What are some milestones I should be hitting?
sarequads
Posts: 18
Coming from a bodybuilding/powerlifting background there are milestones to hit such as; bodyfat into single figures, waist relative to your legs, waist to chest ratio, arms thicker than your neck. Powerlifting; bench, squat and deadlift x amount of your body weight and so on.
What are some milestones I should be looking at hitting in the world of cycling? Ive got a power meter, I commute to work 100 miles per week and access to a wattbike.
Thanks
What are some milestones I should be looking at hitting in the world of cycling? Ive got a power meter, I commute to work 100 miles per week and access to a wattbike.
Thanks
0
Posts
For most though, cycling is either about pleasure (just go enjoy it), results (race finishes or perhaps time trial times) or keeping up with groups/training rides/friends.
The problem with setting 'average speed for x miles' goals is its way too dependent on weather.
This is the "training, fitness and health" section of the forum. Surely there are?
If you don't have a powermeter, then you can target some routes/loops to improve your times. Strava is handy for this. Yes weather and equipment plays a role but fitness is the biggest variable, so as you get fitter you will go faster.
If you fancy racing, time trialling is popular for testing yourself against yourself and improving PBs and results. Traditionally going under the hour for 25 miles was a big milestone but these days with good aerodynamics and equipment that's not so hard.
Depends what you want to achieve really, and where you're starting from. I second the suggestion to join a decent club and get out riding with lots of people, in riding and chatting with them you'll get a feel for your abilities and also what the local best courses are, where to start if you want to race, etc.
I come from a Rugby League background, at 5 foot 8 and 15 stone I quickly realised if I was serious about improving my endurance performance then my body would have to change. I’m now 67kgs with a target of 65 by end of April. I use the Coggins chart as a rough estimate as to my progress, but this is just indicative.
https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/power-profiling/
At 15 stone, actually probably closer to 14.5 stone when I decided I wanted to get more into cycling, I was powerful but my sustained power uphill was poor compared to a lot of other guys. I had a week cycling in North Wales with a very good cyclist and it became apparent that for me to improve as a road cyclist I couldn’t keep the same body profile. I was fortunate to have time to complete long rides and over time my body adapted. My wife thinks I look weird though!
Those figures in the table are a good guide, I’m also a member of The Sufferfest and have done the 4D test (on my Wattbike). Worth having a look at. But without knowing your goals it’s very hard to say what milestones you want to look for.
In terms of body fat %, I tend to hover about 9 to 10% throughout the year, during the racing season this tends to drop another % point. But the key for me is to retain my current power while losing weight. Also worth adding that for racing FTP and watts per KG isn’t always the be all. I tend to have a relatively low FTP (273), but have no problems with endurance in a race, my weakness is on recovering quickly from multiple successive high intensity efforts (attacks on a climb, accelerations out of corners etc). Rather than a specific goal of increasing my FTP I work on my HIIT sessions, my 1and 5 minute efforts.
Not sure if you’ve done much mountain riding yet, but trust me you’ll want to shift a lot of bulk after a week doing steep inclines!
Milestones in my book are things like:
Smashing the people who previously rode away from you and make them weep in the wake of your power and glory
Smashing hills that previously made you cry and vomit and walk like a girl
Getting home from a massive ride then feeling fine and doing a weights session just for the hell of it
Riding past clubbies and ignoring them after they previously ignored you because they hadn't deemed that you had earned it
First really nice cycling holiday in the sun with a mate and enjoying it day after day without dying
None of this rubbish numbers rubbish
De Sisti wrote:
This is one of the silliest threads I've come across.
Recognition at last Matthew, well done!, a justified honour
Sleepy peepy
Add to that pedalling at a cadence of 10, 20, 30, 40 etc etc
Oh dear, has mummy let you on the computer again?
But more fun is to target things like progressing from cat 4 to cat 3 race license (and hopefully winning some races), trying to get into the top 3 of a hill climb/tt event, that kind of thing, and the average cyclist will give you more respect for it as most have no idea what their numbers are or what good numbers would be.
Starting out, it can be as simple as being the first up the hill on a club run, or winning the sprint for the village sign, or getting into the top ten for a strava segment on your commute.
Unless you want to specialise in (track) sprinting events, the likelihood is that you'll need to lose a lot of arm muscle and upper body strength to be competitive.
Forgetting to eat and bonking fifty miles from home.
FTP
W/KG
Weight
Average speed on a few circuits
Position on a few Strava segments
Enjoying outdoor riding more
Getting better at pacing hill climbing
The latter two are less measurable ;-)
Marin Palisades Trail 91 and 06
Scott CR1 SL 12
Cannondale Synapse Adventure 15 & 16 Di2
Scott Foil 18
They look like decent targets.
But out of the road, I just track the size of the smile on my face... :-)
I’ve dropped 22kg since I switched from powerlifting/ rugby to cycling.
I’m still not where I need to be, but I have improved dramatically.
I think my first FTP test was around 187w (horrendous fitness and massively unconditioned muscles), and now I’m around 350w.
I love a statistic more than anyone (peak numbers and short sprints suit us guys from a stength sport background), but in reality, they’re just bragging rights, to which someone will just call you a knob...
Your goal should be to get away (abroad) as much as possible and enjoy being on the road, in the sun, looking forward to that coffee and cake at the next stop.
IG: RhinosWorkshop