You get what you train for

18/08/22 21:23 Filed in: Riding

I see the question a lot online. "How do I get better at X?"

The short answer is by doing X.
Steep hills are a problem, train on some steep hills (though some gym work might help with that too). Sustained efforts are a problem, ride with some sustained efforts. Most people who aren't coached ride aimlessly and therefore too slowly. They get good at riding long distances slowly (not exactly called for in any race situation).

If you want to gain speed, do intervals.
If you want to climb faster, do hill repeats.
If you want to be able to push a bigger gear, do big gear intervals.
If you get tired too quickly, ride more hours.

Most training from a coach is focussed on one thing at a time. It will either be very hard, or very easy.
Most self-guided riding is middle paced. It is not hard enough to promote adaptation, or it is too hard to promote recovery.

If we look at some pro riders and the little info that there is about their training we can see some examples of this.
Mona Mitterwallner of Austria LOVES to ride long distances in the Alps. She was fit enough last year in her first year out of juniors to win the XCM World Championships. She gets better the further the race goes because of her big volume training. But this year she moved up to Elite racing and she has been slow off the starts. Part of that is experience as she's never had to deal with such fierce starts before (the U23 category might be quite competitive but it doesn't have the depth or competitiveness of the Open category). Quite a bit of it is the fact that riding at high altitudes for hours at a time doesn't build a powerful start.
Rebecca McConnell won the first three rounds of the UCI World Cup this season (2022), which is unprecedented for her and unusual in World Cup racing too (to win 3 in a row). Bec said in interview that her new coach and she had to negotiate how many intervals she added to her program because she'd never done them before and didn't like doing them. (But obviously they worked in a way that whatever she did before did not...)

Some of the people I coach do nothing but intervals thanks to their time challenged schedule. Intervals are your friend when you want speed on a bike.

Michael Hanslip Coaching

If you want to go faster, you have to pedal harder

You get what you train for