Tag Archives: Cycling

Cycling While Traveling

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This article is meant to help make cycling while away from home easier to do with the least amount of trouble.

By car:

If possible, I prefer to put my bike IN my car. That way, it is out of the elements and not covered in bugs or soaked by rain. If getting the bike in the car involves removing the rear wheel, be especially careful to protect the rear derailleur area from being bent. Do not pile other things on top of the bike frame.

When the inside of the car isn’t feasible, use a rack designed for your bike frame. Racks that clamp on the tubing are a very bad idea if your frame is made of carbon fiber. Rear-mount of roof-mount racks where the attachment point is the wheels are usually better with carbon frames. These are not foolproof though. I have seen forks break with the roof-top fork-mount racks.

The bottom line is that if you are able, put the bike IN the vehicle. When renting a vehicle, think about a minivan or other vehicle with plenty of space for your bike.

By plane:

There are two ways to do this; One is to bring your bike with you and the other is to rent a bike at your destination. If your destination does not have rental bikes available, bringing your own bike may be the only option.

The pros of bringing your own bike are that it is a bike you are accustomed to with the accessories that you prefer. Also, you know it fits and is already set up well for you. You won’t need to worry about picking up or dropping off a rental bike and you will save the rental expense.

The cons are that you will need to rent or purchase a bike travel case and will likely need to pay a fee to the airline for transport. I have heard of fees as high as US$185 each way to bring your bike. There is also a risk of damage to your precious bike even with the bike case. This can be helped by packing the bike properly with frame dropout protectors installed. Don’t load a bunch of other stuff in with the bike. Soft bags are a gamble in my opinion. Baggage handlers do not love your bike as much as you do. You will need to rent a larger vehicle to accommodate your bike case or you will need to make sure that there is transport available to your hotel that can handle a bike case.

Renting is a good option if you plan well. You don’t need to worry about ruining your bike in transit. You won’t need to think about getting the bike to and from the airport.

You will need to plan ahead by having your bike fit coordinates on hand when you arrive. Also, it would be good to reserve a bike ahead of time in your size so you know you will have a bike waiting. The place you are renting from may or may not have the pedals, saddle and helmet you prefer, so bring whatever they don’t have. Don’t expect the rental store to do a complete fit for you. It is a far better idea to know exactly how your bike is set up and either adjust the fit yourself or have the shop do it if they are willing.

The cons of renting are that it won’t be exactly the bike you are accustomed to and of course it will cost you some money to rent. There may be a large deposit required so prepare for that. Ask when reserving what all the charges are and what deposit will be required. Ask if it is okay to swap pedals and saddle (if they say no, I wouldn’t rent from them) and also if there is a repair kit on the bike.

Whether you bring your bike or rent, bring along a pedal wrench, a bike pump with gauge, a tape measure and a multi-tool. Some old rags and chain lube are good to have as well.

Happy traveling!

Bike Training with a Power Meter

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Let me start by saying that this blog post will not be overly complicated. It has been my experience that many athletes are confused by the concept of training with a power meter.

Why a Power Meter?

Most every athlete who follows a program or has a coach has periodization in their schedule; short workouts, long workouts, faster workouts, slower workouts, strength workouts, et cetera are all part of the plan. To accomplish this, an athlete needs some measure of defining their exertion level. The more common methods are perceived exertion, speed/pace and heart rate. These methods are all reasonable indicators of exertion but are somewhat inexact. Perceived exertion can be influenced by fatigue and emotions, speed/pace can be influenced by weather and terrain. Heart rate is fairly accurate, but can be influenced by fatigue and stress. Heart rate monitors accurately portray your current heart rate but unfortunately, there is a lag of 30 seconds or so for your heart rate to react to a change in exertion level.

This is where a power meter on a bike comes in. The feedback is immediate. When you start pushing harder, the power numbers go up accordingly without the lag associated with heart rate training. Let’s say you set out to keep your heart rate in a certain zone on a rolling course. You hit your first hill and halfway up your heart rate jumps well above your desired range, so you slow down. You slow down, but because of the lag in heart rate, you’ve actually been working too hard for at least 20-40 seconds. Multiply this by many hills and you will find you are getting fatigued much more quickly than if you kept the effort even.

With a power meter, you are able to conduct some tests to determine power zones to train in. You will have a much better idea of how hard you are pushing so that you can even out the pace during your ride. Also, you will have a better understanding of how hard to push during strength, interval and speed workouts. Most new owners of power meters have a very eye-opening experience with how well-paced they actually ride and just how hard they are working.

For the time-trialist or triathlete, even pacing is the name of the game. For road racers, in addition to even pacing, the athlete now has a gauge of just how much power is required to stay with the pack and can train those outputs accordingly.

Which Power Meter?

There are several systems out there, the most common being SRM and PowerTap. SRM is a meter contained in a crankset and PowerTap is contained in a hub. If you only have one bike to train and race on, an SRM may work well. Personally, I prefer the PowerTap since you can have a wheel built with the hub and move it from bike to bike. Also, you can find a bike shop with a rental program to “try before you buy.” I don’t know of any shops doing that with SRM. Here in the Vancouver area, Speed Theory has a PowerTap rental program and they stock PowerTaps for purchase.

In the next installment on training with power, I’ll try to have pricing information and some more detail on power-based training.

The Value of Training Partners

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Why do we train?
To gain physical and mental benefits.
To get stronger.
To get faster.

All this requires something called “progressive overload.” Simply put, we slowly introduce more volume and intensity so that our muscles will respond by getting stronger and more accustomed to our efforts. Then we repeat the cycle, hoping to coax more out of our bodies.

As endurance athletes, the volume of training can get quite significant. Our competitive nature has us bumping up the intensity fairly regularly as well. All this can end with us feeling “wasted.” Since we are often more fit than our average couch potato friends, it is tempting to think we are somehow super-human. I have news…we are not!

The fact that we often lose sight of is that exercise breaks muscle fibres down so that they can be rebuilt to deal with the extra demand we are placing them under. That rebuilding takes place after the exercise is finished. This time should be treated as top priority if we want to realize the gains we’ve worked so hard for. There are three areas I think are important to concentrate on here so that training is not “wasted”:

Rest – Sleep and time away from training need to be a priority. Be honest with yourself and your sleep needs. If you are constantly tired, try to find a way to schedule more rest. You may find you need even more sleep as the volume and intensity increase.

Nutrition – Stay hydrated. We’ve all been guilty of going for coffee when we should be drinking water, juice or sports drink after a workout. The same goes for nutrition. Find out your recommended intake from a nutritionist or knowledgeable coach. In a nutshell, endurance athletes need more carbohydrates than sedentary people, among other nutritional considerations. Try to find quality food that is less processed wherever possible. Start with Canada’s Food Guide (see link on the right).

Self-help – If you are able to, get massage for those sore muscles. There are also self-therapy ideas you can try. Elevating your legs after a bike ride or run. Wearing compression socks after long runs. Ten minutes in a cold water bathtub after a run. These can all help speed recovery and have you feeling ready for your next workout.

I’d like to leave you with a challenge: Get a logbook and each day, rate your rest, nutrition and self-help on a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being best). A little awareness will help develop good habits of taking care of yourself.

Hills on a Bike

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There are three factors I like to consider when climbing: Position, gearing and pacing. There are other factors to consider, but for the sake of simplicity, these three are a good place to start.

Position

Start with good bike fit. Is the saddle at the correct height, such that your hips don’t rock? A ballpark check is while holding yourself against a wall while on your bike, put your heels on the pedals and pedal backward. You want to just lose contact at the bottom of the pedal stroke without dropping your hips. Is the saddle setback correct? With crankarms at 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock, a plumb line from the front of your front knee should intersect your pedal spindle. These are ballparks for a road position. Each individual may vary and there are other disciplines such as time trial and triathlon that would have a different position. A professional bike fit is really the best place to start.

Gearing

It is considered optimum to have a cadence of 90-95rpm over the course of a ride. For hills, this will drop, but it is important to limit the amount with correct gearing. Most bikes come with a 39-tooth as the smallest ring up front and a 23-tooth as the biggest on the back. This may be suitable for you, but if you try these gears on your chosen hill and your cadence is below 50, it’s time to consider alternatives. For some, changing to a cassette with a 25 or 27 will do the trick. You could also opt for a compact crankset, which will have a 34 as the smallest ring. You may even do both. There are also road triple cranksets available to give even easier gears. It’s best to try training on hills first since there is some expense to making these changes.

Pacing

This is the part that most people get wrong. It seems in our nature to want to conquer hills as aggressively as possible. The quickest way up over the long haul is to go slow and steady. For hill repeats, I’d suggest going very slowly for the first repeat. Feel as if you could carry on a conversation. Let subsequent repeats feel only slightly harder each time. Learning to climb easily will make hills not seem so bad. As you get stronger, you can add harder repeats to the mix. I like climbing alone. Having others with me can make pacing difficult since there is a tendency to try to keep up with that person in front. Ride at YOUR pace. For longer climbs, the pace should also start out easy. Let it feel almost too easy. Then it’s all about rhythm. If you climb at the correct pace, your breathing and pedal strokes will become rhythmic and the long hill won’t feel so insurmountable.