Cycling Training for TDF 2013

[cooper1210]

Hello there,

I am about six weeks away from cycling the TDF route for charity, and need as much training advice as possible. I only started cycling last year (rode about 1000 miles last year, and 1000 miles this year to date), I'm using a hybrid with slicks and averaging around 15/16mph. I have just started weekly resistance training at the gym with a general personal trainer, working on my legs and some core muscles. My current weekly routine is cycling to work and back 3/4 days (12 miles distance), 1 hour intervals at the gym followed by resistance, and one long ride every weekend 80-100 miles, with a couple of rest days (usually after gym/long ride). I am 30 year old, a little overweight, around 196lbs, body fat circa 25%, smoke occasionally, seldom drink alcohol.

ANY tips or advice on any matters would be greatly appreciated, the only thing I have done like this is the C2C in UK which is around 130 miles, total climb circa 10,000ft, , I did that last year in around 12 hours straight and I believe I'm a little more fitter this time around.

THANK YOU!!!

 

[JibberJim]

Originally Posted by cooper1210 My current weekly routine is cycling to work and back 3/4 days (12 miles distance), 1 hour intervals at the gym followed by resistance, and one long ride every weekend 80-100 miles, with a couple of rest days (usually after gym/long ride). I am 30 year old, a little overweight, around 196lbs, body fat circa 25%, smoke occasionally, seldom drink alcohol.

ANY tips or advice on any matters would be greatly appreciated,

Smoke less drink more?

I'd question the value of the gym for cycling, I'd swap that around to just general fitness and weight loss - trying to work on the things that aren't worked on by the cycling that are good for your health.

In the cycling, you sound like a "big ride warrior" which tends to be poor quality training as you just do a lot of miles slow in a single big effort and then spend days recovering from it. This tends to have a lot less training benefit than shorter individual rides done more regularly and individually at a higher intensity.

So I'd try and cycle more in the week (lengthen your commute coming home / do an extra evening ride) and do a 60 and 40 (say) rides at the weekend rather than just grinding out your duration.

Adjusting your position on your hybrid to something more aerodynamic will also make a lot of difference to your speed if you're riding alone, as would new tyres and tubes that are designed for speed.

 

[cooper1210]

Completely agree with regards to the weekend rides, I'm planning to do two 50m rides sat/sun but finding the time is hard. With regards to the resistance training, it seems to be helpings somewhat to build some strength especially when I'm hitting the short 1-3 minute climbs, I seem to fly up them now even after a couple of weeks. I work 11-7 so longer evening rides isn't so much an option but I was thinking of occasionally doing a 25 mile ride before work without breakfast to burn off more fat and get my metabolism going. Also, I'm after advice on nutrition whilst I'm touring, I was just thinking bananas/fresh fruit with sugar/salt water with mineral tablets from supermarkets to mimic isotonic drinks, do you think this would suffice? I believe every day calorie burn would be circa 10,000 and this is a hard deficit to meet. Thanks again

 

[vspa]

Hello there, I am about six weeks away from cycling the TDF route for charity, and need as much training advice as possible. THANK YOU!!!

you mean 1 stage of the TDF ? the tour is composed of 21 stages averaging in total 3600 kilometers more or less,

 

[cooper1210]

Nope, the entire route, just something spontaneous I thought I'd have a crack at. I plan to stay a day ahead of the main tour all the way to paris

 

[vspa]

Hello there, I am about six weeks away from cycling the TDF route for charity, and need as much training advice as possible. I only started cycling last year (rode about 1000 miles last year, and 1000 miles this year to date), I'm using a hybrid with slicks and averaging around 15/16mph. THANK YOU!!!

Nope, the entire route, just something spontaneous I thought I'd have a crack at. I plan to stay a day ahead of the main tour all the way to paris

this is double trouble, for your cycling background (which is slim) if you plan something this big at least you should allocate twice as much time as you are planning, not to mention the logistic into it, hostals and hotels are fully booked on every city and town that the tour passes by, it may sound like an amazing and exciting challenge but physical fatigue will make you change your mind quickly if you don't have the required training miles on your legs,

 

[cooper1210]

Carrying tent/sleeping bags in pannier racks. Ok, I fully appreciate this is a mammoth task but it is achievable as long as I take my time, I am off to Tenerife in two weeks time and aim to do 1,000 miles in 7 days also bearing in mind that its a 7,000 ft mountain. I would say I'm a person with great mental strength and definately think I am capable of this. Please bear in mind, this post was about tips/advice, not criticism! Please advise on whatever training you would recommend for the next 6 weeks!

 

[vspa]

Carrying tent/sleeping bags in pannier racks. Ok, I fully appreciate this is a mammoth task but it is achievable as long as I take my time, I am off to Tenerife in two weeks time and aim to do 1,000 miles in 7 days also bearing in mind that its a 7,000 ft mountain. I would say I'm a person with great mental strength and definately think I am capable of this. Please bear in mind, this post was about tips/advice, not criticism! Please advise on whatever training you would recommend for the next 6 weeks!

and i gave you advice,

 

[Volnix]

Originally Posted by cooper1210 .

Carrying tent/sleeping bags in pannier racks. Ok, I fully appreciate this is a mammoth task but it is achievable as long as I take my time, I am off to Tenerife in two weeks time and aim to do 1,000 miles in 7 days also bearing in mind that its a 7,000 ft mountain. I would say I'm a person with great mental strength and definately think I am capable of this. Please bear in mind, this post was about tips/advice, not criticism! Please advise on whatever training you would recommend for the next 6 weeks!

My advice is very simple: Dont do it! /img/vbsmilies/smilies/biggrin.gif

Cycling 1000miles in 7days with loaded panniers and climbing yeah right... /img/vbsmilies/smilies/biggrin.gif

 

[cooper1210]

Ok, with regards to training, again does anyone have any tips or advice?

 

[vspa]

training wise there is not a whole lot you can do in six weeks, endurance training requires time and consistency, miles stack in your body from year to year in a gradual way, what you can do is a simulation of your tdf plan, bring in to Tenerife your rack and panniers and ride those daily approximated 130 miles with a loaded bike, climb the 10 K feet mountain with your loaded bike also, go back home and reassess your plan according to the results you get in Tenerife,

 

[cooper1210]

That's my plans in Tenerife, to do some serious climbing with weights and to get the miles. My aim is 1,000 miles in 7 days with at least 10,000ft climbing every day, at least this will give me a feel of the TDF

 

[swampy1970]

Off to sunny Tenerife, aye? Go find the road to Masca. Be careful on the descent as the white knee high concrete blocks that masquerade as barriers that are there to somewhat stop you before plummeting down the side of the mountain will probably kill you before the long drop. It's long, it's steep and even as a fairly handy road guy (145lbs and a fairly big bag of watts) the descent induced burning forearms slightly less than on the way up. If you're not a climbing whippet, I'd say a 24 ring on the front and a 32 in the back might be more your style. The climb up the big hill is easier but longer. There are extended 8% sections (1 in 12) and the distance might get to you. If you're coming from the west side there's a nice bar that will let you fill your bottles and has a fantastic view (just north of chirche). The last 1/5th of the climb is underwhelming. Not much to see and the volcanic landscape seems to radiate heat on an epic scale at times. The road upto the cable car station could be anywhere. Boring and bland. Descriptively steep. Late in the day it's possible for the heat on the islands to negate or even reservse the usual trade winds and the descent back to the Los gigantes area is an absolute screamer. I've hit 70mph on that descent. No brakes required for miles... One cool thing is the drivers overthere are mindful of cyclists and I had a few stuck their hands out of the car window to wave me past. Climb Tiede a couple of times per day and see how you feel at the end of it. Enjoy.

 

[cooper1210]

Cheers for that, I'm planning on doing around 150 miles a day with at least one climb a day of Mt Teide, I've heard that the climb doesn't get any steeper than 10% so I should be pretty comfortable with that, anything above 15% really starts to get to me! I think if I can manage that for a week, I should be pretty much ok for the TDF. Are there many supermarkets/shops floating around the island roads for drinks/fruit, especially on the climbs? Thanks

 

[swampy1970]

There's cafes and little corner stores all over the place. 150 miles a day? Why? If you want some weird personal sense of instant gratification combined with pain, go find a hooker that's into S&M and be her *****. If you want some good training, start at 70 miles and see how you climb - chances are you climb poorly and probably couldn't repeat that effort several days in a row. The reason that folks go to places like Tenerife is to get a quality block of training in to finish their training period off - ie many months of long and hard endurance rides finished off with a couple of weeks in the sun and a nice dose of hard, but manageable, miles to round it all off... ... That and to go check out the totty in Los Christianos If you have a background in endurance sports then just turning up with little training and putting out the big miles isn't too hard but if you don't, whilst its not impossible given sufficient motivation, its not really recommended.

 

[quenya]

1000 miles (including climbs) in 7 days... 1000 miles so far this year... 1000 miles all of last year... I don't think your training history is sufficient... I don't know if anyone I know who isn't paid to race a bike could do this. Im pretty sure none of the pros I know could do it either. You described yourself as overweight, your average speeds imply that you aren't unusually powerful and you're planning on riding the TDF route touring style with panniers on a hybrid bike? The pros will be on the bike 3-6 hours you will be on the bike 6-15+ hours to ride the same courses. Many pros who have training histories and natural talent you wouldn't believe are going to abandon the race simply because they cannot deal with the stress (physiologically) of racing those distances for that long. And, these guys have SO much support (and sometimes *support*)! How are you going to deal with starts that are hundreds of miles from the previous finish? How are you going to recover from huge rides in time to start the next day? Are the exact routes for each stage even going to be accessible? Tenerife may not have double digit grades but the Pyrenees sure do...

 

[vspa]

There's cafes and little corner stores all over the place. 150 miles a day? Why? If you want some weird personal sense of instant gratification combined with pain, go find a hooker that's into S&M and be her *****. If you want some good training, start at 70 miles and see how you climb - chances are you climb poorly and probably couldn't repeat that effort several days in a row. If you have a background in endurance sports then just turning up with little training and putting out the big miles isn't too hard but if you don't, whilst its not impossible given sufficient motivation, its not really recommended.

cooper1210 insists on his planning, with about 1000 miles ridden last year, his first year cycling, he now wants to ride the entire tour de france route in 21 days, with a loaded bike, go figure

 

[alienator]

My training suggestions:

1. Pick several stages of the TdF that you'd like to ride.
2. Provide yourself plenty of rest between stages.
3. Ride those stages.
4. Come up with a plan for riding the TdF next year.
5. Start training for next year.

I think you've underestimated your task by an order of magnitude or seven. Have you taken into account things like wind, heat, and foul weather, all things that have plagued TdF riders in nearly every edition? Have you taken into account the quality of rest you'll get at the campground each night? Have you taken into account proper hydration and nutrition?

 

[Volnix]

Originally Posted by swampy1970 .

150 miles a day? Why? If you want some weird personal sense of instant gratification combined with pain, go find a hooker that's into S&M and be her *****. If you want some good training, start at 70 miles and see how you climb

Ex-f^ckin-actly... Pushing a loaded bike uphill is not something you wanna do every day (if at all). You might not be in the correct cadence zone and get an injury or something! (not from the hooker, from the loaded climbing). If you wanna do training gradually try to go faster or longer or something. If you just wanna ride around you can also do that or if you wanna go for touring then load up some good gear and enjoy your self by taking some couple of nights brake between every segment and have a pint or two.
Maybe there is a personal reason you wanna do that, I read thay you are planning this as a charity ride, but when doing things, some things are considered nice to do, some are epic efforts and some are just plain crazy...

You might wanna try to cycle 170km one day and if you feel well the next day to try that again. But by the sound of the situation, loaded with a hybrid, even if you had the lightest pro-carbon bike 170km every day without TdF freak athlete background there is little chance that you will wanna do that the next day and the following for a week.

I think a nice tour would be great... Training you can do at your home town anyway. Touring is a pretty good excersise too and its lots of fun. Here are some pictures of a tour I did couple of years ago. I had some cheap gear, not the super-lightweight stuff but took less of it with me. The bike is a 7speed nexus at 13.5kg, not the best equipment for climbing. But its rainproof, unlike my gear which I had to rely on a hotel room on one occation to dry after a rainy ride.

I did 200km in 7 days. Had a few pints, was on my own (because nobody thought this as much fun as me to join me) and when I came back I still looked like "Lorens of Arabia" /img/vbsmilies/smilies/biggrin.gif and it wasnt even that hot either.

 

[cooper1210]

Just thought I'd post an update on my latest training. With it being bank holiday weekend, I decided to do the coast to coast back to back:

http://app.strava.com/activities/56476219
Day 1, 104 miles, 6,100 ft climbed

http://app.strava.com/activities/56476219
Day 2, 121 miles, 10,200 ft climbed

Fair enough, average speeds of 12mph ain't impressive, I was however taking my time and just plodded along at comfort, even after finishing yesterday, I still feel reasonably fresh and could quite easily do another couple of days I think. I did experience a little pain and stiffness in my right knee for half an hour when I woke up which I quickly walked off, however, I believe some resistance/weight training will help on this.

I am building up a profile of the rides and from what I've seen for the first 9 stages, it all seems to be on the same level as what I've just done, in fact, some stages are flatter and of course there is the individual time trial which I'm counting as a rest day.

OK, my main problem I can foresee now is nutrition, I had the advantage of carrying isotonic and soreen cakes (fruit loafs, extremely calorific) this weekend which stopped me from bonking. I can't imagine finding isotonic powders in france will be cheap or easy to find. Any ideas on nutrition anyone? I was thinking oranges for fructose, bags of sugar with salt for the isotonic drink, after that I need to source electrolytes and other heavy carb foods that will keep me going. Stuff I can find easy from supermarkets/corner shops would be fantastic.

Cheers )