ha!

Erm, of course it's all about the shared experience of riding as a group of mates.........!

singlespeedexplosif

I've never attacked them at the start, but a water bottle to the head as you enter the first sprint usually works.

ut_och_cykla

Are they relatives of my husband? He does the same thing , we're pretty similar on the flat, I'm perhaps a bit quicker, but as soon as the road goes up my extra pound or two leaves me struggling. I've tried 'talking' about it but he says things like 'I didn't want to get ahead' when we're on the flat and *I was just climbing at my own pace' on the hills!
I beat him at sprints for village signposts tho'

dennisn

IMHO you're not training at all, you're racing. Races are for racing and training is for training. Sounds like you've fallen for the age old problem that all wanna be racers face.
You go out and hammer as hard as you can every day thinking that this will help you improve. Trust me, it won't. Forget you riding buddies and the nightly world championship
races and train to be ready, fresh, and strong at the RACES. Nobody cares if you're the first person to get to the halfway turn around or local water stop. Become a racer, learn to resist the urge to prove yourself daily to whomever and learn to get stronger. Someone once said that the hardest thing to learn if you want to be an athlete is how to rest. 24 / 7 / 365 hammer fests are a sure fire way to getting nowhere or even less.

Dennis Noward

chrisw12

Thanks for the words of support, group hug anyone?

I've pointed out to my mate that the ride was a pretty pointless exercise (for them)and that it turned from a training ride into a race. At the end of the day, my post was meant to be light hearted as my training objectives were met despite what the other two did

The problem is the three of us have incompatible goals, they are short distance triathletes where as I'm training for a 12hr. If it's just the two of us then everything works out ok, but the two triathletes had something to prove to each other and I was caught at the front of it.

Never mind, next time I'll make sure they pull their weight, I wont be giving them a ride to the hills.

dodgy

Great thread

oldwelshman

First thing you need to do is make sure you adjust their brake calipers when they are not looking!! Not too much that they can't pedal, just enough that they can ride but will feel crap on the flat
When you get to the Bwlch, get your wife to pick you up and take you half way up then you have a head start!!! The other option you have is to ride even harder on the flat.
I find these type of training rides very good trying to batter each other but not too often and not too close to races. I would be surprised if most "serious" cyclists do not do similar "training" rides.

dennisn

chrisw12 wrote:

Thanks for the words of support, group hug anyone?

I've pointed out to my mate that the ride was a pretty pointless exercise (for them)and that it turned from a training ride into a race. At the end of the day, my post was meant to be light hearted as my training objectives were met despite what the other two did

The problem is the three of us have incompatible goals, they are short distance triathletes where as I'm training for a 12hr. If it's just the two of us then everything works out ok, but the two triathletes had something to prove to each other and I was caught at the front of it.

Never mind, next time I'll make sure they pull their weight, I wont be giving them a ride to the hills.

For whatever reason, I tend to find that when 2 or more riders get together you can always count on a "race" of sorts. I have a friend that I ride with a lot. Seems like he just can't take being "out riding". Every day he has to prove he can beat someone to some city limit sign, water stop, or the like. Now I can't claim that I was ever a really, really,
serious racer and or trainer but I can sure vouch for the rest idea. I think lots of people
(myself included) have subjected themselves to daily "hammer fest" "go faster and harder than yesterday" type of riding, thinking(wrongly) that this is the way you improve. You thrash yourself daily. See if you can get a coach to help you and restrain you in your training. Find the limits of what you can recover from and concentrate on racing at the races and forget about the nightly "world championships". It's very hard to do but if you don't you'll just be burned out and or injured most of the time.

Dennis Noward

chrisw12

oldwelshman wrote:

First thing you need to do is make sure you adjust their brake calipers when they are not looking!! Not too much that they can't pedal, just enough that they can ride but will feel crap on the flat
When you get to the Bwlch, get your wife to pick you up and take you half way up then you have a head start!!! The other option you have is to ride even harder on the flat.
I find these type of training rides very good trying to batter each other but not too often and not too close to races. I would be surprised if most "serious" cyclists do not do similar "training" rides.

are you a mind reader?

Last year we did the same sort of ride with this 'young troublemaker', he hung on the back all the way round then attacked on one of the smaller hills, by the time he got to the big climb (Rhigos) he was absolutely fcukd. He phones his sister to come and pick him up. We'd left him at this point, he couldn't be bothered to wait for us earlier so we thought we'd let him ride down the valley on his own. Anyway his sister took about twice as long to drive up the valley as it took us to ride home, what an idiot!

Perhaps he was after some sort of revenge. :idea:

shockedsoshocked

chrisw12 wrote:

Never mind, next time I'll make sure they pull their weight, I wont be giving them a ride to the hills.

If you really want to get them riled, everytime one goes on the front shout very loudly, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!? WE'RE TRAINING, NOT TOURING!!!"

Pretty much par for the course on our club rides when the speed isn't up to scratch, and it generally pisses off the two on the front so much the pace instantly jumps up about to 25mph :twisted: