Gearing Up: The Essentials

Cycling is the gear heavy sport of the bunch. Here are what I would deem the essentials to have in your arsenal, with an explanation down below:

• Bike
• Helmet
• Cycling/Triathlon Shorts
• Jerseys
• Shoes
• Socks
• Water Bottles
• Sunglasses
• Gear bag and tools

Let’s start with the obvious first: the bike. You can start with whatever bike you have and are comfortable with. Don’t let the bike be a hurdle that stops you from trying triathlon. There are lots of choices out there, some of which will make life easier, so let’s dive into the options you will likely see.

Mountain Bikes

Knobby tires, shocks, and disc brakes make these bikes ideal for off-road conditions or hopping on and off of curbs as you speed around town. Unfortunately, those aggressive tires and upright position don’t do you any favors for speed out on the pavement. Lots of people do their first race on a mountain bike but trade it in for a road or tri bike once they realize how much speed they’re leaving on the table.

Comfort Bikes

This is a very general classification for a wide range of bikes. The defining feature here is body position. Comfort for the recreational rider is all about being more upright, which takes pressure off your hands and neck and puts you spine closer to it’s natural position. If you want to picture this bike, think of a “beach cruiser” style bike with wide tires, a plush seat, and swept back handlebars. Much like its mountain bike counterpart, this bike will not be very quick, but it will be more comfortable.

Road Bikes

These are the heart and soul of cycling enthusiasts and are one of the most common styles of bike you will see at a triathlon. The defining features here are skinny tires, a smaller seat, and a more aggressive position. The slim tires reduce rolling resistance, and the body position makes you more aerodynamic, and both mean more speed with less work.

There are always subcategories to consider. There are “comfort” road bikes that place you slightly more upright and have more forgiving frames (less road feel). There are aero frames that tend to cut through the wind better and can be a nice “do-it-all” kind of bike for the triathlete that only wants one bike. And finally, there are the more traditional road frames which are stiffer (more road feel) and place your torso in a more horizontal position. Everyone is different so try each kind out to see what’s for you.

Triathlon Bikes

Triathlon bikes (or time trial bikes) take performance to the next level. These bikes feature deeper aerodynamic frames, very aggressive geometry, and fairly stiff frames. The name of the game here is efficiency and that is why you see so many triathletes get into one eventually. Tri bikes allow you to go faster and farther with less effort so you have more energy for a good run (and race). While the efficiency is great, the more horizontal position changes how the bike handles significantly. This isn’t a starter bike if you’re new to the sport and have your doubts or concerns. Keep it in mind for down the road.

Helmets

There are a ridiculous number of helmets available at a wide range of prices. Fit is the most important factor so be sure to try them on. Other things to consider are how ventilated the helmet is and its weight. You can also consider a triathlon-specific helmet which will get you even more time gains from the aerodynamic design. If in doubt, don’t be afraid to visit your local bike shop for help.

Cycling/Triathlon Shorts

These will be your biggest ally. Many people look at a bike seat and say, “I can’t ride on that!” Well, let me tell you, I couldn’t either without bike shorts. The extra padding goes a long way to making you comfortable and helps to reduce chaffing. Pro tip: Do not wear anything between you and your cycling shorts. They aren’t designed for it. It’s a chaffing nightmare waiting to happen.

Tri shorts are similar to cycling shorts but are far less padded. This helps them to dry after coming out of a swim. Tri shorts are great, but less padding may not be a big turn off if you’re struggling with comfort. It’s 100% okay to start with cycling shorts.

Cycling Jerseys/Tri Tops

Cycling jerseys feature performance-oriented fabrics that help you stay dry, cool, and comfortable. They also have three big pockets on the back, which are great for stuffing things like a vest, snacks, or your phone.

Tri-specific tops are similar, but without the sleeves and less/smaller pockets. Sleeveless is nice, not only because it can help you stay cooler, but also because it dries fast out of the water. If you’re doing shorter races, the limited pockets won’t be terrible. It becomes more of an issue as you go longer and need to carry more.

Shoes

Cycling shoes and pedals connect you to the bike throughout the whole pedal stroke. This means you are creating power both when you push down and when you pull up. This may not seem like a big deal at first, but it helps a ton. It allow you to use more muscles to do the same amount of work (or more), which makes you more efficient and powerful.

Triathlon-specific shoes are a nice upgrade. Their design makes transitions a breeze. They have a bigger opening and different straps that allow you to hop into them while you’re moving. They also are designed to dry out quickly, which you definitely want after you get done swimming.

Socks

Like the jerseys, good socks wick well and help you stay comfortable longer. By no means are they a necessity, but they are very nice. My personal recommendation is Swiftwick. Their socks are beyond fantastic and take a beating. I have several pair that are five years old and going strong.

Water bottles

They’re handy, and not only for cycling. Stock up on a few. You need to stay hydrated.

Sunglasses

A shield for the sun, wind, and bugs is nice. Extravagant sunglasses are not necessary. To start find something that you like and is comfortable.

Gear Bag and Tools

This handy little bag goes behind your saddle and holds all kinds of things. Consider grabbing an extra tube, tire levers, a multi-tool for emergencies, a CO2 cartridge, and an inflator to go in your bag.  Don’t skip out on this, stuff happens out there and having an insurance policy with you is wonderful.

Get Comfortable: The Bike Fit

Cycling is the most time intensive discipline in triathlon. Once you lock down your gear, it is worth spending the time to think about how you interact with your bike. You have three points of contact (hands, butt, and feet) that always interface with the bike. The term “bike fit” refers to how these three points are setup. You can do a lot of adjusting on your own. Try out these suggestions to see if your bike is, or even can be, in the ballpark for fitting you well.

Seat Height

Sit on the saddle and put one of the pedals down at 6 o’clock. Then, move your foot so your heel rests on the pedal. Your extended leg should be straight or very close to it. Alternatively, if you place the pedal mid to forefoot like you would ride in your cycling shoes, you should have a slight bend in your knee.

Saddle Fore/Aft

Next, move the crank arm so it is horizontal. Then, either have a friend take a picture from the side or use a plumb line hanging from below your knee cap (on the forward leg) to see where it falls in relation to the pedal. If you were to draw a vertical line from below your knee cap (technically your tibial tuberosity), it should intersect with the center of the pedal. In some cases it may be slightly ahead of it, too. Some fitters may approach this differently for a myriad of reasons, but this is a great place to start.

Saddle Angle

This part can be a bit tricky. As a general rule, start by making the nose of the saddle (the front ⅓ to ½ of the saddle) level or 1-degree downhill. Adjust in small increments from there. Hint: you can use your iPhone to do this with the built in compass app, which includes a digital level. You should feel stable. It should not feel like you’re sliding off towards the handlebars or like your hips tilt backwards.

Handlebars

Finally, you can move on to the cockpit (always do your adjustments for the hips down first). If you have your hands on the tops of the handlebars (on the “hoods” for road bikes, not the “drops”), the handlebars should obstruct your view of the hub on the front wheel. Adjusting this is harder because you may need a new stem to change the positioning.

When adjusting your cockpit pay attention to how you feel. Do you feel stretched out? Cramped? Have a friend look. Do your upper arms make a 90-degree angle with your torso? They should be close to perpendicular in relation to your upper body as a starting point.

A Professional Opinion May Be Worth It

Using the above guidelines will get you close, and, at the very least, give you an idea if your existing bike will work for you. If you’re unsure, then I’d recommend getting a second opinion. Consider heading over to your local bike shop to get some help or pick out a bike that will better suit you.

While it is an investment in both time and money, I’d also recommend a professional bike fit if you want to nail down all the details of how your bike fits you. It is one of the absolute best ways to spend your money to get the most comfort and performance out of your ride. They usually take anywhere from two to three hours and cost upwards of $175. It’s worth every bit of the investment.

Know Your Skills: Bike Handling

Once your bike fit is good to go, it’s time to think about bike handling as another means of building confidence. Bike handling skills—what are those? Think of things like riding one (or no) handed, bunny hoping, and riding in packs. Descending and cornering are biggies, too. To those of us who grew up riding (and wrecking) bikes, this may already be pretty natural to you. If you didn’t grow up on a bike, though, you will probably need to spend the time here developing your foundational skills.

What’s the best way to do it? Break it down into bite-size chunks with drills. Drills are nice because you can start small and progress your skills as you improve. If you have any fear or trepidation that comes with riding, drills are great a way to gradually take steps towards feeling more in control on a bike. For a list of drills, broken down by what you want to work on, head here.

Plan two or three mini sessions a week where you solely work on your bike handling. You don’t need more than 15-20 minutes to practice. It can be as easy as adding a little extension to your already scheduled rides.

Build Your Engine – Strategies for Building Fitness

The last area to focus on is getting strong. If you are starting from square one, plan to spend two to three weeks acclimating to being on the bike and building some endurance. These initial weeks are an excellent time to prioritize consistency. The habit of riding two to three days per week will really carry you as you develop your bike legs. Keep the intensity low up front (less than 5 out of 10 for effort) before moving on to anything more intense.

Once you have some legs under you, or if you’ve already been riding awhile, you can consider interval work. Intervals are one of the best ways to build fitness. They are time efficient, and can help you to train specific aspects of your fitness. Try one or two sessions per week to start and be sure to get 48 hours of recovery (active recovery is okay). Not sure what kind of intervals to start with? Try one of these two from my TriStrong training plan:

10-15 x 1 BSE Intervals

Goal: To improve strength, power, muscular endurance, and to boost VO2 max.

Description:

• 15:00 warm-up, from RPE 3/Zone 1&2 (up to RPE 7/Zone 3 &4 by the end)
• 3:00 RPE 3

Then, 10-15x:

• 1:00 Best Sustained Effort, 1:00 recovery

Followed with:

• 5:00 cool down

Best sustained effort (BSE) is the strongest consistent effort you can hold for the interval. Stated another way, it is the hardest you can go without the effort exploding and falling off towards the end. Try to be a little stronger in the last ten seconds.

6-9 x 3 Threshold Intervals

Goal: To improve muscular endurance and power at threshold.

Description:

Take 15-20 minutes to warm-up well, then do 6-9x:

• 3:00 at RPE 7-8 (might feel like a 9-10 by the end), zone 4

Use a 2:00 easy spin to recover, then take 10-15 minutes to continue to easily spin and cool down. Stretch.

Single Leg Drills

Consider adding some single leg pedaling drills into the mix. These are most easily performed on an indoor trainer. It’s as simple as unclipping one foot then pedaling as smoothly as possible (at a normal cadence) for 30-60 seconds at a time. Try to apply power all the way around the pedal stroke. It’s hard. These will really help you to pedal efficiently once you bring both legs back into the picture.

Gear and Strategies to Go Beyond

As you progress you may start to wonder what kind of tools and strategies will help you take it to the next level. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Get an Indoor Trainer

Trainers are great for so many reasons, not least of which is the quality of workout you can get on them. Without hills and wind to contend with, your efforts become far more consistent which means you will get more out of the work you put in. This can be such a time-saver. Trainers are also nice when you need to sneak in workout but can’t get out of the house (because of kids, weather, time, etc.).

Train with Heart Rate

Moving from training with perceived effort to using heart rate will give you a better understanding of your body and help you train more specifically. This also helps you get the most out of your training time. As you get more advanced you can use HR to help you sniff out dehydration or over-training before they bite you in the butt.

Upgrade to a Power Meter

Power meters take training specificity to a whole new level. Power meters tell you how much force you are generating in any given moment (moment being the key word here). While heart rate will lag behind shorter efforts, power will not. It is brutally objective and instantaneous. You will know right away if you are hitting your targets or not. For many, it is a total game changer.

Ride With a Group

While it’s fine to start out riding a lot of your miles solo or with trusted friends, taking the leap to join a group ride will reap dividends. Often groups are broken into tiers so you can find a bunch that will match your current skill level. Inevitably, you will build better bike handling skills and meet cyclists who will challenge you to be better.

Challenge Yourself

Whenever possible, choose something outside of your comfort zone to work towards. Curvy descents not your thing? Work up to it. Hate climbing? Find a local hill to conquer. Don’t rest on your laurels.

Don’t Forget to Play

Look, I love training hard as much as anyone, but burn out is a real thing. Make sure you integrate some fun into the mix on regular basis so cycling doesn’t become a chore. For me, that has looked like leisure rides with friends or solo rides where I try to get lost a little bit so it feels like an adventure. How it will look for you exactly? Only you can decide.

Get Some Coaching

Nothing beats the accountability and outside feedback of a coach. Some folks can self-coach well, but for many, having a coach pushes them to a whole new level of training and performance. Having a coach is worth considering if you want to take your game to the next level.

This is by no means an exhaustive list but should get you well on your way. What additional questions do you have as a newer cyclist? If you’d like me to cover a topic in an upcoming piece just shoot an email over to info@breakingmuscle.com and put Coach Gerber in the subject line.

The post The Weak Cyclist’s Guide to Starting Triathlon appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

This is how I prepared for a 25-mile time trial last weekend and what I found made a difference. 

Pre-ride Preparation

As with all events, I usually have some strategy in mind for how I am going to tackle it. I knew the course for this event quite well, so I didn’t need to look up the route in advance. If I were not familiar with the course, I would have investigated the route, the travel arrangements, the location of the headquarters, and the start and finish. In particular, I spend time in advance looking into the location and grade of the hills, where to recover on downhills, major waypoints, prevailing wind direction, and any awkward-looking junctions.

Knowing all the details of the time-trial course is key.

Since I am a numbers type of person, I know my typical threshold figures. As this was a 25-mile event, I planned to ride at near threshold pace for about an hour. I have been doing a lot of swimming recently and spending less time on my bike, so I expected my threshold to be less than it was two or three weeks ago. It only takes a couple of weeks off to have a measurable reduction in performance.¹

The outward section of this course is usually heading into the prevailing wind, while you return with the wind. This meant I would need to put a bit more effort into the outbound section to make up time as I would have the wind behind me on the return. It is harder to keep the power up with a strong wind behind you. A quick weather forecast check showed that the day was expected to be dry with the wind in the usual direction, but quite gusty.

One of the golden rules of any sport is not to change anything right before an event. But I had to make an exception. Last year on this event, I used some time-trial bars in a lower position to reduce my aerodynamic drag. Since I am a lot larger than my cycle, making changes to my position is more likely to affect my result than any of the latest accessories. If I were a full-time professional and seconds mattered, then I might take a different view.

“In particular, I spend time in advance looking into the location and grade of the hills, where to recover on downhills, major waypoints, prevailing wind direction, and any awkward-looking junctions.”

Recently, I have found that the more aggressive riding position of these time-trial bars made my neck uncomfortable. Although it was sustainable for a shorter ten-mile event, it was not going to be sustainable for 25 miles. And sitting up to relieve the resulting discomfort was going to negate any aerodynamic benefit of the lower bars.

Fortunately, I had another pair of bars available that were not quite so aggressive. The elbow pads on these are four centimeters higher. Although my position would not be quite so good, I was banking on it being a much more comfortable experience. Being able to maintain the tucked position for the entire event should garner a shorter time overall, as opposed to sitting up from time to time to relieve discomfort.

As part of my preparation, I check the security of all my cycle fittings and the condition of the tires. Any tire damage would mean a change of tire. A check of the bar position on the turbo was also required.

Finally, the night before the event, I check that I have my kit ready and any electrical gadget I am taking with me has the right settings, good batteries, or is on charge. I don’t like to fiddle with things last minute or during the race so I usually set up a computer to automatically time the event distance and have the essential figures on display like power or heart rate, distance, and time.

Race Day

When race day arrives, my morning routine involves a large glass of water and an easily digestible breakfast such as oats at least two hours before my race time. For an afternoon event, I have a light lunch two to three hours before my time.

The water ensures I am well hydrated. Poor hydration can lead to reduced performance and even be dangerous on long events in hot weather. Blood plasma volume is critically dependent upon good hydration and your blood has to shunt the nutrients and oxygen to your hard-working muscles.

Having signed on and collected my race number. It’s then time for a warm up via either the turbo trainer or a short ride near the race start as conditions allow. Generally, I prefer to use the turbo to avoid any chance of a puncture. It also means I can make any last minute choices like putting on a jacket or having another drink.

When racing, I ensure my point of focus is where I am actually going. This might sound obvious, but it’s easy to let your point of focus be just in front of the bike, or even watching the numbers on your computer, when you should be looking down the road. This is not just a safety issue. I find it helps to look a long way ahead, down the road and through the next bend. This helps to avoid distractions and mentally leads you through the race. With a short-term focus, the whole event seems more difficult.

Post Event Review

The day turned out as expected, dry with a gusty wind straight up the outbound leg of the course. I was happy with my warm up and got to the start with a few minutes to spare. I held my enthusiasm back for the first few minutes, allowing my power and heart rate to rise gradually up to threshold and avoiding going into oxygen debt at the beginning.

“Poor hydration can lead to reduced performance and even be dangerous on long events in hot weather.”

As expected, the gusty wind made the outbound section hard work. In general, I stuck to my plan of working harder on the outward to keep my power and hear rate near or just above threshold. Due to the wind, my level was below threshold coming back. It was difficult to keep up with the pedals even with a 53-tooth chain ring and eleven-tooth sprocket at times. This meant I was unable to sustain my threshold power for the entire race.

The change in handlebars was a success, though, and I managed to stay tucked for the entire ride.

• Average power outbound section – 255 watts
• Average power return section – 231 watts
• Average speed outbound section – 37kph
• Average speed return section – 45kph
• Overall time – 1:02:21

Before the event, I had estimated that my current threshold power was 250 watts, allowing for some reduction from last month due to my swimming. Therefore, the average figures on the outbound and return appear about right.

Time trial summary with wind consideration

Looking at the summary chart, my power figure (orange) fluctuated significantly more than I expected. Every time I went above threshold I would have been in oxygen debt and there were occasions where the power dropped off significantly. This could have been much more even and may have gained me some time as a result.

Lessons Learned

• Setting the bars to be more comfortable helped me maintain the tuck position over the whole race.
• Pre-race preparation went as planned.
• My cadence was in my optimum range of 85-90rpm for most of the time.
• I managed to maintain near threshold on the outward path. As expected, the wind made it more difficult to maintain the power on downwind section reducing the overall average.
• Power was a lot more erratic than I wished and is an area to improve.

With a time like 1:02:21, some slight improvements and less windy conditions might have made that one-hour time possible. There is always next time.

More on cycling:

• The Best Cross-Training Exercise for Serious Cyclists
• Essential Training Etiquette for Cycling and Swimming
• How to Warm Up Properly for Your Cycling Event
• New On Breaking Muscle Today

References:

1. J. Olbrecht, The Science of Winning, F&G Partners, 1997.

Photos 1 & 2 courtesy of Shutterstock.

Photos 3 & 4 courtesy of Simon Kidd.

The post How to Get Your Best Time Trial Performance Yet appeared first on Breaking Muscle.