Talkin' Tires

There are few (if any) equipment decisions as important as which tires to select for your bike. Most professionals have a range of tire that they choose for training and racing in different conditions. Here are the factors you should consider:

1. Rolling resistance: this is the resistance of the ground surface that impairs the forward movement of the wheels. Under "normal" road conditions (dry road, good pavement, road bike), rolling resistance is negligible compared to aerodynamics, but all you have to do to see how big of a deal it can be is ride along your local paved bike path at 18-20 mph, hop off the pavement onto the dirt and try to maintain the same speed. Though road races with dirt or gravel sections are becoming increasingly popular, rolling resistance is always a significant factor in Mountain Bike and Cyclocross races. For more on tire rolling resistance, check out this article from Lennard Zinn (VeloNews).

Determined by: riding surface (e.g. smooth asphalt, concrete, wooden track, rough asphalt, dirt, rocks, sand, mud, etc.), tire width, inflation pressure, speed, rubber compound, tread pattern, TPI (threads per inch).

Vittoria's Pave tires are in many ways the perfect all-around racing tire for less than ideal conditions. Excellent traction and puncture resistance without being too heavy to race on

2. Traction: Traction and rolling resistance are essentially 2 sides of the same coin. Traction refers to the "grip" a tire has on the road; it's what keeps our tires from sliding on the road and thereby, our bodies from sliding on the ground. Higher traction does not necessarily mean higher rolling resistance though. In fact, to a certain extent it's the opposite. The less traction, the more slippage. Slippage causes friction, thereby greatly increasing rolling resistance.

Determined by: rubber compound, tire pressure, tire width, tread pattern, surface conditions, weather conditions, bike handling skills and finesse

3. Weight: nowhere on the bike is weight more important that on the tires and wheels. Even when riding on a flat (or downhill) road, mass that lies on the outside of a rotating surface is constantly being accelerated. This is one area where even a few grams of weight savings can be quite significant. On the other hand, it doesn't matter how light your tires are if you are constantly getting flat tires.

Determined by: rubber compound, tire thickness, tire width.

4. Wheel compatibility: Most people are aware that tubular wheels take tubular tires and clincher wheels take clincher tires. However, when you throw tubeless wheels and tires into the mix it makes things a little more complicated. Most clincher rims can now be converted for use with tubeless tires and most tubeless rims can be used with a clincher tire and tube. Tubeless tires are now ubiquitous in MTB racing and increasingly popular for road and cyclocross racing but they may not be ideal for training since tubeless tires require high pressure to seat properly and most of us don't carry high pressure pumps when training.

Determined by: which wheels you own, manufacturer's wheel and tire recommendations

The Specialized Armadillo tire is a perennial favorite for off-season training. It may be heavy, but it's durability and puncture resistance are hard to beat

5. Flat resistance: Flat tires were the most common mechanical problem 100 years ago and they are the most common mechanical problem today. To some extent flat tires are unavoidable unless we want to use solid rubber tires. Roads have broken glass and potholes. Once we venture off the road we have to contend with rocks, thorns and 100 other potentially flat-inducing obstacles. That doesn't mean flat tires are completely unavoidable though. Choosing the right tires helps, but being smart about where on the road/trail you ride, how you carry your weight, checking your tires for wear and cuts regularly and replacing on a timely basis is equally important.

Determined by: rubber compound, tire pressure, manufacturer quality control, tire wear, surface conditions, rider weight

Who says there's no room for innovation on tires? Unfortunately, Mavic's CX01 "blade" is not UCI legal

6. Aerodynamics: You might not think that aerodynamics comes into play too much for tires but you'd be wrong. Just as there is nowhere that weight reduction can be more important than with rotating surfaces, the same can be said for aerodynamics. Now, tire manufacturers can only do so much to change the shape of the tire without affecting it's other qualities, but that doesn't mean they can't do anything. The two most notable examples in the past few years have been the Zipp Tangente tires (with dimples) and the Mavic CX01 wheel/tire systems (smoothed interface between tire and wheel). Even with traditional tires though, the width of the tire and gap between tire and frame will affect aerodynamics. For more on tire aerodynamics, check out this article, also from Lennard Zinn.

Determined by: Width of tire, shape of tire, interface between tire and rim, gap between tire and frame

The cobbles of Paris Roubaix lead many riders to use 27mm tires

7. Suspension: Tires are your first and foremost form of suspension on any bike and they are the majority of your suspension on a road, cyclocross or rigid mountain bike. Your tire will do more to either soak up road bumps and "noise" or make you feel every last vibration than anything else. In general, lower tire pressure, softer rubber compounds and higher TPI will give you more suspension, but here is a limit. Just as over-inflated tires will hurt reduce traction and comfort while increasing rolling resistance, under-inflated tires can bring about a higher risk of pinch flats, and also cause higher rolling resistance/less traction. Like many things, the trick is to find the best middle ground.

Determined by: Width of tire, tire pressure, rubber compound, rubber thickness, rider weight, surface conditions

8. Durability: Obviously we want our tires to last as long as possible, especially when many tires run over $100 a pop. Unfortunately, the easiest way for a manufacturer to get a tire to last longer is to make it thicker and use a harder rubber compound. Most likely this means a heavier tire, higher rolling resistance, less traction and a less comfortable ride. So we must compromise. Most of us are willing to accept a tire that is a bit heavier for training if it lasts a little longer and there's less chance we'll be stuck outside changing a flat tire in 20 degree weather. Similarly, when racing, we're probably willing to accept a little shorter tire lifespan if the tire is lighter, has less rolling resistance and has excellent grip wen cornering. However, that doesn't mean we want to train on solid rubber or we want to be gluing tubulars on our race wheels every week. With everything there are limits.

Determined by: Rubber compound, tire thickness, riding conditions & mileage

9. Shedding: This is the ability of a tire to displace water, dirt or mud. In dry conditions on good pavement or a concrete/wood track, it's not a huge concern but as soon as the rain starts to fall or you start riding in the mud it becomes important. The better a tire displaces water or mud, the better your traction and the lower the rotating weight of the tire/wheel.

Determined by: tread pattern, surface conditions, weather conditions, tire width, rubber compound

Here are my answers to some of the most commonly asked questions about tires:

What pressure should I pump my tires to?

The answer to this question depends on many factors; mainly the width of the tire, weight of the rider and course conditions. To simplify things, I made this chart:

Recommended Tire pressure for different width tires, course conditions and rider weight. The first number is for the front tire, the second is for the rear tire. This chart assumes a 55%/45% weight distribution (rear/front). For mountain bikes, hybrids, cruisers and recumbents, the rear tire split will be higher and for TT/tri bikes the split will be closer to 50/50.

Before all you tire pressure nerds start writing in and picking this apart, let me say that I know it is oversimplified and this is on purpose. So instead of trying to make a chart that accounts for every possible scenario, let's keep the chart simple and address some of the possible exceptions. First of all, it's important to read the min and max pressure limits for your tires, rims and rim strips (if applicable). Never go below minimum or above maximum recommended limits, but that doesn't mean pumping to min or max allowable pressure is correct either. Second, the thickness of the tire and the rubber compound will also come into play. The thicker the tire and the harder the rubber, the lower the pressure needs to be. Third, whether you use clinchers, tubulars or tubeless tires makes a difference. Tubular and tubeless tires don't pinch flat, so you can generally get away with lower pressure with either. Tubular rims can also tolerate higher pressure since they don't have sidewalls. Last but not least, riding style and personal preference come into play as well. Riders with more "finesse" and those more careful about avoiding obstacles can get away with lower pressure. Those that prefer the "bulldozer" method might want to go a bit higher.

A wooden track is as close to a perfect surface as you will find, This means that you can get close to max allowable pressure because there isn't much need for suspension.

For cyclocross and mountain biking, determining tire pressure is much more complicated because of the vast differences in course conditions and types of tires used. I could write an entire article on just this, so in the interest of efficiency let me just give 3 simple recommendations: 1) Have a few different tire options available for different conditions, 2) Run the lowest pressure you can get away with without an unacceptable risk of punch flats and/or ripping sidewalls and 3) Preride whenever possible, adjust pressure as necessary. This should be a part of every MTB/cross warmup. For more on cyclocross tire pressure, check out this article from BikeRadar.com

Should I buy 25 mm or wider tires for my road bike?

Short answer: If they fit, probably. The standard for road cycling seems to be quickly changing from 23mm to 25mm. In general, 25 mm tires are more comfortable, more flat resistant, corner better, have lower rolling resistance and can be pumped to a lower pressure without a high risk of flatting. Downside? They weigh more, are less aerodynamic, won't fit on every bike (e.g. the chain stays on my Canondale Evo aren't wide enough to accept a 25mm rear tire) and the selection on 25mm tires is not as good as with 23mm tires (at least at this time). I would also note that for TT/Triathlon bikes it's probably best to stick to 23mm tires because of the aerodynamic factors as well as typically smaller gaps between the frame and the tires. In my opinion, 27mm tires aren't necessary except in extreme conditions (e.g. Paris Roubaix), though some riders, heavier riders in particular, may prefer them.

The difference between a tubular and clincher rim. The tubular rim (on the left) requires the tire to be glued on with a few layers of strong glue. The clincher rim (on the right) hooks onto a bead in the clincher tire

Is it worth it to buy a tubular race wheelset?

Maybe, maybe not. 30 years ago, just about everyone used tubular (sew-up) tires for racing and many used them for training as well. It wasn't even possible to buy a race quality clincher tire. Things are different now and there are plenty of great high quality clincher tires available. Advancements in manufacturing technology have allowed many wheel companies to manufacture high quality carbon clincher rims that won't crack the first time you ride over railroad tracks. Of course, there are still 2 good reasons to consider tubulars: 1. The tubular rim/tire combination is lighter than the clincher rim/tire/tube combination. For example, a set of Zipp 404 firecrest carbon clinchers with Tangente clinchers will weigh about 285 grams more than the tubular equivalent. Hardly insignificant, especially when you're talking about rotational weight. 2. You can get away with using a lower pressure for tubulars without the risk of pinch flatting. This is especially important for cyclocross, where many racers like to run 20-30 psi in their tires. Contrast these with the benefits of clinchers: 1. It's a lot easier to switch to different tires depending on the course conditions and 2. You don't have to glue your tires on, which is messy, smelly and time consuming. At the end of the day, it still comes down to personal preference.

How can wider tires and lower pressure result in lower rolling resistance? Was that a typo?

No, but I'm glad you're paying attention. It is a bit counter-intuitive that you might actually increase your rolling resistance by pumping it up more or by going to a narrower tire but it is true, within limits. Narrower tires and higher pressures mean that less rubber is in contact with the ground. The bumpier the surface is, the less rubber will be in contact. This means that the rotational force is concentrated onto a smaller piece of rubber, which means more chance of slippage (and hence a higher rolling resistance). Even when the road surface is "pretty good" (e.g. average asphalt road), there are small bumps in the road surface where highly inflated or very narrow tires will slip. These "micro-slips" may not even be individually perceptible, but overall they will slow you down because the friction between the tire and the ground impairs forward movement. So why don't we go to the other extreme and all use huge tires and super low pressure? The answer is that a) wider tires are heavier and less aerodynamic and b) It's not really necessary under most conditions. Basically, once you pass a certain threshold, slippage becomes insignificant. This threshold can be met with fairly narrow tires and high pressure on a "perfect" surface like a wooden track (hence the higher pressure recommendations for track racing), but the bumpier the surface, the wider the tire and the lower the pressure required to prevent excessive slippage (hence the lower pressure recommendations for off-road racing).

Fat bikes are perfect for riding in the snow, but probably not worth it if you're only going to ride it 5 times per year

Are there tires I can use in snow and ice?

Yes! For mountain biking in the snow, I am of the opinion that a most mountain bikes do OK for casual snow use, but a fat bike is ideal. That said, it may not be worth it for you to buy yet another bike just for snow riding (note: enthusiasts will be quick to point out that fat bikes can be used in all sorts of conditions). As far as ice, that's a different story. The best way to ride in ice is to put a pair of studded tires on your mountain bike or cross bike (some road bikes may accept them as well, but be careful in order to avoid frame damage). If you need help selecting a pair of studded tires, check out this excellent article from Peter White, who lives in New Hampshire where the winter riding options are a) Get studded tires or b) Ride indoors. Studs work surprisingly well in icy conditions, but use caution using them in good conditions because the studs can easily rip out of the tire.

Example of a studded tire

Which tires should I use indoors?

As I mentioned in my article "How I learned to stop worrying and love the trainer, part 2", riding indoors wears tires down faster than outdoor riding. In particular, indoor trainers will "square off" your tires, making them dangerous to ride outdoors. A few manufacturers make indoor trainer specific tires, but they are not safe to ride outdoors so I would only recommend them if you either ride exclusively indoors in the winter or you have a separate "trainer wheel". Of course, another option is just to use a tire around that is too worn out to ride outdoors but not quite showing it's threads yet. If you're like me and you ride both indoors and outdoors in the winter but you don't want to get another wheel for the trainer, just keep a close eye on your rear tire and expect to replace it a little more frequently.

If you have any other tire questions that I didn't answer, feel free to send em' in!

Colin Sandberg is the owner and head coach of Backbone Performance, LLC. He is a Cat. 1 road  racer, a USA Cycling Level II coach and a UCI Director Sportif. He is also head  coach at Young Medalists High Performance and race director for  Team Young  Medalists. If you have questions or comments, feel free to use the comments section or email us. Thanks for reading!

What to wear, what to wear?

Here in the Mid-Atlantic, we're not even halfway through winter but we have already had more than our share of snow and cold weather. Few things are as frustrating as having the motivation to train but not being able to get outside. Even if you don't mind the indoor trainer, it's tough to do many long endurance rides indoors. If you don't want to just "sit it out" and resign yourself to a few months exclusively on the indoor trainer, here are some tips on how to prepare yourself.

A few years ago, I wrote an article for Cadence where I detailed the process of how to get your training in when the weather is working against you. This is a general strategy for getting through the winter, but I thought that I would elaborate on #2: Invest in some good winter gear.

On a day to day basis, here is the process I follow in order to figure out what to wear:

Step 1: Check the weather forecast. Weather.com has a nice site that will spell it out for you hour by hour. Obviously you will want to pay attention to the temperature, but you should also look at the wind strength and direction. One of the biggest mistakes new cyclists make when trying to ride outdoors in the winter is they underestimate the wind factor. A lot of cold weather gear that is not cycling specific may keep you warm enough for a snowball fight but not warm enough to ride a bike. Even if you there is no wind, there will still be a "wind chill" at least equal to the speed you are traveling. If it's really windy, you will have to take the "feels like" temperature into account and you may want to wear some clothing with more windblock material, which tends to do a good job of keeping you warm, though it is not particularly flexible or wicking. Now some astute readers may question why the wind direction matters unless you are riding in one direction and then getting a ride home. In truth though, a lot can be done with route planning in order to avoid the worst of the headwind (which can be demoralizing as well as chilling). For example, the other day I saw that there was a steady 17-20 mph wind coming from the west, so I decided to do this route, where I would more protected from the headwind on the way out by hills and trees and then have a tailwind for the second half when I would surely be more tired.

This is my personal clothing matrix. Keep in mind that this will include my own biases, but it is a good starting point.

Step 2: Check the clothing matrix. I made up this matrix after years of trial and error as well as more pairs of gloves, booties, jackets, base layers and hats than I can imagine. Keep in mind that this is only a starting point and also that it is based on my personal preferences and biases. Also, you may not have all the clothes I have so you may need to make some substitutions. BTW, if you don't like my chart, you may also want to try this one from Bicycling Magazine.

Knee and leg warmers are nice because they are easy to take off during a ride if it gets warmer

Step 3: Adjust for weather changes. If there are strong winds, you should take a look at the "wind chill" or "feels like" temperature as well as the actual temperature. Anything over 5 mph winds will be significant. You should follow the recommendations for 5 degrees cooler on any areas of exposed skin. If it is going to warm up a lot during your ride, you should take extra care to bring some clothing  alternatives in your pockets or possibly just be prepared to be cold at  the start before you warm up. As a rule it is usually good to start cold weather rides a little bit cold and then warm up. If you are  too comfortable at the very start, chances are that you will be sweating like crazy in an hour, and then freezing cold in 2 hours because you are soaking wet with sweat.

You should look not only at the temperature when you are leaving but the temperature throughout your ride. If your ride starts at 8-10 AM, it is not unusual that the temperature could rise more than 10 degrees in an hour. If it's going to be a particularly hard/fast ride, you may be willing to sacrifice your comfort in the beginning of the ride so you don't have to bring as much with you or be sweat logged after an hour.  

Different head covering options

Step 4: Adjust for the type of ride. In general, the harder you will be going, the warmer you will be and therefore the less you should wear. For example, if you are going for an easy recovery ride, you aren't going to warm up as much as you would for a sprint or anaerobic capacity workout. The other thing to keep in mind is how much protection from the wind and elements you will have. Riding around flat fields or ocean front will be a lot colder than rolling hills or forests, even if all other things are equal. In fact, many riders will choose to ride their mountain bikes on those really cold days because of lower speeds as well as more wind cover. It should be noted that these recommendations are for road and mountain bikers will have to follow slightly different rules (mainly with regard to foot covering since booties don't usually fit well on MTB shoes). Finally, riding in a group can offer a lot of protection from the wind, though if you are riding on wet roads you will end up with more ice water in your body and face if the other riders aren't using fenders.

As you can see, I have lots of different glove options because I often have issues with cold hands

My feet also get very cold so I like to have a lot of choices

Step 5: Adjust for your personal preferences or needs. Personally, I have always had trouble with cold hands and feet, and to this day I have never found a perfect solution for keeping either hands or feet warm in the coldest conditions, even if I follow all of my own recommendations. Yet I know other people that ride on the coldest days with only light booties and gloves. A rider with an artificial hip may need to take added precautions in very cold weather, and a rider with a knee issue may need to either keep the knee covered even when it is fairly warm or uncovered when it is fairly cold depending on the nature of the injury. Some riders are very sensitive to their ears being cold, so they have to wear a hat or headband that covers their ears even when most people would go bare-headed (except for a helmet of course). Additionally, some people may find certain accessories such as neck warmers, hand warmer packets, multiple pairs of socks or booties, heated insoles, rain pants and fenders cumbersome, annoying and possibly unfashionable. You know yourself better than anyone, so adjust according to your own preferences.

Step 6: Make notes on your training log about what you wore and how comfortable you were. Though most people won't want to bother with another thing to record in their training log, it can help to record the weather conditions, what you wore and how comfortable you were so you can better learn from your mistakes. In addition, you can never have too many clothing options and no clothing is ever perfect. Always be open to trying out new products and technologies. In addition, clothing wears out and breaks so it's always good to have backup.

Now, everyone has their limits. I admit, when I lived in Ohio I used to ride as long as it was above 10 degrees. In my old age, that limit has been raised to 20 degrees but it still feels pretty cold. Luckily, I have learned a few tricks that help make things a little more bearable in the extreme cold.

Toe Warmers + Booties: For added toe protection, you can double up by wearing toe warmers underneath your regular winter booties. I even sewed (ok, my wife sewed) an old pair that was torn up onto the outside of a pair of winter booties.

Heated Insoles: There are a number of battery operated or rechargeable electric insoles that you can get. Most of these are designed for skiers, who often ski in far more extreme conditions than we rides in. There are a few potential issues with these though: a) The wires are often very delicate, requiring that you carefully route them through your shoes so they don't get damaged, b) The controls have to be mounted externally (most likely somewhere along your calf) so you have to think about where you put them so they won't be in the way and keep them from getting damaged, c) Most of these don't last more than 100 charges (though if you are like me you would probably only have occasion to use them about 10 times/year), d) You will usually have to remove your regular insoles and replace them with these, which can be a fit problem for people that have to wear special orthodics or insoles with high arch support d) They can be relatively expensive. For those looking for a less expensive, but slightly effective solution, you might want to look at disposable heated insoles as an alternative.

Winter Shoes: Many cycling shoe manufacturers make special "winter cycling shoes" that are thicker, more waterproof, more windproof, less ventilated and offer more insulation inside. Personally, my experience with these is that they are indispensable for winter mountain biking, but not really worth it for the road. The reason they are so nice for mountain biking is because it is so difficult to get good booties for mountain biking and even the MTB specific booties have a habit of slipping off or shredding whenever you put your feet down. Most people find that riding with them on the road gives you a little bit more warmth in exchange for a lot of extra problems. Shoes are arguably the most important item of a bike fit and any move away from what you normally use can cause huge problems (which is why most professional cycling teams allow riders to use non-sponsored shoes). There may even be a significant difference required in saddle height when switching from one shoe to another, even if you keep your brand consistent.

Take your gloves off on the climbs: Personally, I am partial to Lobster gloves in very cold conditions. My warmest pair of gloves is a purple and blue pair of down insulated Pearl Izumi gloves lobster gloves from 1994. They are super ugly and bulky, but they are warmer than anything I have ever found, so for someone that gets cold hands easily, they are worth it. The other nice thing about lobster gloves is that it's easy to stick hand warmer packs in there if you need to. The only problem is that my hands always sweat in them and if that sweat becomes excessive my hands will get cold because of this. A good way to fix this is to take off your gloves on the climbs, letting everything dry out. Because the speed is low, your hands won't get too cold. Once you reach the top, put your gloves back on before your speed picks up again and you should be fine.

All sorts of base layer options: short sleeve, long sleeve, sleeveless, thermal, wicking, warm weather...

Merino wool baselayers: Thin merino wool has the distinctive characteristic of keeping you warm in cold and wet conditions while not being very bulky. Owning at least a couple of these (short sleeve and long sleeve) are a must for winter riding. The only downside is that the good ones aren't cheap.

Smartly timed rest stops: Riders from Pittsburgh will be familiar with 2 time RAAM winner Danny Chew's "7 minute rule" which states that any stop made has to be less than 7 minutes long. Admittedly, for Danny this is largely about making the most of his time since he regularly rides over 200 miles per day. But keeping rest stops short and sweet can also prevent you from having to warm up a second time when you are already sweaty, so it makes sense, at least in moderately cold (30-50 degree conditions). In extremely cold and/or wet conditions through, I recommend taking a bit longer stop and letting yourself fully warm up. Make sure to strip down as much as possible without breaking any laws in order to dry out your clothes a little bit. If you stop somewhere with a hand dryer in the bathroom, these can help you dry out any wet clothing (shoes, socks and gloves in particular). Grab a hot beverage while you are stopped to help your core temperature rise a little. It still might be a rude awakening when you start up again, but you might discover that with your clothing all dried out and a cup of hot coffee in you the ride is a lot more bearable.

Fenders: Having fenders on your bike can keep the moisture on the ground from spraying onto your legs and up your backside as well as into the face of the person behind you. In some areas, winter group rides require riders to use at least a rear fender as a courtesy. Fenders also protect your headset and drivetrain from becoming coated in salty water sprayed up off the road, which is much more damaging to your bike than simple rain. Many cyclocross bikes and older road bikes actually have mounts for fenders. For newer road bikes, SKS makes a fender set that can easily be installed and removed. If you don't have enough clearance to accommodate these, there are also quite a few rear fenders that be easily mounted to your seatpost.

I would love to hear from you what your tips are for winter riding as I am sure that some of you do it much more regularly than I do. So write in with your tips!

Colin Sandberg is the owner and head coach of Backbone Performance, LLC. He is a Cat. 1 road  racer, a USA Cycling Level II coach and a UCI Director Sportif. He is also head  coach at Young Medalists High Performance and race director for  Team Young  Medalists. If you have questions or comments, feel free to use the comments section or email us. Thanks for reading!

How to save your hard earned cash

There's no shortage of things to spend money on in the cycling world. Being that most of us don't have an unlimited source of cash, we have to prioritize. In part 1, I listed 5 ways to spend your money that I believe are good investments. In part 2, I will talk about the other side: how to save your money and avoid spending it on things that won't help you very much.

Ways to save money

1. Buy aluminum instead of carbon: Buying an aluminum frame, wheels, stems, bars and seatposts can be significantly less expensive than buying the equivalent carbon versions. Here are a few examples:

Carbon Version                                                              Aluminum Version                                         Price Savings     Additional Weight

Cannondale Super Six Evo-4, $2710, 1110g (frame)     Cannondale CAAD10-4, $1950, 1150g (frame)     $760                     40g

Zipp 202 Carbon Clincher wheels, $2725, 1380g       Zipp 101 wheels, $1325, 1530g                             $1400                   150g

3T Ergosum Team Bars, $325, 195g                             3T Ergosum Pro Bars, $95, 245g                         $230                     50g

Easton EC90 SL Stem, $240, 110g                                 Easton EA90 Stem, $95, 130g                             $145                      20g

Ritchey WCS Carbon Seatpost, $200, 179g                  Ritchey WCS Al Seatpost, $100, 198g                 $100                     19g

Don't get me wrong. I think carbon fiber is great. For example, a carbon fork can do a lot to increase shock absorption, improve comfort and decrease the weight of your bike. I'm not sure how anyone ever rode a bike without a carbon fork before. And a good carbon fiber bike undoubtedly has a better ride quality than it's aluminum equivalent. As far as weight goes, although many of those weight differences may seem small by themselves, they do add up, especially when we're talking about rotating weight, as in the case of wheels. But although carbon is generally lighter than aluminum and it's easier to shape it into unusual shapes, it doesn't always have the ideal properties for every application. For example, the braking surface on carbon wheels will never be as good as the breaking surface on aluminum wheels, especially in the rain or other bad conditions (though better carbon specific brake pads have certainly helped). Carbon is also more prone to catastopic failures under impact. Many a bike racer has made the switch back to aluminum after breaking their carbon fiber bars, frame or seatpost.

Campagnolo Chorus 11 Speed gruppo. A lot less expensive than Record and only a tiny bit heavier.

2. Buy 2nd tier components: When you compare all the 9 piece 11 speed (non electronic) gruppos from Shimano, Campagnolo and Sram, the price difference jumps out at you:

Top Tier                                                                 2nd Tier                                                              Price Savings           Additional Weight

Shimano Dura-Ace 9000, $2600, 1988g           Shimano Ultegra 6800, $1350, 2346g                $1250                         358g

Campagnolo Record 11 Evo, $2452, 1980g        Campagnolo Chorus 11 Evo, $1400, 2149g         $1042                         159g

Sram Red22, $2728, 1848g                                 Sram Force22, $1534, 2187g                                $1194                          339g

It's also important to ask the question "Where does the weight savings come from?" Sometimes companies obtain weight savings at the expense of durability. For example, top tier Shimano and Campagnolo cassettes utilize titanium for the bottom gears, which is far less durable than hardened steel. You pay for that weight savings not only with money, but with durability.

Looking to get your 5 year old the ultimate Christmas present? For only $8000, you can buy him this custom carbon fiber Kirklee

3. Don't spend a lot of money on bike equipment your child will grow out of: As the coach of a junior team, I see this one all the time. It's hard to say no to your children, especially when they are racing against kids with $15,000 bikes. (Note: I was astonished to see that roughly 80% of the girls in the Girls 13-14 National Championship road race in Wisconsin last year were riding full carbon bikes and deep dish carbon wheels!) My advice is this: save the really nice stuff for when they are fully grown. In addition to the fact that they won't grow out of the stuff, you will also teach them the value of hard work and persistence. Meanwhile, join a junior developmental team and spend your money on coaching and travel so your children have the opportunity to compete at a national (and possibly international) level. This will do a lot more in then long run to teach good sportsmanship, the fundamentals of the sport and let them decide if cycling is something they want to continue to pursue at a high level after they turn 18. Being part of a junior team may also provide helpful resources, not the least of which is a community of other families that can loan, give or sell you their kids' old bike when she grows out of it.

4. Save money on aero equipment: Before you go and buy that Specialized Shiv, Cervelo P5 or Felt IA FRD TT Superbike, you should ask yourself a few questions: 1) How many time trials am I really going to do? 2) Am I willing to take the time to train on this bike? and 3) Have I already picked all the "low-hanging aero fruit?". If you are only doing a couple time trials every year, you might be better off either borrowing a TT bike from a friend, fitting your road bike with TT bars or building up a less expensive TT bike using a spare frame and parts you have lying around the basement. First of all, more and more races have "Merckx-style" (road bike only) time trials, and some time trials are too technical for a full TT bike to be much of an advantage snyway. Even if TT bikes are allowed, you have to be able to produce power and handle the bike on the course. Doing well at time trials is more than just an investment in equipment; it's also a time investment. Time trialing is a completely different cycling discipline. The bike is different, the position is different and the type of effort is different. If you want to be good at it, you have to spend the time getting properly fit, making the necessary adjustments, training for long steady state efforts, and getting used to how the bike handles. That means taking time away from your other training.

As far as the "low hanging aero fruit" I'm referring to, I am talking about things that you can do to make yourself more aero at a much lower cost than a Superbike. Here are some examples:

Chart of aero improvements, estimated time savings and cost from cyclingtips.au

Don't expect to duplicate these results yourself because a) everyone is different (different body types, proportions, starting positions, initial TT speed, etc.) b) All products are different (i.e. Not all aero bars, skinsuits, helmets, frames, etc. are equal) and c) Conditions (wind, course) vary greatly. That said, it gives you a pretty clear idea of where you get the best "bang for your buck". The one thing that I would note is that a good bike fit (even without the wind tunnel) can make a huge improvement not only in aerodynamics but also comfort, power output and efficiency. How much improvement exactly depends on too many variables to make any kind of good estimate, so let's just say it has the potential to be a lot. Keep in mind that your body will always be the main source of drag when riding, so improvements to your position can potentially dwarf all other improvements.

Cervelo P5. Note the integrated stem, handlebars, fork and front brake. Increasingly, more and more TT bikes are starting to have these same features (FYI, this is what I mean when I say "Superbike"). Unfortunately, they aren't cheap. This bike as pictured will run you $10,000

Assuming that you already have a well-fitting skinsuit/speed-suit, an aero helmet, a wheelset that is reasonably aerodynamic and a set of shoe covers, the next step would be the bike itself. Unfortunately, putting a set of aero bars on your road bike isn't just a matter of "plug and play". Doing so would make most riders too stretched out and upright on the TT bars. To get the position right, you will probably have to move your saddle forward, get a shorter stem and "slam" it down, which in essence rotates your body forward around the bottom bracket. Since training in your aero position is very important if you want to minimize power loss, this process can mean a lot of changes every time you want to go ride and an increased risk that you might accidentally mess something up about your road position. One way to simplify this process would be to keep a set of aero bars with bar end shifters, brakes and a shorter stem (perhaps one with more drop as well) all cabled up. Then put a TT specific saddle on a seatpost with less setback. When it comes time to train in the position, just mark your saddle height on the road seatpost and slide it out, undo the brake & derailleur cables and slide off the stem (bars, cables and all). Pop in the TT seatpost and TT bar module and re-cable. It's certainly not as convenient as a separate TT bike that is dialed up and ready to go whenever you need it, but it's a lot less expensive, you don't have to worry as much about messing up your position and aerodynamically you're 97% of the way towards a full-TT setup (perhaps more if you use a reasonably aerodynamic road frame).

5. Make your own nutrition: In a typical year, I might drink 500 bottles of energy drink and eat 200 packs of energy chews, 120 energy bars and 120 gels and 200 recovery drinks. That adds up to almost $2000 in nutritional products. Now, I love the convenience of pre-made/pre-packaged nutritional products, but making your own products can be a lot less expensive and better tasting. On top of that, you know every ingredient that goes into the foods you eat and you can control for special dietary needs (e.g. gluten intolerance, lactose intolerance) and personal preferences. The Feed Zone Cookbook provides some great recipes for energy bar alternatives, and a simple internet search will reveal some excellent recipes for homemade energy drink, gels and even energy chews. The big one, though, is recovery drinks. Instead of buying a pre-made recovery drink powder that can cost $3/serving, buy some chocolate milk or make your own fruit smoothie. It's better tasting and less expensive, and since it is a post-workout drink, the packaging issue shouldn't be a big concern.

You can make your own gels using a few ingredients from the grocery store

I want to be very clear here, there aren't many things I would classify as "a total waste of money" (though there are a few). Carbon fiber is an amazing material and I am very excited every year to see the new ways it is being used in the industry to make lighter, more aero, stiffer, stronger, more comfortable, safer products. I also think that there is a case to be made for getting a TT Superbike if you're a triathlete, TT specialist or you are gunning for the GC in stage races. And as far as nutrition goes, I like the idea of making more of my own food, but in reality you won't see me giving up my Gu Brew anytime soon. It's all about priorities, and we're all different in the way we prioritize the things we want in our bikes as well as our time and money. Until we have unlimited income though, we all have to make choices and sacrifices. My hope is that this can give you some information as to how to make those choices smartly in the future. As always though, feel free to send in questions as well as any tips you may have.

Colin Sandberg is the owner and head coach of Backbone Performance, LLC. He is a Cat. 1 road  racer, a USA Cycling Level II coach and a UCI Director Sportif. He is also head  coach at Young Medalists High Performance and race director for  Team Young  Medalists. If you have questions or comments, feel free to use the comments section or email us. Thanks for reading!

How to spend your hard earned cash

It's the holidays and I am sure that everyone reading this has a big wad of cash burning a hole in their pocket, right? Yeah, I didn't think so. Unfortunately, cycling is an expensive sport and there's no real way around that. It's no accident that in the US, cycling is mainly a sport for the rich and upper middle class. Even once you have a bike you have to buy shoes, clothing and a helmet. You  buy special foods to eat. You buy a racing license. You pay for entry fees, which usually range between $30 and $75 per event. You pay for gas, tolls and lodging to get to those races. You want to get better so you buy race wheels. You hire a coach. You buy a power meter. You buy special clothing and an indoor trainer so you can train year round. You fly to Arizona, California, Mallorca or Tuscany to train. You want to try different disciplines of cycling so you get a mountain bike, a cross bike and a track bike. Just when you thought you had it all, everything starts to wear out... you need new shorts, new tires and new chains. If you crash in a race, you need new clothing, a new helmet and a new frame. Then, technology changes and it feels like you have to upgrade to remain competitive. In short, the list of things to spend money on never ends. So here is my list of where your money is best spent.

Where to Spend Your Money

1. Replace tires and chains regularly: Sure, it's not as exciting as a new bike, but taking care to replace your tires and chain when necessary can save you money in the long run as well as prevent a lot of anguish and frustration. Most "racing tires" are lighter and have softer rubber compounds. This means that they have lower rotating weight, lower rolling resistance and better grip. but it also means they will wear out faster. While it's impossible to prevent flat tires altogether, there is no doubt that the more worn out your tires are, the more flats you will have. Few things are as frustrating as spending a lot of time, money and energy to get to a big event (and have peak fitness for it), only to DNF because of a flat tire or mechanical. Same principal goes for worn out chains. Many 10-11 speed chains nowadays only last 1000-1500 miles before they start to wear out the cassette. That means that if you don't replace the chain until, let's say 2000 miles, you will have to replace the cassette as well as the chain. With top-tier cassettes costing upwards of $300, that ain't cheap! I've seen many racers pop on their carbon race wheels with brand new cassettes before the race, only to take one pedal stroke and slip the chain. New cassette + worn out chain = mismatch = chain slippage = DNF (usually). The bottom line is that if you are going to put all of the time, money and energy into getting to the race, it's worth it to spend a few extra bucks to replace your chain and tires when you need to. If I had a nickel for every athlete that's ever told me "I would have done well in that race but I flatted" OR "...my bike wasn't shifting right", well, I'd have enough nickels for a lot of new chains and tires.

2. Buy from Brick & Mortar bike shops: We all know that there are deals to be found online. Online retailers buy in large quantities so they are able to sell their products at rock bottom prices, often just a fraction over wholesale. Meanwhile, Brick and Mortar bike shops have higher overhead costs, inventory and labor costs and they order in smaller quantities so they usually can't match these deals unless the manufacturer enforces standardized pricing. For years, there has been a grass roots movement to "support your local shop", which is great, but supporting your local shop isn't just a matter of doing the right thing for your friends and community, it can also save you a lot of money in the long run. First of all, most shops often include perks when you buy from them: bike fits, tune-ups and free products are just a few examples. I have done countless bike fits on riders that bought a bike online and thought "they got a great deal", only to realize that they needed a new saddle, new cranks and a new saddle. Worse yet, the bike was the wrong size for them, it turned out to not be exactly what they wanted or it was damaged and the warranty was no longer valid. And then there's the value of the mechanic. Bike mechanics just like auto mechanics, are highly trained professionals. If you buy a bike from a bike shop, you know that it was built up and tested by a professional. Moreover, if you have problems with something you can take it back to the shop to have them diagnose and fix the problem. If you buy a bike online, at least some assembly will probably be required. Now maybe putting a stem on a fork and adjusting a rear derailleur doesn't sound like that big of a deal to you, but all it takes is one limit screw not adjusted properly and you can shift into the spokes, potentially destroying your rear derailleur, chain, rear wheel, frame, shorts and skin.

A fake Specialized Tarmac with the head tube sheared off.

And then there's the infamous "Chinese knock-offs". These days, almost every manufacturer of carbon frames, wheels and components makes their products in China and/or Taiwan. Unfortunately the patent laws in China are often weak and unenforced, which means that there are many cheap Chinese clones of all of these carbon products. But though they may look the same on the outside, you can be sure that they did not do the same R&D as the original manufacturer. As you can see from the picture above, things can end badly... very badly.

3. Buy good quality clothing: It can be frustrating to spend money on clothing because a) it is expensive, b) you never seem to have everything you need for every occasion and c) clothing wears out and/or gets damaged but good quality clothing will be more comfortable, longer lasting, more aerodynamic and will look better. Conversely, a poor quality or worn out pair of shorts will not only be uncomfortable, they will give you saddle sores that keep you off the bike. An ill-fitting jersey will not only make you look like a tool, it will significantly add to your aerodynamic drag. Having clothes that keep you warm in winter can mean the difference between an enjoyable training ride and a case of hypothermia. Having clothes that keep you cool in the summer could mean the difference between winning the race and overheating.

A bike fit can make you more comfortable, powerful, efficient, aerodynamic and safe.

4. Get a bike fit: Fitting a bike is more complicated than it may seem on the surface. Most experienced riders can probably feel if their saddle is too high or low. The problem is that no adjustment is made in isolation. For example, if you raise your saddle you are also pushing yourself further back behind the bottom bracket, further away from the handlebars and increasing the drop to the handlebars. So even if your saddle height is now correct, these other things may not be. A good bike fitter will consider your history and symptoms and evaluate you in a similar manner as your doctor would (minus the "bend over and cough" part). They should be able to make each adjustment on the bike while considering how it applies to the overall system. A good bike fit should make you feel like your bike is an extension of your body. Changes to fitness, body composition, flexibility and riding style will impact your fit and a good fitter will follow up and change your bike fit as necessary. Although most professional bike fits run from $100-$500, as I mentioned in #2, bike shops will often include a free bike fit with the purchase of a new bike.

5. Buy a power meter: OK, power meters aren't cheap. At $4000 for an SRM, $2000 for a Quarq, $1700 for a Vector, $1000 for a Power Tap or even $900 for a Stages, it's easy to spend more on a power meter than the entire rest of your bike. On top of that, a power meter will not immediately make you any faster. In fact, it will actually add weight to your bike. That said, a power meter will help you do your workouts more effectively, understand your own strengths and weaknesses better, communicate with your coach better and identify excessive fatigue before it's too late to do anything about it. If you want more reasons to buy a power meter, check out my "Power Meters 101" webinar. Now, some may be worried that buying a power meter will lead to a data obsession and stop them from ever having fun riding, but in my experience it can have quite the opposite effect for most people. Training with power can help you do more with less time, have more predictable fitness and more effectively target your training towards what you really need to be working on.

6. Hire a coach: You knew that was coming, right? Obviously I am biased here, so ignore me if you want. But the simple truth is this: you will only get so far on your own. Now if you are smart, you have good genes, you read the right books, articles and blogs and you work very hard you might get pretty far, but you will never be your best. In my opinion, only a coach can push you past the "bias of self" that holds you back from reaching 100%. Don't get me wrong, a coach is not a miracle worker. No coach will singlehandedly turn a B level recreational rider into a Tour de France contender, but a coach can get you to "the next level". For example, if you feel like you've done everything right, you've climbed the ranks to a Cat. 2 racer but you feel like you've hit a plateau, the road to your Cat. 1 upgrade is probably through a coach.

In part 2 of this blog, I will talk about ways you can save money without having to sacrifice much. In the meantime, send in your questions and feedback.

Colin Sandberg is the owner and head coach of Backbone Performance, LLC. He is a Cat. 1 road  racer, a USA Cycling Level II coach and a UCI Director Sportif. He is also head  coach at Young Medalists High Performance and race director for  Team Young  Medalists. If you have questions or comments, feel free to use the comments section or email us. Thanks for reading!

How I learned to stop worrying and love the trainer, part 2

In part 1 of this article, I talked about the benefits of using an indoor trainer. In part 2 I will talk about the tools that you will need to do these workouts and some that you don't need, but may want. I'll also talk about ways to make your indoor workouts less boring and more effective.

Equipment:

- A strong fan: I put this even before an indoor trainer because I simply cannot overstate how important good air flow is when riding indoors. Approximately 2/3 of heat loss is via evaporation and without good air flow, that evaporation is severely restricted. If you want tangible proof of this, take a ride on a 90 degree day. You may not feel like you are overheating until you stop at a red light. Suddenly, your face gets red, sweat runs down your face and you like your skin is about to melt off. One of the most common complaints athletes have about indoor workouts is that they can't generate as much power indoors, or that their heart rate and perceived exertion are higher indoors when riding at the same power. 90% of the time, this is because they are overheating. The problem is not that the temperature is too high but that they don't have proper air flow. My recommendation is simple: you need a strong fan that is capable of simulating the air flow you would have on the road going 18-25 mph. Normal house fans are not strong enough unless you have about six of them! High powered/industrial fans can get expensive but you can find some good ones, such as this one in the $50-$70 range. Next, you have to use it. If you don't like the feeling of a fan blowing right on your face because it dries out your eyes, point the fan a little bit downward or wear a pair of clear sunglasses.

- An Indoor Trainer: There are 3 major types of indoor trainers designed for personal use: 1) Magnetic, 2) Wind and 3) Fluid. Generally speaking, Fluid trainers are the most quiet and have the most realistic “road feel”, but they are the most expensive ($300-$500). Magnetic trainers are a bit less expensive ($200-$400) and often provide various levels of resistance, but do not simulate outdoor riding quite as well. Wind trainers are the least expensive ($100-$200) but they are extremely loud, especially when doing high intensity efforts. Electronic trainers such as CompuTrainer, CycleOps Power Beam and Tacx iGenius are magnetic trainers with power measurement and computer interfaces that allow course simulation and/or “virtual reality” training. Some of you may be wondering about Spinning Bikes and other Indoor Cycles (as opposed to rear-wheel mounted trainers), but for most cyclists I would advise against these. Although they can be adjusted quickly for use by different riders and will eliminate rear tire wear, they tend to be very expensive ($500-$4000) and the fit and feel will never be exactly the same as your road bike. These trainers also lack the portability of rear-wheel mounted trainers. Keep in mind that even if you keep your trainer in the same place all winter, you will want to bring with you to some races when a warm-up is necessary and you can't/don't want to warm up on the course or road. Whichever trainer you choose, make sure that there is enough range of resistance to allow you go easy even at higher cadences and hard even at lower cadences. By the way, junior cyclists may wish to use senior gearing in this phase of training in order to get enough resistance when doing low cadence/high intensity efforts.

An example of a Virtual Reality (VR) style trainer. Gotta admit, it looks pretty cool

- A trainer tire: Riding an indoor trainer will accelerate tire wear, thereby increasing the risk of flat tires when you ride on the road again. Unlike normal tire wear, trainers will cause tires to "square", meaning that they wear more in the middle, giving the tire a square or flat look, which can interfere with cornering on the road even if there is still enough rubber to provide adequate flat protection. Some may wish to use a "trainer tire", which wears more slowly and produces less heat, though it cannot be used outdoors. There are also some trainers that support the bike without the rear wheel, thereby eliminating rear tire wear altogether. Another option is to simply switch your rear wheel out to another wheel with a trainer tire or an old tire when riding indoors. If you are lazy like me though, you just use your regular old wheel and tire and pay attention to the rear tire wear, making sure to replace it when necessary.

- A riser block: Most indoor trainers include a riser block that is placed underneath the front wheel in order to keep the bike level. For some workouts, additional lift is desired to better simulate a climb. This can be done either by placing a large book or 3-5” wooden block underneath the riser block. Some riser blocks have different settings that can allow for additional lift.

- A sweat towel: Even with proper air flow you will get sweaty, so it's nice to droop a small towel over the handlebars, top tube or front wheel to wipe off the sweat. The towel also protects your headset, stem and front hub from sweat, which over time may cause corrosion. Also, it's nice to have somewhere to blow your nose since "snot rockets" usually aren't cool indoors...

- A trainer mat: It's nice to have something under your trainer to prevent slippage and protect the floor underneath from your sweat, scratches and markings from the trainer as well as dirt from your shoes and the bike. Nicer trainer mats, such as this one from Cycle-Ops can run you $60 or $70, so if you don't want to go that route, try a beach towel or yoga mat.

- Indoor riding clothes: Indoor riding clothes differ a little bit from outdoor riding clothes because comfort and sweat wicking are more important than aerodynamics and weather protection. Personally, I like to wear a pair of bib shorts and a base layer over the straps. I don't wear a jersey for indoor workouts, though I admit that there are times I wish I had a pocket to put my phone or a remote for the TV.

- Proper fuel and hydration: Because indoor workouts are usually shorter, many athletes don't do as well fueling and hydrating themselves. To make things worse, since workouts are often done in the early morning or evening, they don't eat enough beforehand and they start the workout not having eaten anything for 4-10 hours. If you are doing the workout in the morning, make sure to have at least a small breakfast beforehand. If you're in a rush, even an energy bar or a pack of energy chews will do. If you are doing the workout in the afternoon or evening make sure to have a good snack in the middle of the afternoon or between coming home from work/school and the start of the workout. During exercise, try to drink 20-40 oz. of fluid per hour including some sugar (I prefer one bottle of water and one bottle of energy drink). One of the nice things about riding indoors is that because your rear wheel is fixed you can take your hands off the bars whenever you want and grab a drink. Just as with any intensity workout, make sure to have a recovery drink within 30 minutes after completion of exercise. While this may be easier than ever when training at home, if you are riding or driving to a group indoor session, make sure to pack one in advance.

- A TV and/or Computer: Necessary to avoid complete boredom during indoor rides is some sort of entertainment. Most people love to watch race or helmet cam footage, as it is instrumental in visualization. It's never too soon to start thinking about tactics. Alternatively, some people may wish to catch up on their favorite TV shows, though when doing high intensity workouts I would advise keeping it pretty low-brow, as brain function tends to be impaired when your heart rate is over 190! For those that don't have a indoor training room with it's own TV, a laptop makes a good portable entertainment system and the internet connection allows for viewing online streaming content as well as Cadence TV. I will talk more about Cadence TV later, but in summary it is an online workout software with hundreds of structured workouts available. Most CTV workouts use helmet cam footage from various races and rides as the video feed.

- A Cadence sensor: If you don't have a cadence sensor on your bike, get one. Most intervals have a prescribed cadence range as well as a desired power/HR/perceived exertion and proper cadence is critical to do the workout properly. Varying cadence can also be a good way to add variety and structure to longer intervals. Some trainers have cadence sensors that can be strapped onto your bike, but they're a pain in the butt and if you forget to take it off at the end of the workout you might pull the wire apart. Also, if you buy a computer for your bike, make sure that it measures speed from the rear-wheel, as some computers that read speed from the front wheel won't even turn on indoors.

- A Power Meter: Some high end trainers include power measurement, but a Power-Tap, SRM, Quarq, Vector or Stages power meter combined with a regular old indoor trainer can work just fine and if you go that route you still have the power meter when outdoors. Having the power measurement allows athletes to do their workouts at the proper zones, recognize fitness improvements and recognize when they are fatigued or over-heated. For those that don't have a power meter or have access to an indoor trainer with power measurement, a rear-wheel speed sensor is the next best thing. While there is little correlation between speed and power outdoors (due to ever-changing gradients, wind and road conditions), there is actually a good correlation indoors, at least once the trainer and tire warm up and provided that the trainer resistance setting is constant. If you do this, you will have to experiment a little bit, but experience will help. For example, you might figure out that 22-22.5 mph feels like about Zone 4. Therefore, when you do a zone 4 interval, the goal is to stay inside that speed range. Likewise, zone 5 is a little faster and zone 3 is a little slower. As you get stronger and stronger, the speed that you can do at that zone goes up. While this method is no substitute for a power meter, the difference in price of $1000-$1500 can make it appealing, especially for beginners.

- A heart rate monitor: One of my pet peeves is when athletes stop using their heart rate monitors when they get power meters. In my mind, this is like getting rid of the coolant temperature sensor in your car just because you have a speedometer. Power and heart rate are two completely different measurements, so it's not as simple as "Power is the better measurement". Power is a measure of the work that you are doing over time. Heart rate is your body's reaction to that work, or at least one of it's reactions. There is no doubt that heart rate is an imperfect measure of exercise intensity, but that doesn't mean it isn't valuable, especially when coupled with the power measurement. Heart rate can provide clues that your fitness has improved, you are fatigued, you are overheating, dehydrating or bonking, or that you are getting sick. Best of all, they are easy to use and cheap (you can get a basic HRM for $20). And again, for those that have not yet made the leap to a power meter, heart rate can be a good measure of exertion, especially for longer steady-state intervals in controlled conditions.

- Rollers: Rollers are indoor trainers where the rider balances on top of 3 cylinders that look like rolling pins. Rollers can help balance, core strength, leg speed, technique and concentration. They work particularly well for recovery, indoor endurance and technique workouts but most do not work as well for high intensity and in particular, low cadence workouts, so I wouldn't recommend rollers as your only indoor trainer. That said, if you are looking for another great tool to add to your indoor training arsenal, they are great.  If you haven’t ridden rollers before, here is a great video on how to use them.

Boredom

There are many DVDs or streaming workouts out there that you can buy, but most of them get old after doing them a few times. In addition, many are extremely high intensity. That's not necessarily a bad thing... high intensity workouts have their place, but doing them too often will result in over-training and burnout. High intensity workouts shouldn't be at the expense of technique, endurance and recovery workouts. If every workout is a workout to exhaustion, there's a good chance that these things are being neglected.

This is where I believe that Cadence TV has an advantage over it's indoor workout competition. When you sign up for Cadence TV, you can log on at any time from any computer that is connected to the internet. You can choose from hundreds of workouts in all different categories. Up pops the workout with your specific Power, HR and PE zones listed. You can see what interval you are doing now, how much time is left in the interval and what is coming up. I love using Cadence TV (as both an athlete and a coach) because it allows me to do workouts that are too complicated to do outdoors or even indoors without prompts. Using Cadence TV makes it easy because you can just follow what's on the screen. Workouts include valuable instructions from the coaches, but some athletes wish to listen to their own music as well. On top of everything, at $4/month you can't beat the price.

More about Cadence TV

At this point, many of you may be saying, "OK, got it. I can ride indoors for 1-2 hours and do all of my intensity sessions on the trainer, but what about the longer endurance rides? Isn't winter all about base training and long slow distance (LSD)?" Indoor endurance rides can get pretty boring and to a certain extent there is no way around that. Even with the coolest, state of the art virtual reality trainers, I'm not alone in saying that I would still rather be riding outdoors than indoors for longer rides. A couple years ago, I wrote this article for Cadence about this specific topic, so I won't repeat the whole thing here. All I will say is that if you have good winter clothes and a mountain bike you can get outside most days in most parts of the U.S., but even the toughest winter warriors will have days when riding outdoors is not safe. For that handful of days, a little bit of flexibility and creativity goes a long way. My rule of thumb is to cut down on the prescribed volume by 30% when riding indoors to account for the lack of stops, coasting time and "junk miles". But the best "trick" here is to add variety. Have a structured workout and try not to do the same thing for more than 10 minutes, even if the only change is to change your cadence or add a 5-10 second acceleration every so often. Riding in a group, with a training partner or a coach can really help make the time pass quickly as well.

Discipline

Like all training, indoor training requires discipline. On top of all of all the "regular training challenges", indoor rides can be boring and temperature regulation is always difficult and sometimes impossible. Those that procrastinate or don't plan well; those that ride too easy because no one is looking or too hard because they're bored will pay the price in the long term. If you neglect your winter training you will come into spring unprepared and if you try to ride outdoors no matter what the conditions you will put yourself at risk for crashes, hypothermia and burn out.

Aside from just "toughing it out", there are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Make it habitual. Having a goal in mind and envisioning yourself standing at the top of the podium only goes so far. When you make your training a habit, you stop arguing with yourself about it. You just do it.

2. Have a plan. I'm not going to give you the hard sell on coaching here. All I am going to say is that it makes a big difference to have a structured plan to get you where you want to go rather than flailing around wondering if you are doing too much, not enough, or just the wrong things. A coach will give you that plan. A good coach will make it interesting for you too!

Training Peaks is the most widely used tool out there for planning workouts and meals. A basic athlete edition is available at no charge, but if you really want to take it to the next level, get a coach.

3. Think ahead. Again, this concept isn't unique to indoor riding. Planning ahead can help in every aspect of your training. Look at the weather forecast. Lay out your clothes the night before. Have your bike set up on the trainer ready to go. Sign up for a group indoor training class and figure out how to arrange your work/school schedule in order to get you there on time.

Indoor rides are not a replacement for outdoor rides. If possible, you should try to get outside at least 1-2 times per week year round. At the same time, don't be scared to ride indoors. Aside from being safe and time efficient, indoor rides can be fun and extremely beneficial. They are more than just a just a way to ride when it's dark and cold, they can actually be better for you than riding outside sometimes, even when outdoor conditions are good. Learning how to do indoor workouts right this winter might just be the difference between being off the front or off the back next spring!

Colin Sandberg is the owner and head coach of Backbone Performance, LLC. He is a Cat. 1 road  racer, a USA Cycling Level II coach and a UCI Director Sportif. He is also head  coach at Young Medalists High Performance and race director for  Team Young  Medalists. If you have questions or comments, feel free to use the comments section or email us. Thanks for reading!

How I learned to stop worrying and love the trainer, part 1

No one becomes a cyclist because they love to do indoor trainer workouts, but riding outdoors is not always ideal and sometimes it's not even possible. Cold, dark days and poor road conditions can make outdoor riding uncomfortable and unsafe for many people during winter months. Riding an indoor trainer can provide many unexpected benefits as well though, making it valuable even for those athletes that aren't forced indoors.

1. Control: There is an element of variability that one must expect when riding outdoors, even in the most controlled conditions. That can make it a big challenge to do certain workouts. For example, let's take one of the most popular interval workouts out there, 2x20s. Though there are many variations on this workout, the general idea is to do 2 x 20 minute intervals at a consistent power (usually level 3-4). If I were doing this workout, I would probably go to the first section of the Schuylkill River Trail and ride back and forth. The first section takes me about 7-8 minutes at my level 3-4, so I would have to turn around twice during each 20 minute interval. Now this isn't a big deal in the course of a 20 minute interval, but there are also a number of other factors such as pedestrians, other riders, changing wind conditions and uneven pavement that could make things difficult to hold a consistent power. Even if I succeed, I am probably putting myself somewhat at risk because I am constantly staring down at my computer. Those that are lucky enough to live in or close by mountains might do this workout uphill instead. The slower speed means that conditions change more slowly, giving more time to adjust (and thereby keep power constant). Still, if the grade gets too steep, muscle usage shifts and it may be impossible to keep a constant power at higher cadences (if that is the goal).

Power file from an outdoor workout.

Power file from the same workout, done indoors. Notice the difference?

Before going any further, I should make it clear that constant power throughout an interval is not necessarily the goal of every workout. Since we race in highly variable conditions, we need to train in highly variable conditions. On the other hand, most workouts are not a race simulation. Each workout is designed to stimulate a certain system, and in many cases it is indeed beneficial to pinpoint a specific power range and stay as closely locked in as possible. This is easy to do indoors because the only things that can affect resistance are rear wheel speed and resistance setting on the trainer (if applicable). OK, well that's not completely true... as the tire and trainer warm up there may be a slight change in trainer resistance, and drive train resistance on the bike will also change a little based on cadence and speed. In large part though, these factors are minimal, making it much easier to lock into a desired power indoors.

There is another factor here as well though. Most athletes are more likely to do technique drills and structured intervals indoors than outdoors and they are more likely to do them better. Because of the inherent boring nature of riding indoors, athletes are more likely to add structure and variety to their workouts. On 3 separate occasions I have had athletes I coach break their collar bones and have to ride indoors exclusively for 6-8 weeks. Each athlete came out of that period stronger than they started it because they were doing better quality, more focused and efficient workouts than they had been doing.

Environmental conditions may also compromise the effectiveness of some outdoor workouts. If you are spending all your time trying to get warm (or stay cool for that matter), you probably aren't doing your intervals properly.

Sometimes riding outside just isn't smart

2. Safety: As we know all too well, there are many dangers of riding outside. Cars, pedestrians, potholes, animals and other cyclists are always potential dangers. In the winter months, snow, ice and road salt can be additional hazards and shorter days make it more likely that we find ourselves riding in the dark either at the beginning or end of a ride. Trying to do any kind of structured workout can add even more danger. I don't want to speak for everyone here, so I will just speak for myself in stating that if I am doing intervals outside I am more likely to run a red light, "buzz" a pedestrian or miss seeing something I should have seen because I am staring at my computer and trying my best to hold a specific power and cadence. Technique drills can be especially hazardous. I have known not one but two athletes (I won't mention any names) who have crashed while attempting one legged drills outdoors, one of whom ended up with a broken collar bone.

3. Instruction: While many may associate riding the indoor trainer with a dark, cold basement or garage, there are many options available these days for group indoor sessions, including some designed and taught by yours truly. People come for a variety of reasons: some because they don't want to shell out $1600 for a CompuTrainer at home, some for the social interaction, the accountability or the added motivation they get when working out with a group. From my perspective (as an instructor), what I like the most is that I can really see the athletes doing their workouts in real time. I can get a close up look at them, see if they are doing the workout properly, provide advice on technique, help them visualize and see clues that they might need new training zones or a bike fit. It's also a great time to talk about tactics and goals for the upcoming season. Not to mention, a few minutes talking one-on-one with an athlete allows me to get an update on how their training is going and observe their progress, motivation and fatigue.

4. Time Efficiency: Most of us waste quite a bit of time every time we ride outdoors. First of all, there is the planning. We have to look at the weather, decide what to wear, plan the route and the best time to go. We have to put on all those clothes (which can take quite a while in the winter), make sure our bike is ready to go, and finally, head out. If we are riding with other people, there is also the inevitable waiting around time. If we are doing intervals, we have to ride or drive to a specific location, which is often further away than we really need for a warm up and further back home than we need for a cool down. And then there are the red lights, the stop signs, the traffic and the occasional flat tire.  When we ride indoors, we can schedule the workout for whenever it is most convenient (regardless of traffic, weather or daylight), we can get exactly the warmup we need, start the intervals exactly on time and cool down without having to weave through traffic or climb a big hill.

Most of us are much less likely to waste time indoors. If we're outdoors, enjoying the nice weather or on a group ride chatting with our friends, chances are that a significant portion of the ride will be "junk miles". That's not to say that the extra time is necessarily hurting us, just that it's probably not helping us, at least from a training perspective.

All you need for an indoor ride: fan, trainer, riser block, entertainment... all that's missing is the rider

So, with so many great reasons to do indoor workouts, why do most people still dread them? In my experience, it comes down to either a) equipment, b) boredom or c) discipline.

In part 2 of this article, I will address the equipment necessary (or useful) for indoor workouts, how to reduce boredom and finally, "tricks" that can be used to stay disciplined.

Colin Sandberg is the owner and head coach of Backbone Performance, LLC. He is a Cat. 1 road  racer, a USA Cycling Level II coach and a UCI Director Sportif. He is also head  coach at Young Medalists High Performance and race director for  Team Young  Medalists. If you have questions or comments, feel free to use the comments section or email us. Thanks for reading!

The best part of ourselves

I love cycling. I think cycling is an amazing sport that allows us to do amazing things: to ride a hundred miles in a single day; to race down a hill at over 60 mph; to see parts of the world that we would never otherwise see. To do all of these things using nothing but our own body and 18 pounds of carbon fiber, aluminum and rubber is, for me at least, like having super powers. I also believe that there is something special in competition that brings out the best in us. Unfortunately in the "real world", money and power usually go a lot further than intelligence, creativity and talent. Sports, however, are meritocratic. The term "level playing field" is a sports metaphor after all, meaning that that those with the ability and the drive can make it... at least if we all agree to play by the rules.

I just read "Wheelmen: Lance Armstrong, the Tour de France, and the Greatest Sports Conspiracy Ever", and unless you've been living under a rock, you have probably heard about this book. It's authors, Reed Albergotti and Vanessa O'Connell have been on a publicity tour lately which included interviews on Fresh Air and The Colbert Report. Although I found the book to be an incredibly fair, well-researched and easy-to-read, a big part of me wishes that all these stories about doping and cycling would just go away because the last thing our sport needs is more stories in the news about doping. But that doesn't seem like it's going to happen any time soon. First, there are still quite a few pending lawsuits against Armstrong. Then, there are the dueling movies, Alex Gibney's documentary "The Armstrong Lie" and Stephen Frears' yet to be named biopic based on David Walsh's book. As that we are in the so called "golden age of the antihero", I wouldn't be surprised to see more Hollywood adaptations of this story.

Meanwhile, last month, Chris Horner became the first American since Greg LeMond to win a Grand Tour. Sadly, most people in the general public didn't even take notice, further evidence that there was something about Lance that captured American hearts in a way that no one else has done before or since. Even more depressingly, doping allegations have already been made against Horner barely a month after his big win. Those that have read my past blogs about this topic know that I believe in "innocent until proven guilty", but I admit that I find myself becoming very skeptical of Horner, despite the fact that he has been racing for 20 years and won 73 major races without ever failing a test. Though there was far more evidence against Armstrong, even in 1999 than against Horner (at least in the public sphere), I am pretty sure that many people out there have resigned themselves to the fact that cycling is a dirty sport, at least at the top level. For evidence of this, one has to look no further than Tilford's blog.

"The Look"

While I read "Wheelmen", I found myself turning inward. As the story was told, I tried to remember back to where I was at the time and how I felt about Lance. Although I never would have considered myself a huge Lance fan, I certainly rooted for him for most of his career. I was standing on the Manayunk Wall when he attacked to win the triple crown in 1993. I cried when I watched him win on Sestriere in 1999 and I thought that Lance's performance on Alpe D'Huez in 2001 was one of the most impressive tactical victories I had ever seen. Of course, many in the cycling world that saw themselves as rebels and non-conformists resented the fact that Lance made cycling more popular in the mainstream (i.e. "The Lance Effect"), but personally, I loved it. I thought that the more people buying bikes, wearing spandex, joining group rides and entering races the better. It meant that there would be increased recognition and respect for my sport. That meant better racing, more job opportunities and more attention to cyclists' rights.

In 2004, I quit my engineering job and went to work for Cadence Cycling & Multisport. Cadence was a relatively new concept at that time. Downstairs, they had a bike shop that specialized in high-end racing bikes. Upstairs, where I worked, they had a CTS training center which taught indoor classes, physiological testing and personalized coaching for athletes. Although we quickly diverged from "The CTS method" we thought, at least at first, that the association with Chris Carmichael was necessary for our recognition and credibility. Chris Carmichael in turn, had made his career based on his association with Lance Armstrong. At Cadence, I had the privilege of working alongside numerous ex-pro cyclists, some of whom had even been teammates with Armstrong. As more doping allegations came out against Lance and more of his closest competitors tested positive, more people would ask us if we thought Lance was doping. Though the scripted response was always "We have to give him the benefit of the doubt", in private we all figured most of it was probably true.

It is here that I, just like Nike, Oakley, The USPS, and many others that turned a blind eye, became complicit. Though I didn't have any first hand knowledge of Lance's doping, I didn't really want the truth to come out either because I knew what it would mean. In short, Lance was good for business. Even as it became more and more clear that Lance was not only guilty of doping but also of criminal conspiracy, blackmail, fraud and extortion, I kept rooting for Lance. When allegations came out from David Walsh, Betsy Andreu, Greg LeMond, and eventually Floyd Landis, I kept drinking the Kool-Aid. These people seemed like jealous, selfish, headline grabbers that thought of no-one but themselves. I thought "Okay, maybe Lance did these things but is it really good for our sport to know everything?" (I believe the term for this is "willful ignorance")  

When the house comes crashing down though, you start to see the other side of the story... I had athletes and friends who missed out on once-in a lifetime opportunities because of dopers. I saw sponsors pull out of the sport because of disillusionment, leaving the talented juniors I coached with few options when they turned 19. Most importantly, I found it increasingly difficult to make the argument that sponsoring cycling could be a great investment in branding because it epitomized a healthy lifestyle. With regard to Lance, the more the truth has come out, the more I've realized that although his sins were far greater than just doping, conspiracies that big don't happen just because of one person. It takes a village, and we've all been living in it.

In 1994, Armstrong was asked if he thought he was the next Greg LeMond. He responded, "I'm not the next Greg LeMond, I'm the first Lance Armstrong". Less than 7 years later, the press was already speculating on who would be "The next Lance Armstrong". Today it is clear that there will never be another Lance Armstrong. Even if there were, would we want that? Admittedly, part of me still does. Part of me misses the days when we all felt like we had a hero we could believe in. I miss the days when we had someone in the public eye that was inspiring people to donate to cancer research, increasing awareness of the sport of cycling, driving people to buy expensive bikes and hire coaches, helping bicycle advocacy and yes, making skinny guys in spandex seem cool. But all heroes have their flaws, and sometimes those flaws are big enough to undo all the good they may have done. Even if you take away the doping, Lance was a sociopathic bully that would stop at nothing... not only to win but to destroy his competition and anyone who got in his way. If we let people like that get away with it, or even if we are willfully ignorant, we lose the hope that sport has the potential to bring out the best part of ourselves.

Sometimes it can be a lot easier to look backwards than forwards, but the past can consume you with sorrow and regret if you let it. So I have to challenge myself and all the other riders, coaches, race directors, officials, sponsors and fans out there to look to the future. What kind of sport do we want to be? How can we do a better job of ensuring a level playing field? How do we catch the cheaters without accusing the innocent? How can we make our sport more accessible to everyone without opening the door to corruption? How can we learn to believe that humans are capable of amazing things without being naïve or willfully ignorant? Unfortunately, right now I have a lot of questions and not too many answers. All I can promise is that I will keep trying to answer them, keep trying to make our sport better, keep hoping and keep believing.

Colin Sandberg is the owner and head coach of Backbone Performance, LLC. He is a Cat. 1 road  racer, a USA Cycling Level II coach and a UCI Director Sportif. He is also head  coach at Young Medalists High Performance and race director for  Team Young  Medalists. If you have questions or comments, feel free to use the comments section or email us. Thanks for reading!

Getting Past the Excuses for Poor Nutrition

Have you ever heard these stories about how actors gain and lose massive amounts of weight for a movie role? Most of us have heard of Tom Hanks losing 50 pounds during the filming of "Castaway" or Renee Zellweger gaining 30 lbs for "Bridget Jones' Diary". More extreme cases include Christian Bale losing over 60 lbs for "The Fighter" and 50 Cent losing 65 lbs in order to play a cancer patient in "Things Fall Apart". How do they do it, while the rest of us seem to struggle to just lose 5 or 10 pounds? Short answer: full time trainers and live-in chefs. Though the thought of having to lose (or for that matter, gain) a huge amount of weight in a small time still sounds horrible (not to mention unhealthy), the idea of having a full time chef sounds pretty nice! Think about how nice that would be as an athlete: someone that would shop and make delicious healthy, well-balanced meals for you with exactly enough Calories to meet your training needs, achieve and maintain your ideal race weight and help you feel healthy and full of energy. Sounds pretty sweet, right?

The things some people will do just to win an Oscar! For "The Fighter", Christian Bale got down to 122 pounds (he is 6 feet tall)

So why can't we do this without a full time chef cooking for us? The last blog I wrote spelled out 6 simple guidelines for how to eat better, and none of them are even hard and fast rules, they are just guidelines with quite a bit of flexibility. Shouldn't be that hard, right? And as I wrote about last winter here and here, weight loss isn't exactly very complicated either, it's just a matter of burning more Calories than you take in. So why do nearly all of us struggle with nutrition and weight management?

We all have excuses. Good, reasonable, legitimate excuses. But at the end of the day, do you want to be a slave to your excuses or do you want to empower yourself to take charge of your own life? If it's the latter, here are some tips to help you deal with some of the most common excuses.

"My mother/father/husband/wife does all the shopping and cooking and they don’t accommodate my needs as an athlete"

If you just sit back and complain that there is never any healthy food around the house, my guess is that you are unlikely to get a positive response. But if you demonstrate that you are willing to help out, you might get a different reaction. Put together some recipe ideas, go shopping once in a while and try making a meal or two yourself. If your culinary expertise is, how shall we say, lacking... start simple. "The Feed Zone Cookbook" has a lot of great simple recipes designed with the needs of cyclists in mind. No crazy ingredients or fancy cooking methods, just Cooking 101. If even that is too much, ask for some instruction from the cook in your household. Chances are, they will greatly appreciate that you want to help out and learn something. It's also a great way to spend some time together!

Even if shopping and cooking aren't an everyday thing for you, your parent or partner is going to be much more likely to take your needs into consideration if you show that you appreciate what they do and you are willing to help them out once in a while. In my house, I am the one that usually shops and cooks because I work from home and my wife get's home at 6:30 PM every night. That said, she helps me out greatly by washing the dishes as I cook and by providing meal ideas so I don't have to create the menu every night on top of preparing the food.

Cooking with your partner or parent can be fun and educational. Just make sure they don't cut your fingers off!

"I am at school/work all day and there are no healthy snacks available there. I get really hungry and end up buying candy in the vending machine/eating one of the cookies that Mildred in Accounting brought in" AND "By the time I get home from school/work I am starving and I make bad decisions about nutrition"

When I used to work at GM, I always struggled with this. Even though I packed my lunch almost every day, I would have 30 minutes for lunch but I'd go from breakfast at 6 AM until lunch at noon without a meal and then again from 12:30 until I got home at 4:30 PM without anything. When I started to increase my training volume and intensity, this was too much. I'd be starving until lunchtime and then again by the time I got home and tried to hop on the bike I would feel like crap because I hadn't had anything to eat in 4 hours. The leaner I got, the worse it was. I'd be so hungry that I wouldn't be able to resist going to the vending machine or eating some of the sweets that someone had inevitably brought to in. Donut during a meeting? Sure, maybe it will help me stay awake. Cake for Sue's birthday? Of course. Let's celebrate! Girl Scout cookies you are selling for your daughter? Why not, it's for a good cause. Bagel Friday? Go for it, it's Friday!

While resisting constant temptation may still be difficult, the answer to this predicament can be summed up in 2 words: healthy snacks. It takes a little planning but if you plan to have at least 2 snacks during the day (e.g. mid-morning and mid-afternoon) you will avoid the long periods of starvation that usually lead to big ups and downs in energy level and end up with bad nutritional choices. Bring a bunch of healthy snacks with you to work or school and eat them before your stomach starts to grumble and you are blacking out from low blood sugar. Specifically, try to bring low glycemic index snacks. Examples would be dried fruit, nuts, yogurt, grapes, apples, pears, kiwis, hummus, lentil salad, rice cakes with peanut butter or fruit smoothies.

Chances are, if you eat healthier foods throughout the day and you make sure not to go too long without eating, you are less likely to be crashing when you get home. Still, if you have to make a quick change into your cycling gear or gym clothes to start your training, you might want to add in another snack right before your workout. This time you might want to have something that will pick you up a little faster, such as some energy chews, a banana or some orange juice (maybe a shot of espresso too). If you are doing a recovery or endurance ride or if you have a long warmup, you might be able to get away with something a little more substantial but if you are doing intervals, a fast group ride or strength training you will want to make sure the glycogen stores are topped off.

 "I am too busy to cook, so I just eat out all the time"

It's no secret that it's harder to eat right when you eat out. With the exception of a few cities, restaurants aren't required to provide any nutritional information about the food they prepare. Restaurants are in business to 1) make food that tastes good and 2) sell it at a price that they can make a profit. Nutrition is a distant 3rd, if that. Part of the problem is that many of us treat going out to a restaurant as a kind of vacation, where we can suspend the normal dietary rules and eat whatever we want. This isn't so bad if it's a once in a while thing, but if we eat at out more than once or twice a week, we need to alter our mindset.

Typically capitalism dictates that if there is a demand, a supply will come along. As demand has risen for healthier dining options, many restaurants have risen to meet it. Here in Philadelphia, the White Dog Café and Fare are a couple of the restaurants that demonstrate how delicious fresh, healthy, local and sustainable foods can be. If you live or travel to a major city, chances are that there will be some good options if you do a little research. But even at mainstream chain restaurants... even at Arby's, McDonalds or Outback Steak House it's possible to find healthy options if you know what to order and you have the discipline to look past the 90% of the menu items that you shouldn't be ordering except for a rare treat. Many restaurants have special menu items that are "Healthy", "Low-Fat" or "Low Calorie". Even if not, asking them to go light on the dressings and sauces can be a good way to cut out some unnecessary Calories, sugar, fat and artificial ingredients.

An example of a salad available at McDonalds.

"I go to school and I eat at the cafeteria all the time, which doesn't exactly have many options"

Most school cafeterias have a long way to go in providing healthy options but many are moving in the right direction. Unfortunately for most people, it may seem like the options are either a) eat what they put on your plate or b) don't eat. Again though, this would be the mindset of the powerless and personally, I prefer to adopt the mindset of the empowered!

First of all, if you have the option to pack a lunch, you should always do it. Yes, it takes some planning. You have to think about lunch ideas ahead of time, do your shopping, pack your lunch the night before and finally, remember to bring it with you.

Second, if you are in school and you want some more healthy options, stand up and let your voice be heard. Movements to make school cafeteria food healthier have been successful all over the country. Because these options are often more expensive, you can probably expect some pushback but when there is enough demand, change will happen.

Third, think more about what you ask for and what you don't ask for. Tell them to go light on the gravy and heavy on the veggies. If your cafeteria has a salad bar, you can probably put together a pretty good "entrée salad" (If you are worried about protein, have a few grilled chicken strips or some beans on top). Stay away from the cakes, pies and cookies most of the time and have a piece of fruit instead for dessert.

"I don’t have enough time to go shopping and buy the foods I should be eating more of (fresh fruits and vegetables in particular)." and  "I only go shopping once a week or less and by the end of the week a lot of that stuff has gone bad"

Ah, not enough time... the age old excuse for just about everything. Luckily, modern technology can really help us out. Many supermarkets now offer online ordering (for a fee of course). The idea is that you go online and order what you want and someone will pack it up and have it waiting for you at the supermarket. Some will even deliver to your house. Another option would be a co-op or a farm share. In many cities these have become a really popular (and often inexpensive) way to get fresh, local, organic vegetables, eggs, butter, milk, honey, meat and a lot more. By the way, my experience has been that they usually deliver so much food that I have to split the order with a friend!

Of course, keeping all of your fresh fruits and veggies from going bad can be a challenge. The first step would be to store them properly. There are different rules for every fruit and vegetable. Some should be refrigerated, some should be washed, some should be wrapped in paper towels, some should be bagged and some should be cut or have the leaves cut. For a good guide as to what to do in each case, check out this or this.  

Then there is the matter of using all that stuff. One of the wonderful things about many farm shares is that opening the box is a fun surprise. I remember when I got my first box and opened the box to find Japanese turnips. Cool, I thought, but what the heck can I make with Japanese turnips? That was when I discovered what is now one of my favorite websites, epicurious.com. The website (also available in smartphone app form) allows you to type in any ingredient and it will generate a list of recipes. By the way, I ended up making this recipe for Japanese Turnips with miso, which turned out to be delicious!

"I don’t have enough money to shop at Whole Foods (a.k.a. Whole Paycheck) all the time"

Having a nearby Whole Foods (or another market that carries a large selection of produce, whole grains and natural foods) can be a blessing and a curse. While it is great to have one right around the corner, you can lose your money faster at Whole Foods than in Vegas. When it's possible to buy a double cheeseburger for 99 cents but a single bag of groceries from Whole Foods costs $200, it's no wonder that you can't talk about nutrition in America without talking about poverty and class issues.  

Luckily, there are alternatives. For produce in particular, using a farm share service can save a lot of money, provided you use everything they send you. Another option is the Asian market. Philadelphia and many other cities have Asian markets that often have a huge selection of [sometimes obscure] foods at rock bottom prices. Back in college, I used to do $10 meal night, where my roommates and I would compete to make the best meal for under $10. Shopping at the Asian market, I was always able to make a great meal for everyone well within the price limit. There is also Trader Joes, which carries a less-extensive but still very good (and far less expensive) selection as Whole Foods. For those that live in more rural areas that may not have these options, look for local farmers markets and roadside stands for the freshest foods. Because they take out the middle-men, the prices are nearly always incredibly low as well.

"I travel a lot for work/to races and my diet falls apart when I travel because I eat out a lot or buy food from highway rest stops that don’t have many healthy options"

My first few years racing, I always remember that my training seemed to suffer once the racing season began. It took a while to realize that this was largely because I would eat much better at home than when I traveled. I never thought to pack meals or snacks; only what I needed for the race and maybe a recovery drink. Anything else I needed I'd just grab on the road. Of course, this meant that I ended up either a) going way too long without eating a meal or b) eating some crap that I bought at a gas station

Again, the answer here is planning, planning planning. If you are traveling for work, do a search on healthy restaurants where you are going. Also find out about local supermarkets and take advantage of their salad bars. You might even decide which hotel to stay at based on proximity to a certain supermarket or restaurant. If you are going to be in the car, even for a couple hours, bring a cooler full of your own food. Make sure to include healthy snacks that won't melt in the heat as well as plenty of water. On race day, packing the food you will need for before, during and after the race should be part of your regular routine. A little bit of planning can go a long way towards performing, recovering and feeling at your best.

I hope that this has helped you, but if you have other excuses that I didn't cover here, please feel free to send them in. 

Colin Sandberg is the owner and head coach of Backbone Performance, LLC. He is a Cat. 1 road  racer, a USA Cycling Level II coach and a UCI Director Sportif. He is also head  coach at Young Medalists High Performance and race director for  Team Young  Medalists. If you have questions or comments, feel free to use the comments section or email us. Thanks for reading!  

How to eat right, simplified

These days, we hear about food a lot. Every time you turn around, there is a new book or study on nutrition. Authors such as Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser have shined a light on the industrial food system and as a result we have a better understanding of what we eat. More and more people have tried to change their diet in order to lose weight, live healthier, or as a result of a food allergy (e.g. lactose intolerance, peanut allergy) or disease (e.g. Diabetes, Celiac disease, Chron’s disease). The market has responded with all sorts of products that accommodate those special diets. Even many dinky bodegas offer soy milk, gluten free bread, cage free eggs and organic lettuce.

Although the abundance of research and special diets out there can make the head spin, the scientific community has actually moved closer and closer to consensus about how we should be eating. In truth, it isn’t that difficult to understand how to eat healthy.

I have done my best to summarize this in general guidelines. Keep in mind that some of these are more universally agreed upon than others.

General Guidelines:  

1. Minimize your intake of anything highly processed. Most pre-made, pre-flavored, pre-cooked foods are low on nutritional value, high on salt, sugar and fat and loaded with preservatives. A lot of processed foods that act as everyday staples to many people are engineered not to be more nutritious but rather to be more addictive.

2. Minimize your dairy intake. Humans are the only species to drink milk after infancy. Some scientists have theorized that all humans are allergic to lactose, just in varying degrees. Adequate calcium intake can easily be achieved by eating enough vegetables (e.g. Kale, edamame) and other non-dairy foods (e.g. Sardines, Almonds). If you must have milk in your coffee and cereal, consider a soy milk, almond milk or rice milk.

3. Eat a variety of grains. For the most part, the wheat that we eat today is unlike the wheat that people ate 100 years ago. Like many other foods, it has been engineered not for nutritional value but for maximum crop yield. Despite this, there’s no need for complete gluten abstinence (unless you have a gluten allergy), but most of us could stand to eat more varieties of grains rather than relying almost entirely on wheat. There are lots of wonderful gluten-free options out there such as rice, buckwheat, amaranth, quinoa, and millet so even when you have to load up before a long ride or race, there are many alternatives to the old bowl of pasta.

4. Minimize your sugar intake. Just to clarify, the demands of our sport pretty much require us to consume large amounts of sugar on the bike, which is all the more reason to minimize sugar intake off the bike. A little sugar in your coffee won’t do you any harm, but 6 Oreos every night will. This doesn’t mean that you can’t splurge every once in a while, just make sure that it is a splurge and not the norm. When possible, replace processed sugars such as sucrose and high fructose corn syrup with natural sugars such as honey, maple syrup and agave nectar.

5. Eat a lot of vegetables, and more specifically, vegetables of all different colors. Vegetables provide a lot of the nutrients we need and most can be eaten raw or prepared fairly easily. Current  recommendations suggest that when we look at our dinner plates, most of the plate should be covered in vegetables. Even those that cringe at that thought are often pleasantly surprised when they experiment with different types of vegetables, cooking techniques and flavors. At the risk of offending my mother if she is reading this, I was amazed at how good brussels sprouts could be when prepared well!

6. “Graze” on natural, low-glycemic index foods. There are times as a cyclist (e.g. during and immediately after the race or workout) where you want high glycemic index foods that will keep your metabolism “revving”. When you snack, though, you should seek out slow burning foods such as cherries, apples, dried fruit, nuts and hummus that will keep you satisfied for longer and avoid the metabolism spikes of high GI foods.

For ethical reasons, some may wish to eliminate meat, fish, industrially produced eggs and genetically modified foods but for the most part that is an ethical discussion rather than a nutritional one. Certainly though, there is increasing evidence that organically grown vegetables, grass fed beef, free range chicken and non genetically modified grains may indeed be more nutritionally dense as well as less likely to contain harmful bacteria, pesticides and hormones.   

You will note that I don’t use the words “eliminate”, “avoid all” or “maximize” anywhere here. All too often we like to categorize things into 2 categories: good and bad. But even the unhealthiest foods, such as fois gras, milkshakes and cheeseburgers won’t kill you to have once in a while. In fact, a lot athletes I know look at being able to have a beer or a few cookies after a ride without guilt as one of the benefits of exercise. Likewise, too much of a “good” thing can be unhealthy as well. Michele Ferrari famously said “It's dangerous to drink 10 liters of orange juice”. Though I wouldn’t agree with his implication that this makes it OK to cheat, he makes a valid point: even something “healthy” can be abused. Although it would be easier to plan if we could just separate all food into categories of good and bad, we benefit greatly from variety within the general guidelines.

Below is a sample daily menu for a cyclist. I deliberately did not specify portions because portion sizes would be different for people of varying body mass, training load, metabolism and Caloric balance goal (i.e. weight loss, gain or maintenance). I would simply note that the portions of vegetables should be relatively large and the portions of meat should be relatively small. Endurance athletes will typically require more carbohydrates, calcium and salt than the general public due to their training load and loss of electrolytes in sweat. This particular sample is geared towards someone in a transitional/off-season phase of their training, which means a few less carbs and a little more fiber than other phases of training.

Sample Daily Menu

Breakfast: Oatmeal with apple chunks, Fruit Juice

Mid-morning Snack: Almond and Date rice cake

Lunch: Veggie burger with avocado, Lentil salad

Mid-Afternoon Snack: Hummus with baby carrots, celery sticks and green or red pepper sticks, Apple juice (no added sugar)

Dinner: Lemon and Herb Salmon, Millet Salad, Roasted beets, Garden Salad (Baby Greens, tomato, cucumber)

Dessert: Homemade mango/raspberry sorbet sweetened with honey or agave nectar

Astute readers will notice that many of the above recipes are from The Feed Zone Cookbook. It's a great resource for cyclists. Simple, easy to make recipes designed with the special needs of cyclists in mind

Of course, just as there is a big difference between knowing you should ride towards the front of the pack in a crit and actually being able to do it, there is a big difference between knowing how to eat and actually being able to do it. Most of us have a lot of forces working against us that make things difficult. Here are some of the most common obstacles/excuses I hear from athletes:

"My mother/father/husband/wife does all the shopping and cooking and they don’t accommodate my needs as an athlete"

"I am at school/work all day and there are no healthy snacks available there. I get really hungry and end up buying candy in the vending machine/eating one of the cookies that Mildred in Accounting brought in"

"I am too busy to cook, so I just eat out all the time"

"I'm in college and I don't have a kitchen. I eat out or at the cafeteria all the time." 

"By the time I get home from school/work I am starving and I make bad decisions about nutrition"

"I don’t have enough time to go shopping and buy the foods I should be eating more of (fresh fruits and vegetables in particular). I only go shopping once a week or less and by the end of the week a lot of that stuff has gone bad"

"I don’t have enough money to shop at Whole Foods (a.k.a. Whole Paycheck) all the time"

"I travel a lot for work/to races and my diet falls apart when I travel because I eat out a lot or buy food from highway rest stops that don’t have many healthy options"

All of these are legitimate and fair points but there is a solution to every problem. In my next blog, I will talk about all of these obstacles and ways that you can overcome them. SPOILER ALERT: the key word is “planning”. Yes, it can be a challenge but for all of the effort that you put into planning your training and racing, you can probably spend a little bit of time planning your diet, right?

Colin Sandberg is the owner and head coach of Backbone Performance, LLC. He is a Cat. 1 road  racer, a USA Cycling Level II coach and a UCI Director Sportif. He is also head  coach at Young Medalists High Performance and race director for  Team Young  Medalists. If you have questions or comments, feel free to use the comments section or email us. Thanks for reading!  

Blackjack

One if my old coworkers and mentors, coach Benjamin Sharp, once told me something that stuck with me. He said that it's important to do something competitive in the off-season to "keep the juices flowing" (actually he didn't use that phrase but you get the idea). The point is that many athletes, when preparing for their racing season, over-emphasize the fitness part and under-emphasize the competition part. Yet we all have examples of racers that win races despite less than superior fitness and conversely others who look great in training but never seem to get the results on race day. We often chalk this up to luck or "smart racing" but let's be honest... bike racing isn't chess. While there are countless subtleties regarding tactics, you can get by pretty well by implementing a few simple rules:

1. Know when you need to be at the front and get there

2. Don't do any unnecessary work

3. Attack when the race is hardest

OK... before you start to post angry comments about how bike racing is a chess game on bikes, let me clarify. I'm not saying that these 3 things are the only things you ever need to know about tactics. That should be obvious to those that read this blog regularly. My only point is that a lot of times when we refer to someone as "a smart racer" we are referring more to their ability to implement a few simple rules than their ability to devise a genius level tactical plan. So what do these people possess that others don't? I would argue that it's a strong competitive drive that allows some people to perform at their best (or perhaps even better than they should be able to) on race day. They have a little bit more focus. They are able to take risks that most people aren't, though they almost always seem to get through without incident.

Fear not, a competitive drive is not something that some people are simply "born with" and others aren't. In fact, we are all born with it; it's only a matter of how much we've nurtured it. In their book "Top Dog", Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman argue that it's important for parents to foster a spirit of friendly competition within their children. This can be accomplished, amongst other ways, by "roughhousing" with your children.

"We can build up children's competitive fire through group play, roughhousing within limits, and teaching them never to quit. And it seems that if we push these buttons correctly, those kids will grow up into strong competitors as adults"

Note the inclusion "within limits". Roughhousing with siblings may have the opposite effect because inevitably one sibling dominates and they are not mature enough to understand and accept those limits. Roughhousing with a parent allows the child to be physical and competitive but always safe.

Roughhousing can be a great way to teach your children that competiveness can be fun and safe

Nurturing a competitive spirit doesn't end with the onset of adulthood, though the responsibility for doing so must pass from parent to self. In a training context, if we want to win competitions we cannot limit our preparation to the physical. Don't wait until next race season is about to begin (or worse yet, has already begun) to start this preparation. Benjamin used to say to his athletes that they should think about other forms of competition they could do when they weren't racing their bikes. Maybe it is cyclocross or running races or an indoor soccer league or a weekly "fast group ride". Maybe it is watching bike race videos and reading books about tactics. Or maybe it was something totally different, like fantasy football or a weekly card game (note: Ben is himself an avid poker player).

This fall, I decided to take up blackjack. Well, "take up" may be too strong a term at this point since I haven't bet a single dollar yet. At this point, it's more just learning how to play and win at blackjack. Of course the last part is critical. Blackjack, like any casino game, has a house edge, meaning that if you play long enough the law of large numbers ensures that you will lose money. However, unlike many other games (slot machines in particular), the house advantage in blackjack is relatively small, as little as 0.3%, meaning that you will lose, on average 30 cents for every $100 played... assuming you play perfectly. This is a huge assumption of course and the fact is that because most players are far from perfect at basic strategy, the casinos make much more than 0.3 cents on the dollar. For a player to minimize his losses, he has to first learn perfect basic strategy (see chart below). For a player to win, he has to count cards. Counting cards, in principle, isn't as complicated as you might think. For example, the simplest card counting method, "Hi-Lo", involves starting with a count of 0 and then adding +1 for every low card (2,3,4,5,6) and subtracting -1 every high card (10, J, Q,K,A). If you try this with a 1,2,6, 8 or however many decks, the final count should be 0 if you counted perfectly. The basic idea at a casino is that when the table reaches a favorable count (perhaps +5 or higher?), you bet more money because that house advantage has turned into a player advantage.

Before I go any further, I feel like I must make an obligatory note about counting cards in blackjack. Counting cards is not illegal, but it is "frowned upon" by casinos. Usually, when a casino discovers that a player is winning by counting cards, the casino will ask them to leave and not come back. In other words, they won't arrest you or break your hands like you may have seen in the movies. Some argue that many casinos even encourage card counting, or at least the notion of card counting (card counting books can often be found in casino gift shops). The simple reason for this is that most people make mistakes and actually lose more money than they would by just playing basic strategy.

The amazing thing I have learned is how many of the lessons of blackjack can be applied to bike racing. Let me highlight a few:

A basic strategy chart for blackjack. You don't need to memorize it just yet. The only thing to remember now is that the correct move depends on more than just what you have in your hand

1. It's not just about what you have in your hand. In advanced blackjack the right move is determined by a) Your hand, b) The dealer's hand and c) The count. For example, if you are dealt an Ace and a 7, you would stand if the dealer is showing a 2, a 7 or an 8, double down if the dealer is showing a 3,4,5 or 6 and hit if the dealer is showing a 9 or above. Beginner blackjack players are likely to look only at their own hand. Perhaps they just hit until they have at least 17 and then stand. Better players change their move based on what they have and what the dealer is showing. Great players understand how the odds change throughout the game and they bet big when they know the odds are in their favor. Likewise, beginner bike racers tend only to look at themselves. They feel great, so they attack. They feel like crap, so they sit in and try to survive. Good bike racers attack when they see that everyone else is suffering and they sit in when everyone else is looking fresh. Great bike racers commit 100% to the moves that really have a chance of winning.

2. You will always lose more often than you win. Like I stated before, if you play any casino game long enough, you will lose. For example, a playing basic strategy with a 0.3% house advantage might result in a 45.6% chance of winning any given hand with a 45.9% chance of losing and 8.5% chance of a push (tie). So even if you count cards, you still lose more than you win. The difference is that when you win, you win big. Although the odds of winning a bike race are far smaller even for the best racers, the idea is the same. Even the best bike racers in history lost a lot more races than they won, but one big win can wipe out a hundred losses. You just have to know when you have the advantage and not be afraid to use it.

In the 2004 Milan-San-Remo, Erik Zabel was so happy about winning the race that he... well, forgot to make sure that he had won first.

3. Don't let emotion cloud your judgment. A good blackjack player realizes that he will win sometimes and lose sometimes. In fact, losing is part of the process. Of course, this sounds like a no brainer for anyone with a basic understanding of probability, but when you are at the table losing hundreds if not thousands of your hard-earned dollars (or winning them for that matter) it's a little more difficult not to have an emotional reaction. In itself, feeling happy when you win or upset when you lose isn't a bad thing. The problem is when emotion causes you to make bad decisions. One of the classic "gamblers follies" is to try to make up for past losses by betting big rather than honestly evaluating the situation and making the right decision based on the situation. For example, a gambler might lose $100 on one hand and then bet $200 on the next hand in order to "make up for it". Now, in blackjack, if the count has suddenly become more favorable, this bet might make sense but the loss itself doesn't change anything. Likewise, many bike racers make dumb moves after a setback. They get spooked by a crash so they spend the rest of the race trying to stay safe rather than put themselves in a position to win. They feel good when a lot of others are suffering, so they try to ride everyone off their wheel on the climb. They miss the break so they try to singlehandedly chase it down. Feeling disappointed after a loss, happy after a win or scared after a crash is normal and healthy, as long as you keep your head and make smart decisions. In bike racing as well as blackjack, there is never a sure thing but there are smart bets and dumb bets; usually when people make dumb bets it is because they are clouded by emotion.

4. Preparation, practice and discipline are key. It can take months if not years of practice to become an effective card counter in blackjack. But even then it's important to practice. Many card counters carry a deck of cards with them at all times. They practice on computer simulations and they stay up to date with new information, rules and strategies. Being successful at bike racing is not only about continuing our training month after month and year after year but also updating our methods and thinking critically about ourselves. This fall and winter, I suggest that you find ways to grow your competitive spirit as well as your muscles, heart and lungs. When I ask my athletes to take a step back and look honestly at their biggest successes and failures of the season as well as the reasons to which they attribute them, it is striking how rarely the word "fitness" comes up and how often the words "confidence" and "nerve" come up. If you think that this is something you can improve on, there's no time like the present to start practicing.

Colin Sandberg is the owner and head coach of Backbone Performance, LLC. He is a Cat. 1 road  racer, a USA Cycling Level II coach and a UCI Director Sportif. He is also head  coach at Young Medalists High Performance and race director for  Team Young  Medalists. If you are interested in coaching or if you want to find out more, check out Backbone Performance at www.BackbonePerformance.com or like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/BackbonePerformance. Thanks for reading!

When to Begin, End and Pause your Coaching

First of all, I’m sorry I haven’t written in a while. It’s been a busy summer. I got married in June and it feels like I have been traveling a lot since then. Finally, though, things are calming down and I have a lot to write about.  So, for the first blog back it seemed like an appropriate time to talk about starting, ending and pausing coaching....

Every full time coach knows that our business is seasonal. Typically we get new clients when athletes start to think about their upcoming season. For road and mountain bikers, this is usually between November and January. Things don’t usually change much between February and June, and then we usually lose a couple athletes between July and September when the road and mountain season wind down. For cyclocross and track racers the schedule can be a little different, but in the interest of not having to talk about these exceptions with every point, I'm just going to talk about road and mountain bikers here that follow a "traditional" March through September racing schedule.

For coaches, getting new athletes can be a lot of work. Likewise, losing athletes can be financially and sometimes emotionally painful, but it comes with the territory. Sometimes though, the reasons why athletes start, end or pause coaching at certain times don’t really make sense. This article is my take on the whole matter.

When to Begin

I often get inquiries from athletes in the summer or fall about coaching, only to hear that they don’t want to start until January, February or March. The thought process behind is often one or more of the following:

- I'm not really doing any "real training" in the fall

- I’m “just doing base training” in the winter

- I don’t have enough money to be coached year round

Fall isn't just cross training and time off the bike... it's also the most important time of the year to talk with your coach

Let's talk about each of these. First of all, the fall is usually a time to decompress before you start to think about next season again. I tell athletes to do this in 3 steps: 1) Become human again (spend time with your family & the people you love, have a good time, do some activities that don't have anything to do with fitness), 2) Become an athlete again (do some cross training, core strengthening, general body exercises). 3) Become a cyclist again (general riding). Eventually, there comes 4) Become a bike racer, 5) Become a bike race contender and 6) Become a bike race winner but that is a long way away. The point is that the fall is the start of the process. Starting off right is critical for all the stages to come. If you do the wrong training in the fall it could have a domino effect for all your training to come. Also, though volume and intensity are down in this transitional period, fall is when you take a step back from the season and evaluate. Fall is when I like to have end of season evaluations with athletes, where we both take an honest look at the past season and try to find areas for improvement. It is good for all athletes to do this rather than simply go from season to season out of habit, thereby repeating the same mistakes over and over again. 

As far as the winter goes, at face value winter base training may not be that complicated, but it is more than just doing a lot of miles. Base training is about becoming mechanically and metabolically efficient as a cyclist in order to set the groundwork for the intensity to come. To use a car metaphor (which I love to do since I used to work in the auto industry), it's about increasing the size of your engine as well as your gas mileage. Most coaches these days prescribe a fair amount of intensity in the winter time as well as endurance miles instead of the old school "Ride & Repeat" model, but doing this training in the shortest, coldest, most miserable days of the year requires a lot of motivation and creativity. Having a coach can help you find ways to keep the training exciting as well as to shuffle things around when necessary. For many athletes, especially those in cold weather climates, having a coach in the winter is even more important than during their actual racing season.

When to End

Let's face it. People need different things in coaches. Some need a teacher, some need a friend, some need a drill sergeant, some need a cheerleader and some need a therapist. For some athletes, all they really want is a training plan. Some athletes need an objective viewpoint and a sounding board more than anything. For some, it's the tactical advice that is key and for some having someone to give them workout feedback is the most important thing. Some people require a coach who is more specialized, either in a specific aspect of the sport (cyclocross, track, time trialing, etc.) or a specific group of people (older athletes, women, disabled athletes, juniors, etc.). Some athletes really need a coach who is local and will be at the races and rides they are at and for others this is irrelevant. Before you choose a coach you should put some serious thought into what is most important to you. Every coach has their strengths and weaknesses. It can't hurt to ask a prospective coach what their areas of specialty are as well as where they are not as strong. A good coach should be honest with you about this, though getting some references from the athletes they coach is also a good idea. Despite this, you may not know exactly what you need until you aren't getting it.

There are plenty of good reasons to try another coach, but there are also plenty of bad ones. Don't give up on your coach just because they do something you don't understand. If your coach isn't meeting your needs, tell them and give them a chance to do better or at least tell you what they can and can't do for you. Your coach may just have a process that isn't what you're used to. All is not revealed immediately. There is a saying that coaches use all the time with new athletes: "Trust me now... believe me later".

Some people need a cheerleader for a coach... some people don't

When to Pause

Athletes often ask their coach to pause their coaching for a few months. This can be because they do another sport in the off-season, they are taking an extended trip, they are trying to cut back on expenses or they will be busy at work or school for a while. In addition, some athletes are simply too embarrassed to tell their coach that they want to quit. I talked about many of these topics in the first section, so let me just say this: most of the time it is not beneficial in the long run for you to pause your coaching but there are some exceptions:

1. If you have no motivation to train and looking at any kind of training schedule just adds anxiety to your life. Of course, my advice is to first talk to your coach and see if they can help with the problem but sometimes you do just need a break.

2. If you have a completely unpredictable schedule from day to day. Again, before you put your training on hold you should realize that there are ways your coach might be able to help. In my opinion, having very little time available to train is all the more reason to have a coach that can help you make the most out of that time. For most of us, having an unpredictable schedule is worse than anything though and sometimes it can be close to impossible to plan anything. Again, if seeing a workout come up on your schedule that you know you won't be able to do will only add stress to your life, it might be a good time to put your training on hold for a bit.

3. If you have no goals, it will be tough for a coach to help you. Although I certainly believe that a coach can help talk through your thoughts about your future goals and whether or not they are realistic, it is not the job of the coach to tell you what your goals should be or to make them for you; it is the coaches job to show you the path towards your goals.

If you don't have much time to ride, having a coach may be exactly what you need to help this from happening

Just like ending coaching, pausing coaching is often done for the wrong reasons. If you are pausing your coaching for financial reasons, ask your coach if there is something you can do to help knock the price down. Money is a concern for many cyclists. Our sport is very expensive already and the last thing we want to do is pay for something we don't need. But if financial concerns are the main thing stopping you from pulling the trigger on coaching, ask your coach if there are ways to lower the price. Personally, I don't like to give discounts for nothing because I think it devalues the coaching, but if an athlete is willing to help me out, it can be worth something. Maybe they can send me some referrals. Maybe they can help out as an assistant coach. Maybe they can help me with my website or social media. Heck, maybe they can help me do some filing for me. Who knows? The point is that if there's a will there's a way.

Being short on time is usually a very bad reason. In fact, the busier you are the more you can benefit from structure and someone to help you make the most of the time you do have. "Not enough time to train" is probably the most common reason I have seen why people quit or pause coaching but before you do this, ask yourself what you see yourself doing when you don't have a coach. Usually it is either a) Do nothing, b) Train when you can or c) Follow your own training plan. With a), although we all go through periods where we take time off, you are an athlete for a reason. Maybe it's because you need exercise for your mental health. Maybe it's because you are a competitive person and this is a healthy way to express it. Whatever it is, you will need to figure out some other way to fulfill those needs. b) doesn't work for busy people because when you are really busy there is always something else you could be doing. If you wait around until you have time to train, you will be waiting a long time. You have to make time for the things that are important to you in life. c) can work for some people, but most people that coach themselves struggle with the "all or nothing" mentality because they don't have someone they can turn to when things don't go perfectly... and they never do. A good coach is a problem solver. If you miss a workout, whether it is because of the weather, motivation, lack of time or boredom, your coach should be able to help you figure out where to go from here and find solutions needed in order to give you a training schedule that is more doable in the future.

This fall, take some time to think about what you need in your coach. If they aren't delivering, talk to them about ways they can meet your needs and if that fails... look for another coach. It all starts with an honest conversation. Those without a coach should ask themselves the same questions. If you decide to give coaching a try, there are plenty of good ones right around the corner.

Colin Sandberg is the owner and head coach of Backbone Performance, LLC. He is a Cat. 1 road  racer, a USA Cycling Level II coach and a UCI Director Sportif. He is also head  coach at Young Medalists High Performance and race director for  Team Young  Medalists. If you are interested in coaching or if you want to find out more, check out Backbone Performance at www.BackbonePerformance.com or like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/BackbonePerformance. Thanks for reading!

Believe

My old boss, Brian Walton once told me something that I will never forget. "If you don't think that [bike racing] can be done clean, you shouldn't be a coach". I completely with Brian, though I am unable to express myself quite as concisely as he did. Today, though you would be a fool to think that there isn't still doping our sport, you would be an equal fool to think that the same culture of doping exists today that did 10 or 15 years ago. I am extremely happy that the juniors I coach will not be entering a world of professional cycling where they will ever feel like they have to choose between doping or quitting. There is a lot less doping now, but unfortunately there is also a lot less opportunity. Young riders today, guys that are clean and doing things right, are paying the price for the mistakes the generation before them made. I am sure that some of this is just because there was a lag between the height of the doping era and the widespread public awareness of it, but I think it is also because so may fans still refuse to believe and those of us on the inside aren't doing enough to help.

The beauty of sport is not in watching super-heroes but in watching humans do the incredible

Let's take a step back. Why do we love cycling? For that matter, what is appealing to us about sport in general? I don't want to be too cliché but I think a lot of the appeal is watching human beings achieve things never thought possible: Running a 4 minute mile. Throwing a baseball at 100 mph. Clean & Jerking over 3 times body weight. What makes these things so amazing is that they are done by humans. I don't want to see super-heroes, I want to see humans; living, breathing, fragile, suffering, amazing human beings. If humans can do these things that were once thought impossible, it expands the entire realm of human possibility. But this is also why doping scandals can break our hearts. We feel tricked... duped... like a bunch of suckers. This is tragic by definition.

An inspirational sentiment. Too bad it was a lie... but it's easy to get away with a lie when it's what people want to believe

It is no surprise that fans would become cynical after having their hearts broken a few times. It is no wonder that they would stop believing when many of the athletes they once admired and looked up to turn out to be frauds. Even when we fix the problems we can't expect that the pain of this betrayal will go away overnight. But if we want it to ever go away, we have to do more than just clean up the sport.

One of the things that annoys me most is when the first response cycling "fans" have to a great performance is to state with smug condescension, "They were probably doping". Of course, like many of the cynical comments that people make, these things are often more about the person who says it than the target of the comment. After all, if the winner was a cheater it means that you (not a cheater) have no responsibility to perform because the game is fixed, right? It's a lot easier to believe that the winners cheated than that they are simply more talented, harder working and smarter. If you actually believe that it's a level playing field it would be much harder to come up with an excuse. But next time before you go making a comment like this you might want to think about the type of corrosive damage these remarks can cause.

A video about Axel Merckx and the Bontrager U23 Devo team

Maybe I am more sensitive than I should be about this kind of stuff but I am in a different position than most. As the director of a junior cycling program, I am always in the business of trying to place the top graduating (18 year old) riders onto elite U23 and professional teams. Unfortunately, there are currently only 2 professional U23 teams in the US: Bontrager and Hincapie Sportswear, with only 10-15 spots each. Though neither team is exclusively American, most, if not all of the American riders that win U23 National Championships and European U23 races; the riders who go on to become the next generation of American cycling stars will come from one of these two teams.

Unfortunately, if you are 18 years old and you are pretty good but not one of the top 20-25 riders in the country, it's a lot harder to get on the fast track. There are some spots for young riders on non-U23 professional teams as well as elite amateur teams but these teams will not prioritize developing young riders as highly as getting race results, so younger riders are often left off the rosters for the bigger races. This is unfortunate because some of them started later or matured a little more slowly. Surely there would be more opportunities for these "second tier riders" to develop if there were more U23 teams out there that could afford to send teams to the big races in the US and most importantly to Europe. Why aren't there? Well let's just say that if the sponsorship money was there the teams would be there.

What do you think of when you see this? Hopefully it's not slowly dying in a hospital bed

Doping isn't the only reason the current sponsorship market is bleak. The economy is struggling and there aren't tons of companies willing to shell out money to sponsor professional cycling teams that can't guarantee a return on investment. Companies don't usually sponsor cycling teams as direct advertising anyway. Most people aren't going to go out and get insurance from United Healthcare because they like their cycling team. With some exceptions (mainly product sponsors), most cycling sponsorship is about branding. If you put a positive image in the consumer's head they make a subconscious association. After all, the reason health care is called "Health Care" in the first place and not "Sickness Care" is branding. Cycling should (at least in theory) be a vision of health, youth, life, energy, speed and exuberance. Fans watch the United Health Care cycling team win a race and later when they see the UHC logo they think about health, youth, life, energy, etc. Obviously though, it only takes a few doping scandals to make this branding ineffective if not downright counter-productive.

Hincapie Devo team at Training Camp

So to recap... the effectiveness of branding strategies involving the sport of cycling are questionable because of all the bad press the sport has had and most companies have slashed their budget for branding strategies anyway because of the bad economy. Unsurprisingly we are left with... not much sponsorship $. And that's really what is comes down to. Show me the money! Money can't buy everything, but the bottom line is that more money = more opportunities for talented young riders. That's why I cringe when I look at things like this and this. The first is an article about the Hincapie Development Team in Cyclingnews.com. The second is an interview with BBP athlete and a member of that team, Robin Carpenter, after winning the Puivelde Kermis in Sint-Niklaas, Belgium last week. In both cases, if you scroll down to the comments (I know, I know... I should know better) you will see a bunch of people criticizing the Hincapie sponsorship because of George Hincapie's past doping as well as casting aspersions on Robin himself because a) He is a member of a team sponsored by Hincapie and b) He is fast.

So here's a few comments from me...

First of all, Hincapie Sportswear is co-owned by brothers Rich and George Hincapie, though almost everyone knows that it Rich manages the company and George is the front man. In full disclosure, Hincapie Sportswear is the clothing sponsor for Team GPOA, but having raced and trained in their clothing for the last 3 years I can say without a doubt that it is the best cycling clothing I have ever had.

Second, is it inappropriate for Hincapie to sponsor a U23 Cycling team? No more so than it is inappropriate for a kid caught spraying graffiti to do community service. Yes, he cheated and he lied, but unlike the many many others that did the same or worse, he is doing something positive for the sport now and it isn't just a self serving half-assed public apology. In my opinion, George is doing just about the best thing he can to help the sport. And he isn't just sponsoring a team that is helping former dopers get one more chance to win races, he is helping new riders get their chance... riders that are not tainted by the scandals, the culture, and the cynicism of the doping era. This is a thankless job by the way, because Devo teams can always expect to lose their best riders either when they get older or are picked up by bigger teams. Just in case you were wondering, the team has a ZERO tolerance policy on doping and though I can't disclose the content of Robin's contract I can tell you that it makes it very clear that the team isn't just giving lip service to the anti-doping fight, they are extremely serious about it.

Third, if you still think it's inappropriate for someone who doped to sponsor a U23 Cycling team then fine... put your money where your mouth is, step up and sponsor a team yourself.

Robin wins the Puivelde Kermis in Belgium last week

Lastly, to me at least, Robin Carpenter symbolizes everything that is right about the sport of cycling. He is an inspiration to us all because he has proven that success is possible in this sport with bread and water, hard work, determination, intelligence, patience and grit. When I first met Robin in 2005, he was 13 years old and we had both done the Manayunk Wall Hill climb TT, which is just a few blocks away from the house where he and his family lived. I won the 1/2/3 race and he finished 27th in the Cat. 5 race. Just 3 years later, I wouldn't be able to beat him in anything unless he made a wrong turn on the course when he was off the front. Robin has been successful not only because he is extremely physically talented but also because he has a knack for reading a race and being able to slip away at the perfect moment. He is one of the hardest workers I know, not only with his training, but also with his academics. After graduating from Masterman High School (the most competitive high school in Philadelphia) with a 4.0, Robin earned a full academic scholarship to Swarthmore College, where he has successfully balanced the demands of being a full-time student and a professional athlete for the last 2 years. Next week, at the Philly Cycling Classic, he will be one of the favorites to win the best Jerry Casale best young rider award. If he does so, he will do it in front of his home on the same street where he did his first bike race 8 years ago. In short, Robin isn't part of the problem, he's part of the solution.

As in any sport, there is and will always be some cheaters. We all have to do our part to make sure that these cheaters are caught and punished but as fans, we also have to do our part and keep believing. We need to allow ourselves be once again be amazed by what human beings are capable of. If we can do this, the sponsors will come back because it's good for business. When the sponsors come back, the opportunities come back for the next generation and we might actually pass along to them the sport of cycling as it was meant to be. 

Sprinting: 10 seconds of the race, a week of second guesses

Though it may only last 10 seconds, the final sprint is the key moment of countless bike races. For those not built with the muscle fiber composition of Mark Cavendish or Victoria Pendleton, this hardly seems fair. We work so hard to be better, stronger, faster bike racers. We train countless hours to raise our threshold power and VO2 max. We starve ourselves in order to have higher power to weight ratios than our competitors. Finally, on the day of the big race everything seems to come together... and then at the last minute we are beaten by someone who sat at the back of the pack doing nothing the entire race but just happens to have a good sprint finish and/or is willing to take chances we are unwilling to take. Frustrating, huh? You might be the strongest rider in the race. Maybe even by a big margin. You might have been very aggressive and made the winning break, but unless you managed to slip away solo at the end, there will still be some sort of sprint and for some riders this makes winning the race a virtually impossibility. 

Doubtless, many that are reading this have been in this position before. Despite all your hard work, the race came down to a sprint and since "you aren't a sprinter", you lost. So you Monday morning quarterback it.  Or maybe even Tuesday morning. Maybe you second guess yourself all week until your next race, or longer. You agonize over that last 10 seconds and wonder if there was anything you could have done differently. Maybe you should have attacked and tried to get away solo? Maybe you should have followed a different rider? Maybe you should have sprinted sooner, before you were boxed in and had to hit your brakes? Or maybe you just aren't cut out for this sprinting stuff and you should just resign yourself to uphill time trials?

No amount of training will ever turn you into Robert Forsteman

The bad news is that some people really are born sprinters. They have a higher composition of Type IIB (fast twitch) muscle fibers and no matter how much you train you will never beat them in a head to head sprint if all other things are equal. The good news is that there is a lot you can do at lot to train your body and brain to use the assets you do have to maximum advantage.

Positioning

There is an old adage that a sprint is 90% positioning and 10% sprinting. If you put yourself in exactly the right position for the sprint you will probably do pretty well even if you are the worst sprinter in the bunch or you have nothing left for the sprint. Sure, you probably won't win, but you will most likely do pretty well. The opposite is also true; you can be the best sprinter in the bunch and you will never win a race if you are starting the sprint from 20, 30 or 40 riders back.

If you are preparing for a sprint finish, start with a plan. Bike race tactics don't have to be rocket science so don't make it overly complicated. Start with knowing the course and in particular, the kilometer of the course. If it's a Criterium you should have plenty of chances to preview the finish. In a Circuit Race, make sure you pay attention to landmarks that let you know you are approaching the end. If it's a Road Race with one big loop, ride backwards on the course a bit and pay attention to the last mile in particular. Where do you want to be with 100 meters to go? If you are racing a Criterium with a sharp turn 50 meters before the finish, the winner will most likely be the first rider through the last turn [that stays upright]. If there is a turn 300 meters before the finish, you will probably want to be in the top 5 because the field will string out single file around the turn but you don't want to be first through the last turn and still have 300 meters to go. If it's an uphill finish or into a headwind it will be slower and if it's a downhill finish or into a tailwind it will be faster. Think about it. If you are not sure, watch some of the other category finishes and pay attention to where the winners were at different points. If that's not possible, ask others that have done the race before about how the sprint usually plays out.

Always start the race with a plan

Aside from course considerations, the ideal position for the start of the sprint also may depend on what kind of rider you are. If you have a good jump but you fade in a long sprint you should either start your sprint early (so no one will want to chase you for fear of not having anything left themselves) or start your sprint late in order to limit the time you are out in the wind. For all you juniors that are riding in senior category races, you are at a disadvantage with your gears so you will have an interest in the sprint starting from a slow speed. As this is not usually something you can control, your best bet may be to "surf wheels" by staying in the drafts of other riders as long as possible, virtually "sucked along" by their drafts until popping out at the very end. A win by an inch and a win by 3 bike lengths are still the same result!

Once you decide what the best position to be in at the start of the sprint (100-200 meters to go), everything else is just a matter of getting you there as fresh as possible, though the former is much more important than the latter. If you want to be in 3rd wheel at 200 meters to go, you probably should be in the top 5 at 500 meters to go and the top 10 with 1k to go. Right about now you might be thinking that there are too many unpredictable factors to make any such plan come together. Sure, it sounds great if  you have a few experienced teammates to lead you out: all strong, all in the right position, all on the same page about the plan. But what about the other 99.9% of the time? And what if you don't have any  teammates at all? Your plan is based off of a lot of assumptions about  what the other riders will do, so what happens when you find yourself  too far back or too far ahead? While it would be impossible to run through every possible scenario, I will go through 2 very common ones:

Scenario 1: Let's say you are sitting in 3rd position  with 1k to go and 2 riders on other teams in front of you. At this  point, it's nice and fast, just like you want it. The rider in the first position then peels off, which might make you worry because the rider in  front of you is not going to be able to keep it fast for the next 800-900 meters before you want to start your sprint. One cheeky move  here is to intentionally let yourself get gapped without completely  sitting up. 9 times out of 10, one or two riders will come around you  and fill that gap because from their perspective it looks like you  simply aren't strong enough to hold the wheel in front of you. You let them in and voila!... you are now  sitting in 3rd or 4th, aka the ideal position. Of course you risk the possibility that a) the lead rider keeps going and no one comes around you or b) no one  let's you back in line, leaving you in the wind anyway, but in my  opinion it's usually worth the risk because if you are left in the lead  position and there is still 400-800 meters to go you have  virtually no chance of winning anyway.

Few things are more frustrating (or more dangerous) than being boxed in for the sprint with nowhere to go

Scenario 2: It is 400 meters to go but this time it's not fast enough to string the field out single file and  it's still somewhat of a pack with constantly shuffling positions. You  might be in the perfect position but in a matter of seconds you could be 10-15 riders back, or alternatively stuck out in the wind in first position. In a hairy  finish like this, without anyone taking control and keeping it fast,  there is a lot of risk that you will get boxed in, unable to go anywhere even  if you are physically capable of doing so. Needless to say, there are more than a  few crashes in these situations as well. Rather than taking a gamble  that the pack will part for you at the perfect time, you might want to  simply go for it as soon as you see daylight, even if it is a bit earlier than you wanted to go. If you can get a good initial jump on everyone  you just might be able to hold it to the line, especially if the rest of the  riders are looking at each other and no one wants to hurt their own chances in the sprint. There are risks in this scenario as well. If your sprint fades out quickly, you will be nothing but a distraction before the real sprint unfolds. If you don't get a good jump on the pack, you will simply lead out the sprint and have everyone fly by you at 150-200 meters to go. If some riders in the pack have teammates that don't mind sacrificing themselves, you might provide a nice carrot and the incentive for them to begin their own leadouts. Again though, the potential rewards may outweigh the risks, especially if you are particularly uneasy about big bunch sprints.

Though you need to be able to make quick decisions when things don't go as planned this should never stop you from having a plan in the first place. Even a bad plan is better than no plan because you will learn lessons from a bad plan and do it better the next time whereas when there is no plan, it's hard to really know what went wrong. Most experienced riders know their competition well enough to make some good educated guesses about how the end of the race will play out. For those with less experience, I would strongly suggest riding a fast weekly group ride or training race that will give you some practice with sprint finishes. Even better would be to seek out the advice of your coach or another rider that you trust to give you some feedback about what you did right and wrong in the final moments. If you don't trust anyone in your race or if the ones you do trust are not going to be able to pay attention to you while they themselves are sprinting, consider using a helmet cam and analyzing the footage afterwards.

Once you have a plan, you need to do your best to execute it step by step. This is where our sport requires the ability to put long term goals ahead and think very short term. All too often, people get too focused on step 10 when they haven't yet completed steps 1-9. Once you accomplish your positioning goal for 1k to go, you can start thinking about getting into position for 500m to go. Once you do that, you think about 300m... and so forth. Don't worry about not having anything left for the final sprint until you have successfully accomplished everything you needed to do in order to get to that point. Most of the time, you can't just skip steps, so if you are still 20 riders back and it's 500m to go, get the heck up to the front even if you have to kill yourself to do it! For those that are still worried about having nothing left, I'll let you in on a little secret: the people that actually do put themselves  in the right position are often rewarded with a couple seconds of  recovery before final sprint. The one's who don't get into the right position get no such recovery. This is one of those areas where our minds play tricks on us when we are suffering at the end of the race and it is all too easy to make excuses for ourselves. Insidious thoughts such as "I really don't want to crash", or "I'm not a sprinter" or "Maybe I can still sneak in for a top 10. I guess that would still be pretty good" start to sneak into our minds. No! You can't allow yourself to think like that. Don't make things too complicated. Just have a plan and do your best to execute that plan. Winning and losing are just outcomes.

Training the Sprint

So let's say you have executed steps 1-9. Eventually, yes, you do have to sprint. If the sprint truly is the problem for you, there is a lot you can do to work on it. You may never be Mario Cipollini but you can always get better. Believe it or not, many cyclists never put much thought into training their sprint despite the fact that sprints are an critical part of almost every race they do. Even if you aren't sprinting at the finish, having a good jump can be the difference between making the winning breakaway and towing the field around; the difference between being an aggressive rider on the attack and some dummy that got suckered into chasing.

There are all sorts of sprint drills and workouts that work different aspects of a sprint. Big gear vs. small gear; standing start vs. flying start vs. rolling start, uphill vs downhill, headwind vs. tailwind, seated vs. standing, short jumps vs. long drag races. There are endless variations that you can do by yourself or with one or multiple partners. The key is a) Train your weaknesses and b) Have variety. The more you practice sprinting, the less likely you will make a mistake and the more likely you will be able to handle anything unexpected that happens when it really matters. You can do dedicated sprint workouts or add them into just about any training ride. Some like to add them at the beginning when they are fresh, some like to add them in at the end when they are tired (in order to simulate the end of a race) and some like to sprinkle them in throughout a ride (e.g. township line sprints on a group ride). There is no right or wrong answer here.

We can't do anything to give ourselves a higher composition of Type IIB muscle fiber, but that doesn't mean we can't train to make our sprint better

Having a power meter can be very beneficial for sprint workouts for a number of reasons. Though most sprints are not "paced" in the sense that you are aiming for a specific wattage target but rather simply going as hard you can, power meter data can help you identify progress as your sprint gets better and better. Because sprints have the unusual distinction of being all-out efforts, almost every sprint workout is an opportunity for a personal best and if you are doing some sprints in training every week it is very likely that you may see a nice upward progression in the numbers. I suggest tracking your best 1 second, 5 second, 12 second and 20 second power for each week, though WKO+ users can set up custom charts to track whichever durations they like. Looking at the maximum and sustained power after each sprint during the actual workout will also help you measure the effectiveness of different technique variations and gear choices.

Technique

Type IIB, or fast twitch muscle fibers are incredibly powerful but also incredibly inefficient. Top male sprinters will put out 1500-1800 watts and top female sprinters will generate 1100-1300 watts for a 5-second sprint, but that power fades very quickly. In an all out 1-minute effort, most cyclists are unable to produce even half of what they can put out for 5 seconds. In an all out 60-minute effort, most will produce less than a quarter of their 5-second power. Type IIB muscle fibers are the equivalent of hitting the afterburners: they burn hot and fast. Because the amount of power produced in a sprint is so much greater than at any other time, their are special technique considerations necessary to ensure that this massive burst of power actually goes into accelerating the bike.

You may need to zoom in to see this chart. This is a mean maximal power curve, which plots time vs. the maximum power the rider has ever averaged for that time period. Notice that it is very steep for durations under 1 minute

On the bike, power has two components: torque (how hard you are pushing) and rpm (how fast you are spinning). When you make a big acceleration, the torque component of that spikes way up first and RPM follows. In other words, to spin faster you must first push harder. Most of the time, accelerations happen slowly enough that the change in torque is hardly noticeable in the span of a single pedal stroke or part of a pedal stroke and the forces coming from left and right virtually balance each other out. In sprints however, the torque applied is so high that it creates a strong twisting motion on the bike. This is why bikes and wheels have to be "laterally stiff" and also why we have to use our core and upper body muscles to stabilize the bike when sprinting. If you are having difficulty visualizing this, just try to sprint sometime with your hands off the bars...

One way to look at a sprint is bringing a big gear from a low rpm to a high rpm as quickly as possible. Sometimes you will "spin out", sit down for a second, shift into a harder gear and then do it again, but the concept remains the same. In order to get the fastest acceleration, you must use every possible part of the pedal stroke. In other words, you can't just stand up and throw your body weight from side to side, you have to actively pull up on the pedals with a lot of force to make a big acceleration. The conundrum of the sprinter is that it is necessary to stand up in order to get maximum leverage, yet as soon as you stand up you will have a dramatic loss in pedaling efficiency. Pulling up on the pedals is much easier to do when seated because the saddle gives a firm base to pull up into. Think of a game of tug of war. If you are trying to pull the rope towards you, you will have a lot more stability if you can dig your feet into the ground. Without a firm foothold, you have to make your own body into the firm base. Just as you don't want to fire a cannon from a canoe or put a Ferrari engine into a Kia, you aren't going to be able to use the massive force in your legs if you can't stabilize your bike and body first.

Greg Ratzell (Team Young Medalists) wins the Criterium at the 2011 Green Mountain Stage Race with excellent form: hands in the drops for a lower center of gravity, weight back to keep the weight over the bottom bracket, and using his core and upper body to stabilize the bike so his legs can fire at full capacity

Creating stability when sprinting, however, is not just about doing your core workouts and having six-pack abs. It's not good enough to have a simply strong core, you have to be able to use it. Out of the saddle sprinting requires a coordination between the upper and lower body that can be tricky for some people to learn. I advise new riders to practice this not only by doing sprint workouts, but also by "playing around" on the bike. Practice "dancing" the bike while climbing or over-exaggerating the lean of the bike back in forth. While you won't sprint this way in a race, these exercises will help to ingrain the coordination of neurological responses that are necessary in the sprint into your brain. The more you practice this, the more ingrained it gets. Eventually it will become something you do subconsciously in the same way that your arms swing back and forth when you walk or run.

I hope that this helps you improve your sprinting, but if you have questions, feedback, or if you have your own sprinting advice or tips that you would like to share, please write in!

Colin Sandberg is the owner and head coach of Backbone Performance, LLC. He is a Cat. 1 road  racer, a USA Cycling Level II coach and a UCI Director Sportif. He is also head  coach at Young Medalists High Performance and race director for Young  Medalists/Team Rothrock. If you are interested in coaching or if you want to find out more, check out Backbone Performance at www.BackbonePerformance.com or like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/BackbonePerformance. Thanks for reading!

Stone Cold Dropped

I don't generally like to write about myself, but to make the point I wish to make today I am going to do it anyway because it's important you know that even though I am a coach I don't have everything figured out... not by a long shot. 

I have thought many times about giving up racing myself. At 35 I have no aspirations of becoming a pro anymore. I have accomplished most of what I wanted to accomplish in this sport and as for the things I didn't; I am not sure that I am willing to make the sacrifices that I know are necessary at this point in my life. For the most part I get a lot more enjoyment out of coaching and seeing my athletes reach their goals than reaching any modest goals I have for my own racing. Often I think that continuing to train and race is a distraction that hurts my ability to be the best coach I can be. I once had someone tell me that "If you are at a race and your coach is getting ready for his own race you know that you aren't his first priority" and I think it's a fair point. Even with training, If I am worried about my own training I may be reluctant to go as hard (or easy) as necessary when I train with my athletes.

I still love racing, but for the most part I get more enjoyment out of coaching these days

I have had this argument in my head countless times but I have stuck with it... or at least for the most part. Last summer I had a chance to see what my life would be like without training and racing. I traveled with the junior team to Road Natz in Georgia in late June, I was in Trexlertown every day helping them prepare for Junior Track Natz in early July, and then I immediately went to Canada with the team for the Tour de l'Abitibi. During this time, I didn't train at all. I might have ridden my bike a few times but I certainly wasn't training. In the later part of the summer I did a couple more races but with my fitness severely lacking and a few distractions on the home front I had no motivation to train or race. So I didn't. Between August 8th and October 15th I did 7 rides for a total of 17 hours on the bike, and from September 16th to October 15th I didn't ride a single time.

During the time off, I gained almost 20 pounds and lost pretty much all of my fitness. One might think that without the fatigue caused by training and the distraction of my own racing I might have been a better coach but the truth is that I wasn't. I was depressed and irritable. Because I was so out of shape, I couldn't keep up with even the slowest of my athletes on training rides. Because I wasn't racing, I missed a lot of what was happening in their races. Most importantly though, I lost touch with how hard racing can be. I forgot how easy it is to get intimidated by the competition or the course. I forgot how stressful it can be to keep packing your bags and driving to races every weekend and always make sure you have everything. I forgot how hard it is to put the thought of crashing out of your mind or to keep racing and training as hard as you can even after a long series of disappointing performances. In short, not training and not racing made me a worse coach, not a better one. Yes, there are times when it is tough to balance my own training and racing with the demands of coaching but then again, every single one of my athletes struggles with training-life balance so why shouldn't I? I needed to be strong and lead by example.

This is me at Green Mountain Stage Race in September with the Juniors (I wasn't racing). By that point I was almost ripping the stitches out of my shorts

Over the last 6 months, I have been able to slowly claw my way back to some semblance of my former fitness, though I am still 10 pounds heavier than my ideal race weight (I have learned that as you get older it gets a lot harder to lose those extra lbs!). The early season March training races went OK for me, but it took me until the first weekend of April to remember why it's important to keep racing. The moment of clarity came at the Philadelphia Naval Yard Criterium last weekend and it wasn't a moment of triumph, it was a failure: getting stone called dropped less than halfway through the race.

The Naval Yard Crit was the first PA BAR race of the year; there were certainly a few good riders there but it wasn't exactly an NCC race. When I downloaded my file, the average and normalized power for the time I was in the race were well under what I should be able to do (though obviously those numbers don't tell the whole story). Basically, what caused me to get dropped was that I lost my nerve, or perhaps I never got it. It was a technical course with high curbs sticking out all over the place. The only crash I saw was on the straightaway, but I just couldn't bring myself to take the turns at the speed required. I was hitting my brakes too hard and then sprinting out of every turn to close the gaps. It has been a long time since I did a technical crit like that and I was out of practice. To top it off, I didn't warm up enough or line up far enough forward, possibly because I lacked confidence and I didn't want to get in anyone's way. Rookie mistakes.

So what's the lesson? (Hint: it's not only that you need to remember to warm up well, pre-ride the course and line up towards the front). The bigger lesson here is that you have to be a good loser and make a positive out of a negative. But what does that mean? It means that you learn your lesson(s) and move on instead of beating yourself up. While some coaches like to repeat the mantra: "No excuses", I often surprise people when I tell them that excuses can be a good thing, as long as they are good excuses. You have to explain what went wrong, and if that reason is something that was in your control, you fix the problem. A lot of factors determine results in bike racing. Some things you have total control over, such as what pressure you pump your tires up to and what you put in your bottles. Some things you have partial control over, such as your fitness and level of fatigue. And some things you have no control over, like the weather and how strong the competition is.

Taking turns at high speed requires practice

Without honest and objective expert feedback it is difficult to figure out what the real problem is. More often than not athletes blame their "fitness" and more often than not fitness wasn't the problem, or at least all of the problem. My race Saturday was a great example; it is natural to think "I got dropped because I wasn't strong enough", but I don't think that is true. In my case, I needed a refresher course on going through turns at 35 mph. Often the problem isn't fitness at all, but rather fatigue, technique or tactics. Even if there is a fitness issue, what kind of fitness are we talking about? Fitness is a big word. Fitness can mean endurance, efficiency, sustained power, VO2 max, anaerobic capacity, sprint power, the ability to repeat efforts over and over again or a bunch of other things. If you can put your finger on exactly what type of fitness was "the bottleneck" in your performance, you can better target what you need to work on in your training and begin to fix the problem.

Keeping it positive after a failure: easier said than done

An even more insidious line of thinking is "I got dropped because I suck". In a way, this is quite convenient because it absolves you of any responsibility to do anything about the problem. If you just suck, you probably deserved to get dropped. The truth is, no one deserves anything. I don't deserve to get dropped if my fitness isn't 100% and I don't deserve to win if it is 100%. Good fitness means that you have a better hand to play but you still have to play it right if you want to win, and sometimes someone with a lesser hand can win by playing their inferior hand really well. Thinking that you "deserve" this or that doesn't help anything. Instead, you need to think about where you think you belong. This winter, even though I was getting dropped on every hill of every group ride, I knew I belonged with the fastest riders, not the ones getting dropped. It wasn't that I deserved to be there, it was that I thought I belonged there. I felt like I might have been out of shape at the moment, but the real me was somewhere underneath that and it just required a little hard work and discipline to bring him out.

Unfortunately, positive thinking along won't win you any races. You can reassure yourself that you belong with the winners all you want but you won't get there if you don't do the hard work. But hard work isn't just about training a lot of hours and TSS points; it's about throwing yourself out there day in and day out and giving it your best, despite the inevitable setbacks. I'm not talking about doing your training even if you are sick or injured, I am talking about being adaptable and doing your best every minute of every day even when you feel like you just plain suck. Never underestimate the power of persistence.

150 Year Old Tactics

With the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, it's been getting a lot of attention lately. I have been reading "Team of Rivals" and re-watching Ken Burns' Civil War documentary so it has certainly been on my mind. I am waiting until I finish the book to see the Lincoln movie. Like many things, I can't help but to see some parallels with bike racing.

General George McCleallan

Civil War history buffs will recollect that General George McClellan was one of the first Chief Generals of the Union army, Lincoln appointed McClellan to the position in late 1861. He was arguably one of the worst military leaders in American history. It can easily be argued that with more competent leadership early in the war the Union could have achieved a quick victory instead of a long drawn out struggle that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and wrecked the economies of North and South alike. Ironically, had the rebellion been easily suppressed, Lincoln would most likely never have agreed to Emancipation, which is ultimately what elevated the Civil War from a meaningless slaughter to a higher struggle for the freedom of all Americans. But back to McClellan...

McClellan reviews the Army of the Potomac

George McClellan was an excellent "preparer". He turned a hundred thousand men with little or no military experience into the most powerful army in the world. The problem was that he lacked the will to use his great army. Time and time again, even with a force that was double, triple and sometimes ten times the size of that of the enemy, he became convinced that the enemy had superior forces. He constantly asked for more men. It was said of McClellan that "If he had a million men he would swear that the enemy had two million and he would demand three million".

Lesson #1: Good intelligence is extremely important

In truth, McClellan did have reasonably good intelligence for his time. He was told by reliable sources that his forces vastly outnumbered enemy forces, he just failed to believe it. Answering why that was requires a deeper psychological analysis for which I am unqualified, but it is certain that he had great difficulty in seeing things as they really were. Admittedly, there were far fewer resources available to the armies of 1861 than for even an average citizen of 2013. There was no internet, no satellite imaging, and the aerial reconnaissance of the time consisted of the generals being raised above the battlefield in tethered hot air balloons. Still, Confederate generals made great use of the knowledge they had of McClellan's personality by sending lone men miles away to fire a couple artillery shots, then disappearing (the sole purpose of which was to make McClellan think that the enemies forces were much larger than they were). Likewise, McClellan famously displayed an unwillingness to use good intelligence when presented with it. In September, 1862, a Union Sergeant discovered an envelope with 3 cigars in it at a campground recently vacated by Confederate soldiers. Inside the cigars were Robert E. Lee's battle plans to temporarily split his forces. In other words, McClellan had been handed information with which he could crush Lee's army and most likely end the war. Yet he did nothing. He did not attack. He didn't even order additional reconnaissance in order to follow up.

Knowing the course can mean the difference between making the break and being dropped

Bike racing tactics are often as simple as good intelligence. Know the course. Know where the hard parts are and how the race will most likely be won. Know the rules of the race. Know the what the yellow line policy is and if it is a yellow line rule, if it will be it be strictly enforced. Know if there are any special competitions (e.g. KOM, sprint, young rider) or primes. Know the best lines around the turns. Know the places you can move up easily and the places where you will be stuck where you are. Know where it's important to get to the front and know when it is fine to sit in and relax in the back. Know what tires you should use and what pressure to pump them to. Know the weather forecast so you know what to wear. Know where the wind is coming from to help you conserve energy and which side of the road to move up or sprint on. Know the dangerous or technical portions of the course so you can take them as smoothly as possible and so you are ready to close gaps if there are any incidents. Know the spots on the course where it will be more calm and use these times to eat, drink and recover. Know your competition. Look at the start lists. Know the strong teams. Know if the race is a major goal for certain people. Know if the race is part of a series (even if it's not something you care about yourself) because it may influence the tactics of others.

Poor military leadership on the Union side did not end with McClellan. The Union went through a string of disastrous battles led by Generals Pope, Burnside, Meade, Hooker, Halleck and others before finally finding the leader it needed. That man was Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. The difference with Grant was not that he had such brilliant tactics. The difference was that Grant kept pushing when he had the enemy on the run, even if his own army had taken huge losses. In the West, General William T. Sherman was equally merciless. "War is cruelty...", Sherman once said, "...but the crueler it is, the shorter it will be."

Despite horrific losses at the Wilderness, Grant stayed on the attack

Lesson #2: When you possess superior forces, exploit your gains

Victory in battle often comes at a great price. When Grant was made General-and-Chief in March, 1864 he was beaten badly at the Battle of the Wilderness, losing 18,000 men to Lee's 7,700. But rather than retreating, he pushed on. At Cold Harbor he lost 18,400 to Lee's 9,000. Again, he continued to advance, crossing the James river and placing Petersburg under siege. Eventually, this would choke off the Confederate Capitol of Richmond for good and end the war. The spring campaign of 1864 almost destroyed Grant's army but because he had kept pushing he ultimately achieved victory because of his relentless persistence. He could do that because the Union still had a wealth of untapped resources to draw from. They had superior numbers, superior weapons and intact supply lines. The North could afford to replace their lost men. The South could not.

Some times you just have to tell your legs to "shut up"

When you have to "burn matches" in a bike race, it is all too easy to sit back and lick your wounds. With your heart beating 200 beats a minute, your lungs gasping for air and your legs cramping up it is difficult to see things clearly and evaluate the situation for what it is. Most racers are aware that if they attack when the race is hard and everyone is suffering the most, they stand a much better chance of being successful. But saying that and doing it are two very different things. I think it helps to put things into perspective. Think like Grant. You have worked to create an advantage. Though it may have come at a great cost, it will be worth nothing if you fail to act quickly to exploit it. In bike racing terms, your competitors are suffering. You are surely suffering too, but you have a gap on them or you are in the breakaway. Your body tells you to try and recover and regroup but if you do this you allow everyone else to do the same and when that happens you will certainly lose any advantage you had.

Of course, this principle won't work very well if you do not have superior forces. Here, it is important to remember that while the North was plagued with a series of indecisive, incompetent and possibly even treasonous Generals before Grant, the Confederacy did not win battle after battle simply because of Union blunders. Unlike the Union, the Confederates were blessed with brilliant leaders including Stonewall Jackson, Nathan Bedford Forrest and Robert E. Lee. In each case, they knew how to defeat an enemy with superior numbers. It certainly helped that for the most part they were fighting in their own territory (see Lesson #1) but the scores of Confederate victories (especially early in the war) were due to much more than superior knowledge of the land.

Stonewall Jackson repeatedly achieved victory by outflanking his enemy

Lesson #3: When you possess inferior forces, attack strategically where the enemy is weakest

More than 2000 years ago, Sun Tzu wrote "If a battle cannot be won, do not fight it". The Southern military leadership understood that attacking the Union army head to head on equal ground would be suicide. Instead, they used intelligence about the positions of the size, strength and locations of the opposing armies to attack them at their weakest points. In fact, the strategy of "out flanking" is based on the idea that an army is like a snake. The head is the most deadly point and what you have to watch out for, but if you can come in from the side (the supply lines & non front line forces) you can cut off the body of the snake. This principle was used successfully time and time again by Jackson and Lee. Nathan Bedford Forrest was famous for his daring Calvary attacks that smashed through enemy lines quickly by surprise and caused great destruction.

Nathan Bedford Forrest leads a Calvary charge to smash through enemy lines at their weakest point

In bike racing, one must recognize the weak points of the competition. Even the most dominant teams have weaker riders. If you have the weaker team, look to place your strongest riders with the strong team's weakest riders in a breakaway. This can only be achieved by taking the initiative and staying on the offensive. In other words, attack and see what happens. If you don't like the mix of the break, don't work with it. Let the race come back together, then roll the dice again and see what happens. Eventually you will end up with a scenario that favors you and when that happens, be ready to press your advantage. This principle can be used with individuals as well as teams though. If you know that your main competitor can't sprint, do your best to make sure that things stay together for a sprint. If you know they can't climb, attack them on the climbs. If they are a poor technical rider, push the pace on the turns and descents. Again though, the only way to ensure that you neutralize your competitor's strengths and force them to play your game is by taking the initiative and staying on the offensive. If you let your competition take the initiative, you will be forced to play their game and you will lose.

We all know now how it ended. After 4 long years of the bloodiest war in American History, the Union did ultimately prevail. Some have suggested that the South never really had a chance due to the superior numbers, weapons and manufacturing capability of the Northern states. Others believe that England, Russia or other European powers were very close to entering the war on the side of the Confederacy in the early years, which would have turned the odds. Some think that if the South could have won a few crucial battles in northern territory the people of the North might have lost their will to fight. Of course, they did not. The Confederacy's last best hope was ended at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863 when Lee marched 12,500 across a field and hurled them into the center of the well-entrenched Union lines that held the high ground. The result was a massacre, with over 50% casualties for the Confederates. Though overall casualties for the 3-day battle were nearly equal on both sides, Lee was forced to retreat back into the South. He would never again advance so far North.

Lesson #4: Don't get cocky

Perhaps Gen. Lee had had so many early successes that he believed he was invincible. Perhaps he held a mistaken belief that he was "destined by God to be victorious". Perhaps he was so hungry for a victory on Northern territory that he was blinded to the realities of the situation. Or maybe it was his style to defy the odds all along and this just took some time to catch up to him. Whatever the reason, Pickett's charge was a predictable mistake. Lee had been advised against the attack, most famously by Gen. Longstreet, but he decided to go ahead with it anyway.

General Robert E. Lee was arguably one of the best Generals in history but ultimately his overconfidence was his undoing

I often say that the sport of bike racing requires an unusual combination of extreme confidence and extreme humility. A competitor must be confident enough to believe they have a chance to win, even in the face of overwhelming odds. Yet they must also have the humility to respect their competition, be gracious in defeat and never let pride or fear of embarrassment get in the way get in the way of doing what they need to do. This combination is rare. Most athletes are off balance to one side or another. They either possess superior confidence but underestimate the chances of their competition or they possess great humility but underestimate their own chances. Inflated confidence is a natural consequence of victory and inflated doubt is a natural consequence of defeat. Unless you actively work to keep the two sides balanced the lack of one or the other will be your undoing. A simple way to do this is to choose your group rides carefully. Though many cyclists make group rides too big a portion of their training, it is important to test yourself against others from time to time. Not all group rides are equal though. If you are a cat. 4 and you constantly ride with a bunch of pros, you will surely get stronger and learn a lot but your confidence may suffer as you will never have the experience of being the strongest rider in the group. Likewise if you are a pro and you always ride with the cat. 4s, your humility may suffer (not to mention, you may not push yourself enough to really get stronger). When choosing which group rides to attend, it is important that you take into consideration the psychological factors as well as the physiological factors. For those that do not have as many choices as we do in areas with large cycling populations, strong riders can make an easy ride harder by using a fixed gear bike or gear-restricting, riding beforehand or even carrying extra weight in the form of a backpack, heavy wheels or thick thorn-proof tubes. Making a hard ride easier is a little more difficult but it is possible to only join up for part of the ride or using light and aerodynamic race wheels instead of your standard training wheels.

Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox Court House

Luckily, when things don't go well in bike racing, no one dies (well, not usually). Still, successful Generals and bike racers alike must be able to think clearly in any situation. They must retain awareness when there is a lot of excitement, danger and suffering going on around them. They must be able to think outside themselves even if they are suffering, nervous or anxious. They must know where they stand against an enemy, crushing them with superior strength when they have the advantage and acting with great care and strategy when the enemy is superior. They must be confident enough to execute but not so confident that they think themselves invincible. Not an easy job, but if it was easy anyone could do it.

More on Weight Loss

I got a lot of response to my last post about weight loss/gain/maintenance, so I wanted to follow up with a few more notes. My intention of that post was really just to talk about the math of the energy in/energy out equation and how [in my opinion] it makes more sense to just weigh yourself every day using a simple scale to determine how balanced this equation is for you. Basically, instead of getting RMR tests and trying to count every Calorie that you burn and every Calorie you consume [both tasks are fraught with difficulty and have a large margin of error], just take your weight at a consistent time and look at the rolling average to see if you are gaining, losing or maintaining, which in turn may lead you to make small adjustments to intake or expenditure.

The part of the post that I got the most questions on though was the part about finding your ideal race weight. Here, it appears that I may have touched on a nerve [or perhaps "obsession"] that many endurance athletes have about reaching the lowest possible weight possible. This is where I get a little nervous about sending the wrong message and as a coach of junior athletes I am particularly sensitive about this. I also remember that as a high school wrestler, my own obsession with "making weight" by any means necessary led me to lose a lot of matches I should have won. Not to mention, those unhealthy behaviors most likely stunted my growth. It's impossible to know the actual numbers but claims have been made that about 30% of female cyclists and 10% of male cyclists suffer from eating disorders and I would suspect that the majority of us have (less chronic) disordered eating behaviors from time to time. So I just want to make sure that I am not overestimating the importance of weight loss here. But I am a numbers guy, so let's look at things in more quantifiable terms.

A skewed self-perception

The primary performance advantage of weight loss is that a rider requires less power to go the same speed, or conversely, they can go faster with the same amount of power. But how much power are we talking about here? Well, it depends. In a flat race where aerodynamics represent the overwhelming majority of the resistance, weight makes very little difference (though smaller riders do tend to be more aerodynamic). In an extremely hilly race, weight can make more of a difference. This year's Tour de France will include 28 Cat 1, Cat. 2 and HC climbs, so it's no wonder than the GC contenders obsess about their weight. In my opinion, one of the problems is that too many amateurs and even pros look at Contador, Schleck and Wiggins as the models for "the perfect cyclists body" even though the events that they themselves compete in have little resemblance to le Tour.

I thought about the hardest, hilliest race that I had athletes competing in last year and immediately the Green Mountain Stage Race in Vermont came to mind. GMSR is one of the most difficult races on the East Coast and one that many non-climbers simply avoid. In 2012, the overall winner in the Pro/1 Men's race was Tim Johnson. He won the race because he was 2nd in the TT, 2nd in the Road Race and stayed safely in the pack in the Circuit Race and Criterium.

Tim Johnson, overall winner of the 2012 GMSR

I chose to look at Johnson not only because he won the race but because as an avid Strava user, I can easily access his data. I know that you might chuckle here if you read my post about Strava but it really came in handy here so for now I take back what I said:

The Time Trial course is 5.6 miles long and averages 1.2% grade. It starts with a 2.2 mile uphill and then is flat to rolling for the remaining 3.4 miles. Tim averaged 441 watts and finished in second place with a time of 13:39, 1.6 seconds slower than the winner, Remi Pelletier-Roy.

App Gap is arguably the hardest finish of any race on the East Coast

The road race at GMSR is extremely challenging and is typically decided by the last climb, Appalachian Gap, averaging 8% grade for the final 2.7 miles of the race. Johnson averaged 401 watts for the climb and finished in second place with a time of 13:30, 21 seconds behind the stage winner, Logan Owen.

Hypothetical Scenario #1: Johnson loses 5 pounds. Assuming that his power does not change (and this is a big if) he should finish the TT about 9 seconds faster (enough to take first place and have the leader's jersey after Day 1) and reach the top of the climb about 17 seconds sooner, which would have brought him close to Owen but not quite close enough to win that stage. At the end of the race, the overall results probably would have been exactly the same.

But there are some big unknowns:

- If he had been working hard to lose that 5 lbs, would it have affected his training leading up to GMSR? More importantly, would the training have adversely affected his preparation for the  cyclocross season, which is his primary goal? (note: last week Tim  Johnson was 19th place, the top American finisher at Cyclocross World  Championships in Louisville, KY).

- Would that extra 5-10 weeks of losing weight and constantly having an energy debt have meant that he had less energy for his workouts, possibly causing him to miss some training or not be able to produce the same power in his intervals needed to get him to a place where he was capable of producing over 441 watts in a time trial and over 400 watts in the last 13.5 minutes of a hard road race?

Keep your eye on the ball! Johnson's main season goal was Cyclocross World Championships in early February

- Would he have caught a cold because his immunities were compromised, which surely would have led to at least a few missed workouts?

- Would he have lost some muscle mass if he had lost that weight? If so, even if it didn't affect his climbing ability, would it have affected his ability to stay with the lead group earlier in the road race or his performance in the other stages?

Hypothetical Scenario #2: Johnson loses 5 lbs, which is 3.3% of his body weight, but also loses 3.3% of his power, thereby only producing 426 watts in the TT and 387 watts up App Gap. Given these numbers he would be about 2 seconds slower in the TT and 6 seconds slower on App Gap. He would still finish in exactly the same position in both stages, though certainly closer to 3rd place on both of the critical stages. Essentially though, it's basically a wash. So is it worth it? Well, knowing now how the race turned out, certainly not. But even when you don't have the knowledge of how the race will turn out, it's important to weight risk vs. reward.

It should be noted that as a world class professional cyclist, Tim Johnson doesn't have a whole lot of fat to lose so it won't take very long before he starts to experience some adverse affects of the weight loss. An athlete that is carrying around 20-50 pounds of extra fat could be an entirely different matter though and the benefits of weight loss could go beyond simple power/weight ratios. First, all of that extra weight will cause you to operate less efficiently. Your body must work harder to keep itself cool during exercise. The physical presence of that much fat can interfere with bike fit as well, so the legs may have a tendency to track outward while pedaling, which is less aerodynamic and puts stress on the knees. In many cases, overweight riders will be forced to lower saddle height and adopt more upright (i.e. less aerodynamic) positions in order to ride comfortably.

Ultimately it's how you feel that matters most

The Bottom Line
For most "regular people" and even the vast majority of elite and professional athletes, the goals of a diet plan should be 1) Feel good, 2) Be healthy and 3) Have enough energy for your training. Unless you have medical problems caused by being overweight or obese, weight loss should be a distant 4th place, if that. But even if you do have a significant amount of weight to lose, if you are able to train consistently you will probably lose weight anyway unless you make extremely irresponsible nutritional choices on a regular basis. Not to mention, most athletes will find that the more they exercise, the more their bodies crave healthy food.

That said, I still recommend that athletes track their weight (and body fat if possible) daily. Having this information can help you identify if you are not getting adequate fuel for your training or if you are dehydrated. If losing weight is still a goal for you, weighing yourself every day can help you make sure that you are doing it slowly enough that it won't interfere with your training. Finally, if you get below your "ideal race weight" you will see the signs before things get too bad.

Colin Sandberg is the owner and head coach of Backbone Performance, LLC. He is a Cat. 1 road  racer, a USA Cycling Level II coach and a UCI Director Sportif. He is also head  coach at Young Medalists High Performance and race director for Young  Medalists/Team Rothrock. If you are interested in coaching or if you want to find out more, check out Backbone Performance at www.BackbonePerformance.com or like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/BackbonePerformance. Thanks for reading!

Counting Calories

I had a question today from an athlete who wanted to get an RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate) test. The idea behind the test would be to see how many Calories you burn in a day at rest so that you can add on the Calories you burn when exercising and figure out the number you need to take in to either lose weight, gain weight or maintain weight. Having administered these tests before, I have to say that in my opinion, the value of an RMR test is close to nothing, at least for the typical reasons why an athlete might want one.

Let's start with some facts:

- A calorie is a unit of energy. In fact, when you see food labels in most other countries they list "Energy" rather than "Calories". It's interesting that there is such a different connotation in the U.S. I wonder what would happen if Red Bull and Monster called their products "Calorie Drinks"? The other thing that I laugh about is when you see "Zero Calorie Energy Drinks". Maybe I am the only one that gets upset about this but YOU CAN'T HAVE A ZERO CALORIE ENERGY DRINK!!! CALORIES ARE UNITS OF ENERGY!!! And if you are about to say that the energy comes from caffeine, caffeine is a stimulant, not a source of energy.

Example of a European Food label

- One calorie (small c) is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of 1 cubic centimeter (or milliliter) or water 1 degree Celsius. That's not a whole lot of energy, so normally we talk about kCal (1000 calories) or Calories (with a capital C). This is what you see on food labels.

-  There are 3 main sources of energy in our diet: Carbohydrates (CHO for short), Protein and Fat. These are called macro-nutrients. By contrast, micro-nutrients are things like Calcium, Zinc, Sodium and Vitamin A.

- For all of the crazy diets out there, weight loss is very simple. If you burn more energy than you take in, you lose weight. Simple math. Sure, if you actually want to feel good and get the right nutrients, it does get a little more complicated. But if we are just talking about weight, all that matters is energy in vs energy out.

If you take in more energy than you burn, your body will store this extra energy as body fat. Take a second and try to remove the negative connotations you probably have from the words "Calories" and "Fat". Think of your body as a high performance machine, like a race car. (Since I used to work in the automotive industry, I like my car metaphors) If you are designing a race car, it needs to have a gas tank to store fuel (it's energy source). If you make the tank too small, you have to pull into the pits too often. If you make it too big, the extra weight will slow you down. So it's about optimizing the amount of fuel that you carry with you to suit your purposes. It's also about using the most efficient form of fuel. For humans, this is fat. 3500 kCal are stored in 1 pound of fat, so even the leanest people have enough fat to last a while (150 lb cyclist with body fat would have 7.5 lbs of stored fat = 26,250 kCal)

There's a middle ground between this...

And this

This may be obvious, but the downside of carrying extra fat around, at least from a performance standpoint, is that we have to produce more power to go the same speed do the added gravitational resistance caused by extra weight. Losing 5 lbs could might mean that it takes 10 watts less to get up that climb and that might be the difference between a sustainable power output and completely red-lined. So it's natural that we would want lose all the extra fat that we can lose before it affects our performance, right? Of course, there is no simple way to figure out what our optimal weight is. If you lose too much weight you could feel hungry all the time, compromise your immune system, lose muscle mass, disrupt your menstrual cycle and many other very bad things. It can be dangerous to base your goals off of others because while one athlete may be optimal at 25% body fat another may be optimal at 5%. You have to figure out what works for you. Personally, I figured out my ideal race weight from trial and error. I lost weight slowly until I just didn't feel right (it was pretty obvious). I added a few pounds to that weight and found a weight that was reasonable for me. It's not very scientific but it works. Of course, actually getting to my race weight is another matter...

OK, so let's say now that you have your goal weight and you have your current weight. You don't want to lose that weight too fast because it will screw up your metabolism and deprive you of energy that you will need to do your workouts. And if you are missing workouts because you are trying to lose weight, it's not really helping your performance now, is it? Rule of thumb is to aim for 1/2 to 1 pound of weight loss per week. So if 1 lb fat = 3500 kCal, a discrepancy of 3500 kCal/week = 500 kCal/day (meaning that if you want to lose 1 pound/week you have to burn 500 kCal/day on average more than you take in). If you are shooting for the more moderate 1/2 pound/week goal, that would come out to 250 kCal/day discrepancy. To get to either of those numbers you have 2 basic choices. Burn more or take in less. However, I would assume that most of you already have optimized your training volume to account for your availability, recovery rate, weather and daylight so adding a lot of extra volume probably isn't a good option. Sure, if you could easily add 30 minutes/day to your training without adversely affecting your recovery, being late for work, losing sleep or freezing your ass off, do it. Personally I think it's easier to just have a smaller piece of pie for dessert.

An RMR test is very simple: sit down and breath through a tube for 10-15 minutes

So now we are back to the initial question of how many Calories do I need to take in, and you can see where an RMR test might help you answer that question. Here's the problem: an RMR test tells you how many Calories you burn at rest but you aren't resting all day now are you? You have to factor in training as well as the rest of your daily activities. If you have a good idea of how many Calories you burn at a given heart rate, you can come up with a decent approximation of how many Calories you burned in your workout. The only problem there is that your volume and intensity varies from day to day. And then you have to factor in the Calories you burn the rest of the day, which varies greatly from person to person. If you are a landscaper or a construction worker you obviously burn a lot more than someone that sits in front of a computer all day. But it's not always that simple. You might walk around a lot on certain days, you might take your dog to the park every morning for 30 minutes and you might drink an extra cup of coffee some days (thereby raising your metabolism). Additionally, certain types of workouts (e.g. strength training, climbing, over-gears) will cause your metabolism to be elevated for longer after the workout than others. It gets complicated fast and even if you do manage to come up with a number, it probably has a large margin of error.

The truth is, the actual number of Calories doesn't really matter. All that matters is the balance between input and output. To get that balance you don't need to calculate how many Calories you burn or even how may you take in. All you need is a scale. Measure your body weight every day and after a while you will get a sense of how much weight you are losing or gaining (if either). That said, I do have a couple recommendations:

- Measure your weight at the same time every day, preferably at a time when your hydration levels will be relatively consistent. For most people this is either first thing in the morning or the first thing in the afternoon when they get home from work or school (but before they train). Always urinate before weighing yourself.

- Write down the number you get every day and record in a spreadsheet. Don't even bother trying to interpret anything from the data until you have at least 7 days straight. At that point, use a 7 day rolling average. Body weight often fluctuates as much as 2-3 pounds per day, depending mostly on hydration. Using a 7 day rolling average will help smooth things out. If you see that the 7-day rolling average of your weight today is 1 pound less than the 7-day rolling average for your weight last week, you can be fairly certain that you have actually lost 1 pound.

Tanita body fat monitors won't give you a very accurate number, but they can help make sense of day to day weight fluctuations due to hydration

- Some companies (e.g. Tanita) make relatively low-cost scales that are accurate to 1/10th of a pound and estimate body fat % as well. I wouldn't make too much out of the actual number, but it is a good way to account for hydration fluctuations, since body fat will read lower if you are better hydrated. This is valuable not only to account for weight fluctuations, but to tell you when you really need to make more of an effort to drink more.

If you are morbidly obese you should probably try to lose weight as quickly as possible by any means necessary but for an athlete it's just not smart or safe.

If you start to see that you are losing more than 1 pound/week it can be tempting celebrate. But this should be a warning that you need to increase your intake or decrease your training. Ignore what you see on "The Biggest Loser". You are an athlete and you have to remember that your goal is to perform better. Losing weight too fast will catch up to you and it won't be long before your performance is compromised one way or another.

Lastly, if you really really must know how many Calories you are burning, I think it's easier to count the Calories you take in than to figure out how many you burn. It still can be painstaking, but if you are only doing it for a week it is manageable. (Most nutritionists will want you to do something like this anyway so they can give you the best advice on how to modify your diet). Make sure that you continue to record body weight every day during this time. (Many people find that they consume less when they have to write down everything the eat because there is a sense of accountability). If you know exactly how many Calories you consumed last week and you know exactly how much your weight changed, it's simple addition/subtraction to calculate Calories burned. Boom. Done.

Cold & Flu Season

Happy New Year Everyone! Sorry it's been a few weeks since I have written but it was a busy holiday season for me and I didn't have much time to update this blog.

Just when so many people thought that they were off to a great start to their 2013 training, they were derailed by illness. Maybe they even made it through the holidays without missing any workouts or gaining any wait, only to wake up sick one morning. This is always a tough time of year for colds, but this year's flu season has been particularly bad.

Athletes often carry a higher risk of getting sick. Studies have shown that regular low to moderate intensity exercise can improve the function of the immune system, but high intensity (>90% VO2 max) and high volume (>90 minutes/day) training can have the opposite effect. If you are reading this, there is a good chance that you fall into the latter category.

So what do you do?

Get your flu shots! (You don't have to be quite so happy about it though)

Prevention

1. Get a flu shot. The effectiveness of the flu vaccine differs from year to year but this year it appears to be reducing the risk of infection by about 60%. Many employers offer flu shots for free and it is often available at pharmacies for a relatively low price.

2. Try to get a good night's sleep. Sleep is a huge factor in determining how effectively you recover after training. Do your best to get 8 hours a night. 9 is even better if it's possible (especially if your training volume/intensity is very high). I know that some people (in particular anyone with children) will laugh at this, but even if you can't increase your quantity of sleep, maybe you can increase the quality. Think about getting a better mattress or pillow, installing room darkening shades, having a cup of herbal tea before bed and investigating ways to avoid stress in the hour before bed.

3. Take antioxidant and glutamine supplements and . OK, before I talk about this I should mention that a lot of supplements are not proven to be effective. But that doesn't mean they don't work, and as long as they are safe and legal, I don't think that it does any harm to try it out and make up your own mind. Glutamine is an amino acid that helps support the immune system when stressed. A lot of recovery drink powders include glutamine already, but you can also buy it in powder form and add a teaspoon or so to your recovery smoothie. Antioxidants help prevent damage caused by free radicals (which endurance athletes often have a high degree of exposure to). There are many many types of antioxidants, the most well know being vitamin C and vitamin E. They are found in many foods, fruits and vegetables in particular. However, if you are like me, you don't eat enough vegetables and fruit, especially in the off-season, so you may want to consider taking a supplement. I take a supplement every day that is a mix of lot's of different antioxidants.

Gross!

4. Take extra precautions when you have extra exposure. If you work in a hospital or a school your exposure is most certainly higher than average, but unless you quarantine yourself you will never completely eliminate your exposure. So take some extra precautions. Wash your hands regularly and keep some hand sanitizer handy. Take Emergen-C or Airborne when you are going out to a party or taking public transportation. No need to go overboard, just be smart.

5. Know yourself. Maybe this should even be #1 on the list but I put it last because it relates to the next section. It can take a long time and sometimes you have to learn this lesson the hard way but knowing what feels normal and what doesn't feel normal can go a really long way. Luckily, most athletes have a better than average self-awareness. If you wake up with a scratchy throat, it could be that you are on the verge of getting sick but it could also be low humidity or mild dehydration. If you start sneezing it could be the the first sign of a cold but it could also just be an allergic reaction or dust in the air. Missing a couple days of training to avoid getting sick is a no-brainer but no one wants to miss a couple days of training just because they had a couple sneezes either.

Treatment

OK, so let's say you you wake up with a scratchy throat and it is something worse than just the dry air. Or maybe it is much more clear. Perhaps there is green mucus, sore muscles and fever involved. This time of the year, one out of every 3 text messages I get reads something like "Woke up feeling sick. What should I do for training?". My answer is often the same. Although some people will advise that you make a distinction between a head cold and a chest cold, I usually air on the conservative side here.

If you have rollers, this is a great time to use them. Most rollers have low resistance, which should allow you to keep cadence high but power and heart rate low. And if your balance is off because of a head cold, you'll know it!

Day 1: Skip your planned workout. Do a 20 minute recovery spin on the rollers or trainer and see how you feel. This won't be enough to make things worse if you are definitely getting sick, but it should be enough to let you know which way it's gonna go. Often all you need is a day off from training, a good night's sleep and a packet of Emergen-C and you can avoid getting sick altogether. If you get done the 20 minute spin and you feel fine, you can probably proceed with your training plan as prescribed going forward. If you get done your ride and you don't feel 100% (or at least 85%), proceed to day 2.

Day 2: Same thing. Do another 20 minute recovery spin and see how you feel. If you completely took off the day before, same thing. Even if you woke up feeling fine, you should get back into your regular training plan without doing at least one day of easy 20 minute spins first. Too many people think that they are healthy and ready to get right back into it before they are. The 20 minute spin is like your password to enter. Get it right and re-enter the building. Get it wrong and you come back the next day and try again.

No one wants to go on any medication unless it's really necessary, but at a certain point it can be necessary

Day 3-Day ?: Same thing, but if you still are sick it is probably time to go to the doctor if you haven't already. Some over-the-counter or prescribed medications to fight the cold and it's symptoms may also be in order. If you have to go on antibiotics, it will affect your training for as long as you are taking them, although you should be able to get back to your training before you finish them. How you react to training with antibiotics differs based on the type of antibiotic, the dosage and the individual person. Most athletes say that they can get through most workouts but they don't feel "right". GI problems, light-headedness and elevated heart rates are common. My (non-medical) opinion on this is that a lot of it has to do with the fact that antibiotics kill the "good bacteria" as well as the bad stuff. As strange as it sounds, you may actually want to take a probiotic supplement or at least eat a little more yogurt while you are taking the antibiotics.

As long as you are sick, your first priority should be getting healthy. Rest up, take your medications, and be smart. Until you are at least 85% healthy, you shouldn't be doing much in the way of training. Even if you can complete your training, you should ask yourself how much you will really be able to benefit from it if you are sick. You probably won't lose as much fitness as you think you will, and even those 20 minute spins will help curb fitness losses and ease the transition back into your regular training plan. Sure, you may not have been improving your fitness as much as you would have been if you had been healthy the whole time but deal with it. This is the real world and setbacks happen. The most successful athletes aren't the ones that never have any setbacks, they are the ones that are the best at moving forward despite their setbacks.

Happy Holidays

It's no accident that 30% more people sign up for gym memberships in January. Most people drink and eat too much during the holidays and exercise too little, so come January 1st everyone decides that it's time to make a New Years resolution to start that diet, lose though extra LBs and start training again.

Unfortunately 25% of New Years resolutions are broken is less than a week and over 50% are broken by the 6 month mark. Real life gets in the way: jobs, family, laziness, stress and everything else makes it difficult for us to continue what we have started and way too many of us fall into the "All or nothing mentality" that leaves no room for error. Either we complete our training every single day to the letter, we sleep 8 hours every night, we never eat dessert, we never drink more than 1 drink at a time, etc etc OR we just give up. In other words, we set such high standards for ourselves that we are guaranteed to fail.

So here's my advice:

1. Don't wait until New Years. Start now. Every day is a new beginning and every day you can promise yourself that you will give it your best shot, regardless of what happened yesterday and what is going to happen tomorrow. Don't worry about trying to make up for lost time. Don't agonize over it if you can't do every workout exactly as planned. Don't beat yourself up for eating a couple Christmas cookies. Just do the best you can every day. Do the best you can to plan but don't let everything fall apart the moment your plans fall through. It happens. Get over it.

Drinking a glass of water in between alcoholic drinks can help keep you from drinking too much at holiday parties

2. Everything in moderation, but a little excess is OK sometimes too. Don't miss out on the fun of the holidays. Celebrate time with your family and loved ones. All work and no play does not make Jack a better athlete. So have a cookie. Have a glass of egg nog. Have some butter fried latkes. Don't stuff yourself or drink so much that you throw up but enjoy these things, especially if you deprive yourself of them the rest of the year. If you are going to treat yourself to something sinful, you might as well enjoy it!

3. Be flexible. Look at your travel plans. Look at the weather forecast. If you have off from work or school or if it's 60 and sunny on some December day it's OK to do a little longer ride if you can. Likewise if it's snowing outside or if you are busy with holiday parties or final exams all day, maybe you can move things around with your training and take that day off or just do an hour on the trainer. This time of year most of us aren't racing (sorry cyclocrossers!) and most training is lower intensity, so there is lot's of room to move things around as you need to. And when in doubt... talk to the coach!

Sometimes it's easier to hop on the trainer the second you get home from work if you just don't think about it too much

4. Make good behavior habitual. Here's a dirty little secret about training: consistency is the most important thing. More important than what you do, how much you do and how hard you do it is that you keep doing it. Seriously, most of my time and energy as a coach is spent trying to make it easier for my athletes to train consistently. The reason that's so difficult is because we have conflicting messages from our brains. There is the logical brain which tells us: "You need to train because you want to win that race... or at least not get dropped", "You shouldn't eat those cookies because you will get fat" and "You need to go to bed now so you can wake up and train at 5:30 AM". But then there is the feeling part of the brain that reminds us: "You are really tired and sore", "Those cookies really look good" and "I want to stay up to watch Homeland". When we are really focused and able to keep our goals front and center the logical brain may win out, but it never lasts. Time goes on and the daily grind starts to wear us down. Those goals seem really far away and it gets easier to miss that workout, eat those cookies, stay up late and hit the snooze button a couple more times in the morning. Don't feel bad, it happens to everyone. The solution is very simple: habit. Make your training habitual. Replace a bad habit like drinking a beer when you get home from work with a good habit like drinking a glass of water or hopping on your bike. Replace watching TV before bed with reading a book. Replace going to stopping by your co-workers desk to grab some gumdrops with eating a bag of carrots. If we make it a battle between the logical and feeling parts of our brains the feeling part will eventually win out. So don't make it a battle, just take your brain out of the equation. If something is habitual you don't have to think... you just do it. (OK, so this one might be easier once everything settles back to normal after the New Year)

Happy holidays everyone, and remember to tell your families and friends how much you love and appreciate them.

Colin Sandberg is the owner and head coach of Backbone Performance, LLC. He is a Cat. 1 road  racer, a USA Cycling Level II coach and a UCI Director Sportif. He also is head  coach at Young Medalists High Performance and race director for Young  Medalists/Team Rothrock. If you are interested in coaching or if you want to find out more, check out Backbone Performance at www.BackbonePerformance.com or like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/BackbonePerformance. 

Intermediate Power Training

The long awaited sequel to the Power Meter Basics Webinar! Yes, I know, it's an hour long! But I did my best to move quickly through everything and seriously, I think there is some good stuff in here. The 3rd part will probably come out some time next month and you can feel free to send in your comments about what you would like to see in it. The intermediate presentation covers the following:

- Mean Maximal Power (MMP)

- Power Profiling

- Quantifying the difficulty and stress of workouts

- The difference between kJ and KCal

- Definitions of NP, IF and TSS

- Descriptive Use of Power Meters

- Looking at Race files

Enjoy!

Colin

Colin Sandberg is the owner and head coach of Backbone Performance, LLC. He is a Cat. 1 road  racer, a USA Cycling Level II coach and a UCI Director Sportif. He also is head  coach at Young Medalists High Performance and race director for Young  Medalists/Team Rothrock. If you are interested in coaching or if you want to find out more, check out Backbone Performance at www.BackbonePerformance.com or like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/BackbonePerformance.