Getting race fit without a bike!!!

JesseD

Hi all,

My question is in 2 parts and I apologise for the length of the post but I am after some advice on training.

I want to race again next year and would be starting at CAT 4 and have ambitions to reach and be competitive in CAT 3 by the end of the year, I raced about 5 years ago and was 1 point off my CAT 3 licence with one race to go, however was hit from behind by a car the week before the race whilst out training with the results being a broken frame and a broken me. So next year I really want to start racing again, however I have one small problem, I am currently without a bike!

I moved to the Channel Islands last year in August and left my road bike in the UK as there was not enough space to bring it in the car so the plan was to have it shipped over a month or so later so I could start riding again and join a club, and start to get fit enough to race next year. Unfortunately getting the bike shipped over never happened so I planned to go back to the UK and collect the bike next week, but due to unforeseen circumstances this is now not going to happen and my bike is still in bits in storage in the UK and will not be able to be collected until end of Jan – middle of Feb at the earliest.

Prior to moving to Jersey I was cycling circa 200 - 250 miles a week averaging 18-20 mph over hilly courses, and my fitness was improving, however since the end of July I have not ridden. I go to the gym 5 days a week for about an hour a day and do a mix of cardio (running/cycling/x-trainer) and weights (mostly core and lower body weights with some strength work for my upper body) but feel I am losing my fitness (or have now lost it) and have put on weight/fat despite training hard and trying to maintain a healthy diet.

My first question is, can you get bike/race fit without a bike, or at least can you put yourself in a good position to make big advances on the bike quickly once this is an option, or should I just write off next year now as without a bike or access to one its impossible? If it is possible what should I be doing, how often and when?

Secondly, if all goes to plan I should have my bike at the end of January to the beginning of February so can start training properly then, so my question is will this leave me enough time to get race fit by say the beginning of May bearing in mind I would not have toughed a bike for almost 7 months? I think that for me Race fit is being able to compete at the pointy end of the field and not be yo-yoing off the back for the first half to be dropped as the pace picks up at the end.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, as I am trying to figure out if this is possible or should I just scrap my ambitions of racing now (I have already scrapped my 2 early season goals of riding the Paris Roubaix Sportive and the Ronde van Vlaanderen sportive as I know I won’t be fit enough.)

Thanks in advance

JesseD

cougie

This gym you go to - does it have spinning bikes there ? At least they are adjustable in position so you could give that a go. Either with an instructor or if they let you - download some sufferfest vids to your ipad and do a couple of those a week.

As to being race fit by May - hard to tell. If you have a lot of history of fitness - then yes it comes back fairly quick. I'd think 200mpw probably equates to this - but it depends on the depth. A month of it - prob not. A season of it - maybe.

Good luck.

bigmat

Cancel the gym subscription and buy a second hand bike? Or, spin bikes / Watt bikes both give a decent workout.

imposter2.0

Don't you have to be rich to move to Jersey? Just buy a new bike...

JesseD

cougie wrote:

This gym you go to - does it have spinning bikes there ? At least they are adjustable in position so you could give that a go. Either with an instructor or if they let you - download some sufferfest vids to your ipad and do a couple of those a week.

As to being race fit by May - hard to tell. If you have a lot of history of fitness - then yes it comes back fairly quick. I'd think 200mpw probably equates to this - but it depends on the depth. A month of it - prob not. A season of it - maybe.

Good luck.

Fairly fit before hand, I had a couple of months off work so was riding 5 days a week and eating well, was training with a club and managed to mix it with the fast guys for the best part, just feel like any fitness I had has finally ebbed away despite training hard in the gym (albeit not actually cycling).

They have spin classes and I have been to a couple, but they are aimed at the older generation so are not that hard, you know the sort of thing, push ups on the bike etc etc :?

Might see if they will let me bring my pedals so I can use my shoes etc and ride on my own, albeit it will be very boring in a room on my own.

JesseD

BigMat wrote:

Cancel the gym subscription and buy a second hand bike? Or, spin bikes / Watt bikes both give a decent workout.

Looked at that but to import a bike onto the island make it very cost prohibative, I considered that and buying from the forum here but I can add an additional £100+ to ship a bike in. As said in my response above, the gym has spin classes but aimed towards the grey haired brigade or mothers wot lunch, done a couple and felt like all i had done is warm up, as said above they mught let me use them on my own, and i can see how long it takes me to go mad in a blacked out room on my own.

JesseD

Imposter wrote:

Don't you have to be rich to move to Jersey? Just buy a new bike...

Tax haven my ar5e!!!!!

You dont get charged VAT, but cost of living here is unbelievable, average cost of a 3 bed semi - £500,000 and believe me wages (unless you work in finance) are very average

cougie

Thats a crap teacher if they resort to pressups on the bars. If you're doing a decent spin class you don't need any of that mallarkey. Are there other teachers ? Ignore any of the silly stuff and concentrate on proper pedalling.

I teach it and I do a few classes a week - it keeps me topped up nicely - all of mine are cycling only - but if you really want to race you need a proper training plan. But its better than nothing.

AK_jnr

Using their spin bikes is more motivating than sitting in your garage facing the wall. If you are arent prepared to do that you clearly are not too bothered about being in good condition to race. I dont see the point of your question?

JesseD

cougie wrote:

Thats a crap teacher if they resort to pressups on the bars. If you're doing a decent spin class you don't need any of that mallarkey. Are there other teachers ? Ignore any of the silly stuff and concentrate on proper pedalling.

I teach it and I do a few classes a week - it keeps me topped up nicely - all of mine are cycling only - but if you really want to race you need a proper training plan. But its better than nothing.

Its basically a gym not far rom my house, well enough equipped but aimed towards the older generation and bored housewives etc, the spin classes which I can make (in the mornings before work) are ok but you do end up doing press-ups on the bars etc, the class is usually busy and I suppose designed towards the the older members and housewives etc, I do sweat a lot in there but thats more to do with the room temp rather than working hard!

I agree that to race I need a proper training plan and the plan was to get my bike here in August, join one of the local clubs/teams and take it from there, I am too old to serious nowadays but am happy being a weekend warrior, my serious racing days are behind me now. I know you cant replicate the fitness you get from riding, but I am hoping that someone on here has had the same issues as I have and has managed to keep fit/get fitter just by gym work until they were able to ride a bike.

JesseD

AK_jnr wrote:

Using their spin bikes is more motivating than sitting in your garage facing the wall. If you are arent prepared to do that you clearly are not too bothered about being in good condition to race. I dont see the point of your question?

I don’t see the point of your answer, I wasn’t looking for negative responses, I was looking for actual advice that I could use to help me improve fitness in prep for when I manage to get my bike in a couple of months.

For me I love riding my bike, never been one to be able to sit in a garage or a room on a turbo or set of rollers for more than an hour at a time, it drives me crazy, however I am the mad one who will be seen out in gale-force winds and hammering rain putting in the hard miles, sitting in a room is fine if it floats your boat, but for me and at my age and with my limited aspirations, it just doesn’t do it for me. I am never going to be pro, I ride because I love it and race because I enjoy it and yes I want to be competitive hence the original reason for my post and me asking advices from those willing to help on this forum.

However many thanks for your extremely helpful and informative post.

bigmat

Maybe focus on general fitness / weight loss until you have a bike. Do plenty of running and your aerobic fitness should be in good shape and weight will drop a lot quicker than cycling (in my experience). Throw in a few spin classes - just ignore the instructor and crank up the resistance / pass on the press ups etc, and you can still have a decent interval session (you'll be the sweaty loon in the corner!) and bored housewives - why not?!

You'll still take some time to get back on form when you get your bike back due to the specificity required for bike training, but it will give you a good base to start from.

maryka

Does nobody have a secondhand bike on the island that you could buy, or one you could borrow for a while? Thought they had a good racing scene there with decent teams, etc.?

type:epyt

Don't understand the scepticism about the Spin classes ... Yes you use the structure of the intervals and setting for motivation but in reality it's YOU who controls cadence, resistance etc.

I used to go to Spin classes at my old gym and I just ignored the 120rpm spinning and 'push up' style nonsense and kept a decent effort in during these and any 'rest' periods ... If you speak to the instructor after the class and explain YOUR motivation they will either just accept it or even take some of your points on board.

Or buy a £50 supermarket bike and ride it.

JayKosta

I am currently using a gym elliptical trainer (Matrix Ascent) that has an 'incline setting' that adjusts the foot motion to be similar to climbing stairs or bike pedaling. Combining a high amount of incline with a suitable amount of resistance seems good to me. Also since there isn't a saddle, my legs have to support entire body weight.

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

JesseD

Thanks for the response all,

Big Mat – I have started to run, I am carp but at least I am doing it, I also am using the gym bikes, cross-trainers and rowing machines as well as core sessions and strength training twice a week, I am reasonabley fit and train with minimal rest when at the gym, the intensity is very high, so hopefully I will regain some fitness for the bike. I have tried the spin classes a couple of times now and its all very wishy washy, so maybe its not for me so I should take the advice and try and get in there when there are no classes, will be bored senseless but needs must I suppose.

Maryka – As I have only been here since August and have not had a bike I have not got to know anybody in the cycling world so to speak, I am consistently checking the classifieds of the local clubs and freeads, but nothing my size has come up. They do have a great scene over here though with 4 clubs to choose from as well as a couple of shop based teams.

Type:epyt – as above, I have done many spin classes when living in the UK so know what to expect, it just seems the ones in my gym are not aimed at people wanting to get fit, more like a social club with some exercise if I am honest. I wish I could find a £50 bike, but this is Jersey and as far as I cans ee there is no such thing 

Jaykosta – I find the cross trainer good, and so is the treadmill, I also do sessions based around 1km row/4km bike/1km run flat out no rest x 3 to keep fitness, I suppose I was looking for specific exercises which I might not be doing.

I will post my average week later on for the masses to critique, would be interesting to get others opinions.

bobmcstuff

If you can get to use the bikes when nobody else is you could try something like Sufferfest videos - they have an app so could watch them on your iPad or phone, helps keep the boredom down and they're quite entertaining (or at least I find that they are).

DavidJB

I think you're going to struggle after 6+ months off the bike. Even 4th cat races are pretty fast compared to the average cyclist's abilities. I'd take the year off to train hard and go back in 2016 or do a couple of races at the tail end of 2015. Nothing gets your bike fit like a bike...spin bikes are better than nothing but it isn't the same.

diy

With regard to spin there was an interesting article on the indoor cycling association website. Interestingly they call it indoor cycling as arguably spinning is a trademark, though its become too generic to be realistically enforced. There are basically two schools keep it real vs. keep it fun.

On the keep it fun side - its practically impossible to get a decent cycling specific work out, with brands like "groove Cycle" see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7akpC_vp6k - I'd question if there is any benefit from any fitness angle at all. However, very few classes are like that and provided the class is not full to capacity with a waiting list I can't see any instructor objecting to a few members passing on the pointless moves. They know what cyclists are like and most of them will have done enough proper physical fitness training to understand we ain't up for anything that compromises cycling.

I for example constantly get criticised for dropping to elbows TT style, I must have explained 50 times that its to maintain the neck muscles which get affected by sitting upright too much. But they think I'm letting my core go.