Question for the racers out there...

Kerrmit1992

I've just had a very interesting conversation with the owner of my LBS. I was wondering how all use guys who race your MTB cross-country train? Do use just use your mountain bike? Or do you also train on-road using a road bike?

Was just wondering as the bike shop owner was trying to convince me that I need to train on a race bike too?

Cheers
Craig

danlikesbikes

Not raced the last 1 year on the MTB but for what its worth prior to that used to use both. Found the road really helped with endurance, sprints etc & the MTB with skills and high speed changes for the ups and downs.

Though saying that about 10 years ago when I was racing a lot more I never did any road work.

Kerrmit1992

Thanks for the reply, I can see why it might help I suppose. Can't afford a road bike at the minute but it might be a worthwhile investment then :-)

danlikesbikes

I should clarify I do ride road & MTB, plus to a bit of tri & duathlon racing too hence the move to a road bike.

Personally if you have the terrain on your door step & can ride to a plan that will keep your skills up & your fitness where you need to be to compete then stick with the MTB. The training principles for endurance, sprints, climbing etc are easy to apply to an MTB training programme just theres probably less info out there.

You could always look at a cheap HRM/GPS unit to log and plan your training. I use an older Garmin & if your using the same routes it does help to be able to see how your progressing or where your weaker areas are. Plus if you use something like training peaks (the free version) you can copy over your Garmin data and add notes commentary as it looks more like a diary/training journal.

Where I used to live I used to do a mix of;
Riding with mates or solo but just for fun and to get miles in - good for skills work
Climbing/descending on a few routes - always good practice and easy to gage how your going
Race route as we had a few I had done would ride them - as above always good practice and easy to gauge how your going plus if the race was run the next year made life much easier for me.

I did all of that with just cheap HRM and watch and as long as you follow the basics you can't really go wrong.

Kerrmit1992

We do have trails around here but unfortunately it's nothing really that demanding :-( ... I live about an hour away from glentress so try to get there once or twice a month but apart from that we don't have much.

Thanks for the advice though, may have to just "borrow" the girlfriends garmin watch thing :-) lol

njee20

Different strokes for different folks and that.

Personally I've always done more riding on my road bike than my MTB. Try and ride my MTB once a week, so I don't forget how to do it, that's about it! Never been a fan of riding my MTB on the road, although I've got friends who do it and it certainly works for them. I don't see what real advantage it offers over riding a road bike to be honest. It's all time in the saddle.

I was at my fittest when I trained on HR alone, but frankly that was because I had the time! Have all sorts of exciting data now with power and what not, but without the time (and the inclination frankly!) to do any structured training it really just means I get lots of pretty graphs!

danlikesbikes

Personally I don't ride trail centres but thats another thing.

But if your in livingstone you have Pentlands Hills Regional Park on your door step I'd make that my local training with a little warm up/down to get there. Though never been so don't know what the access is like but looks good on OS maps and google.

Did a quick search and came up with these;
http://www.pentlandhills.org/info/4/exp ... _pentlands
http://www.mtbtrails.info/Trail_Venue.a ... ueNumber=2

Kerrmit1992

I'll ride anywhere, be it trail centres or not :-)

And I never thought of that place right enough, I'll need to take a look especially if its not too far away to cycle :-)

And I may invest in a road bike eventually I think :-) may need to try one out though as don't know if I'll like it haha

njee20

IMO you don't need one, but it does make road riding more pleasant. Like I say, a friend of mine (decent Elite XC racer) thinks nothing of doing 6 hour rides on the road on his MTB (with knobblies and everything).

Kerrmit1992

Doesn't riding on road wear down MTB tired quicker?

I've just invested in a new pair and the difference in resistance is fantastic! Although on the really muddy stuff that's not always a good thing haha

danlikesbikes

Kerrmit1992 wrote:

And I never thought of that place right enough, I'll need to take a look especially if its not too far away to cycle :-)

Looking on google it looks pretty good & has quite a few reviews from other users. If it were on my doorstep I know where I'd be riding.

Good luck with the training/racing.