A couple of conundrums......

ziggycycledust

Hello, still a relative newbie so i apologise if these q's have been answered but i couldn't find them by searching!

1. Just over a month in i have built up a reasonable base of mileage (obviously i know i have a long way to go!) I want to start hill reps but i live in a completely pan flat area (i know my profile says Aylesbury, but I'm a student living in the US on a study abroad year till May!) The only hill within 20 miles is at max 150 metres long..... is it worthwhile doing short fast hill reps up this or will it not really benefit me! I mean, i could cycle 20 miles and get some good hills, but I'm not strong enough to do a full repetition session with a 20 mile each way warm up/down If the 150 metre hill is not sufficient, is there any way of replicating hills on a turbo?

2. Regarding turbo/roller debate... because I'm a student i have a severely limited budget so really don't want to fork out.... but need to train indoors as it gets unbelievable cold/snowy here! Is there any benefit in using a cycling machine (which i have free access to) as i literally have never found a post regarding this... or are these solely reserved for the gym monkeys to sit back, relax and watch sky news on?

Pokerface

1. Put it in a big gear with high resistance and pedal slowly.


2. Yes - there is always a benefit to any form of cycling, even on a gym bike. Not as god as the real thing but better than not cycling at all.


(Not sure about answer 1 but something along those lines).

martincashman

Concentrate on increasing the distance you ride, hills reps aren't much good if you run out of stamina after 50km. Increasing your riding up to 100km will improve you all round, both strength and endurance and maybe you can find some hills within this radius. It takes a few years to build up cycling physiology.

A 3 to 4hr cycle are a challenging pace will stand more to you at this stage than 1hr of hill reps.

ziggycycledust

Thanks pokerface and Martincashman!

Martincashman- Im well aware what you are saying, i know how beneficial longer rides are, and especially at the early stage of cycling to increase mileage is paramount. I just wanted to at least get one rep session in a week so i didn't fall into the trap of becoming a '1 pace cyclist'!

bigpikle

you wont become a '1 pace cyclist' if you focus on some quality training...

Can you spend time riding into a headwind on the flats? If so, work at a higher pace, going steady and hard for 20-40 min intervals where you just keep pushing hard and try and keep the coasting down to a minimum, or ideally none at all. Take a few easy miles to rest up a bit and go again. You dont need the headwind, but it helps make the going harder and hence easier to keep yourself at a high effort level even on the flats.

This kind of work will really boost your threshold power and that will in turn enable you to do better at most types of riding - slower and longer, climbing and shorter faster rides. I do live north of Aylesbury and this year spent huge amounts of time on the nice flat areas with no real hills anywhere to be seen, and riding at my threshold pace and close to it as much as I could, I gained huge amounts of endurance and climbing power. I rode the Raid Pyrenean over the Tourmalet and loads of big cols without doing any dedicated hill work at all and got on just fine.

If all you really have is flatter terrain then you just need to go harder - do 90, 120, 180 min rides at a steady pace about as hard as you can maintain, so you finish them pretty cooked, and these will all be great benefit to you. Hill repeats would be icing on the cake and only really help you once you've built a good base endurance and threshold power levels IMHO.

martincashman

+1 on everything Bigpikle has said, that's all I've focused on this year and have got stronger and faster and better at hills (in fact I'm usually KOM) and have found that even those who seem stronger and faster than me at the start are blowing up when I still have legs.