In September 2016 I rode my first Whistler GranFondo. I’d only participated in one other fondo before this, the Fraser Valley, in July; in that event, I had struggled in the last 30km or so. The Valley is a long ride, over 160km, much further than I’d ridden before. While Whistler was 40km shorter, I had the Squamish to Whistler ascent to deal with, an unknown quantity since I had never cycled it before.

I finished in 4:33, which according to my coach was pretty good for the first time out. While I found the climbs after Squamish easier than I’d feared, I bonked with about 20km to go. There were three main reasons for this:

1. Poor nutrition. I hadn’t learned how to pace my drinking, but especially my solids and gels. I simply didn’t eat enough, forgetting what I’d learned from the Fraser Valley ride [link to blog post], and figuring I felt pretty good through the first couple of hours. As they say, if you start feeling hungry, it’s too late.
2. Not enough training. I had been doing just a ride or two a week, and I’d had a total of three weeks off in the summer, during which time I had not been on a bike much. It isn’t necessary to train as hard as I have this year—see below—but I just wasn’t in the condition required to do as well as I might have.
3. Riding solo. Even if you’re not part of a team, you can find a group with an appropriate pace that will save you a lot of effort. In 2016 I just wasn’t confident or experienced enough to do it.

I was still pretty happy with my effort. But I started thinking about 2017, and what I could do to get faster. The first problem would be relatively easy to solve; #2 and #3 required some work.

A few weeks after Whistler, my coach Paul Moffat took his Velosophy group to Bowen Island for an end-of-season ride. I’d been with Paul since the spring, but something finally settled into place for me on the island climbs. Squamish to Whistler had gone fairly well, but this reinforced it: I’d finally started to overcome the psychological hurdle of hill climbs; and I was getting stronger.

Finally (almost) keeping up with Eric Purtzki. Photo: Paul Moffat

But where could I go from there? The season was over.

I’d purchased a Wahoo KICKR earlier in the year, mostly to do some FTP tests. So I set up the small room at the entrance to my place as a cycle room/pain cave. I bought an industrial-strength fan along with a tool chest and wheel storage hooks, and I was ready to go for the winter.

I’ve written previously about my indoor training experience: see A Winter of Indoor Cycle Training. I worked through a few of the TrainerRoad programs: Sweet Spot Base Mid-Volume I and II, and Sustained Power Build Mid-Volume. I was interrupted for a few weeks by a slight Achilles tendon issue, but overall put in about 100 hours from November to February. This was more work than I’d done outdoors during the summer season, and I was feeling some gains and also improvements in technique. Unlike some, I don’t mind the monotony of indoor training rides. I mostly focused on the TrainerRoad coaching text, and listened to podcasts during some of the longer sessions. As spring approached, I tried a couple of Zwift races and enjoyed them.

In February, the Velosophy group was invited by the Pender/Dopo Bici club to participate in their training rides and the subsequent GranFondo in Malibu. I was excited about this; I had started to consider doing a cycle trip like Haute Route or Trek Travel; but this was closer, cheaper … and right now; I was on a flight to California within a couple of weeks.

The indoor training paid off: although I’d only had one outdoor ride to that point in 2017 and felt a bit shaky being back outdoors—you have to steer when you ride?—there’s no way I could have kept up without the training I’d done over the winter. We did a few training rides during the week before the fondo; the area is amazing for cycling, with great climbs and twisting descents. The fondo itself went fairly well, though it was only my third such event; and after twice working in small groups to get back to the lead peloton, I was finally dropped for good about 85km in.

Malibu training ride. Photo: TLBVelo Photography

It was hard to come back from bright, summery California and start spring training in the cold and rain. But just a week after Malibu, during the first Velosophy ride of the season around Richmond, it was obvious that I’d made significant progress. It was the same ride we’d started with a year previously, which had been my first real outing with a group and a coach. (I had trained with Team OvCare for the Ride to Conquer Cancer the year before, but that was very casual, with no drafting allowed.) In areas where I’d struggled to keep up a year prior, I found the level of effort to be moderate or low; and noticed that a couple of the new members were struggling as I had in 2016. The flip side of Rule #10 is that it gets easier at the same speed.

I’d met a few of the Pender riders in California, of course, and joined the club for some extra training. I wanted to ride more than a couple of days a week; and although I enjoy going out solo, I was sometimes missing the social aspect and wanted to develop better group riding skills. Starting in early May, I attended the weekly Thursday night rides coached by Laura Brown. I rode rain or shine, and on June 15 it was pretty wet; I left my Cervélo R5 at home and put fenders on my Opus Allegro, and for the first time met Assaf Yogev, the Pender men’s team coach.

This led on to a few things. I decided to try racing, and the next week began Escape Velocity’s “Learn to Race” course; I got my UCI license. I started attending the Pender team skills clinics; unfortunately, I had a crash in mid-July and threw my shoulder out. This delayed my first attempt at racing, though I still rode the Valley Fondo the same week and it was my best fondo to date, 53 minutes faster than 2016. I switched over to Assaf for coaching, and going forward he scheduled six sessions a week for me in TrainingPeaks. These varied from intense hill repeats to skills sessions and recovery rides. I had no troubles handling the work, even though it was far beyond anything I’d done before. It was a big time commitment, but I really enjoyed all of it.

In August I participated in the Cypress Challenge, and took eleven minutes off my 2016 time. I also rode the last few World Tuesday Night Championship criteriums of the year. I started in Cat 4 at the suggestion of Bill Semrau, the very supportive Pender team captain, from whom I learned a lot in just a few races (his wife Tammy L. Brimner does excellent cycling and other photography, including a couple of the photos in this post). I generally did pretty well, not placing, but handling the pace and learning strategy and technique.

WTNC—that’s me in Pender red. Photo: TLBVelo Photography

And then it was September. I’d put in over 300 hours and about 8,500km of work by this point in the year, 6,000km more than I had leading up to the 2016 event. I did one last “hill smash” on Belmont out near Spanish Banks on the Tuesday before the event, then tapered.

I was given the choice to ride with the lead group, or support the mixed team. I agonized over this: I knew I could improve on last year’s time, perhaps dramatically; but the lead group was going to finish in about 3:30, an hour faster than I did in 2016. I take a while to warm up, and feared being dropped on Taylor Way and riding without any Pender crew. Just a few minutes before the start, I decided to go with the mixed team, which was aiming for four hours.

It turned out that Taylor Way was the biggest challenge of the ride for me; I registered my highest heart rate there. After we spread out some, the team came back together on the Upper Levels. It started raining earlier than I had expected, and it was a pretty wet ride, though we were working hard enough that the cold didn’t register until we stopped in Whistler.

We worked well together and maintained a good pace. We had one flat, and lost two riders to that. By the last 20km or so, it was just Bill, myself, and two of the Pender women. Unfortunately, we didn’t win in the mixed team category—but we were not far behind. Next year!

I finished in 3:50:29 (chip time), 43 minutes faster than 2016. I placed 14th of 330 in my age group, 96th percentile; and overall 191st of 2,937 riders, 93rd percentile. I sacrificed some time to work for the team, but I don’t regret it at all. The overall pacing was excellent, and riding in a group was key; I never felt I was working particularly hard. I ate several bars and one gel; and drank about two and a half bidons of Roctane Gu and Vega electrolyte hydrator, largely through the first two-thirds of the race. That worked well for me.

Nutrition; dedicated training; and group riding skills got me to the finish about 16% faster. It’s worth noting that I reduced my alcohol consumption to near zero, and I suspect this was a component of my success. See “Is Alcohol the Reason You’re Not Getting Faster?” on the TrainerRoad blog.

I am pretty confident that in 2018 I can take another ten to twenty minutes off my time, and place near the top in my age group; and hopefully play a part in a Pender team victory. I’m largely back indoors on my KICKR now, and will be meeting my coach soon to plan for the 2018 season.

Bring it on.

I’m heading off to the Malibu GranFondo soon, which will be my first significant outdoor ride of the year. 151km followed by a time trial—my first ever—may sound like starting off the year with a bang: but the ride is preceded by a training camp; and I’ve put in a lot of work indoors over the last few months. It’s my first season of training inside, or even riding consistently at all over the winter months. I bought a Wahoo KICKR a year ago, with all of this in mind, but as I started group rides shortly after the purchase, all I used it for at the time were a couple of FTP tests.

This year I was determined not to let my fitness drop off. I began with the TrainerRoad Sweet Spot Base Mid-Volume I plan in mid-October, a couple of weeks after my last ride with Velosophy. At the end of that plan, I developed an Achilles tendon issue and took four weeks to recover, with a few light recovery workouts during that time, about eight hours in total. Then I proceeded with Sweet Spot Base Mid-Volume II, which went well until I fatigued a bit in week five. I skipped a couple of the aerobic rides that week, then finished off the plan and went straight into Sustained Power Build Mid-Volume. After two weeks, of that plan I’m going to do a taper week preceding Malibu.

I’ve spent almost ninety hours on the trainer from October to February, and I think I’ve learned a lot. The coaching text in TrainerRoad may sometimes seem repetitive, but it’s excellent reinforcement. (Without my glasses, which I have to shed during intervals, the text can be difficult to read; but in an effort to do so by leaning closer to my bars, I have developed and reinforced a slightly more aero default posture on the bike!)

Setup. Two things I figured out very quickly were clothing and air movement. For clothing, wear as little as possible: I only have my heart rate monitor, cycle shorts, open-finger gloves, and short socks. I found the gloves critical both for comfort, despite the lack of road bumps, and to protect my tape from sweat and resulting bad odour. For a fan, I initially bought a fancy Dyson. Don’t bother; something like that can’t move enough air and you’ll end up with pools of sweat on the mat or floor. Go for an industrial fan like an Air King.

Pedalling technique is critical. I went to physio for my tendon issues. Ultimately, what solved the problem was a combination of some specific exercises provided by the physiotherapist, along with adding better support in my walking shoes—apparently I have slightly fallen arches. But more than these, I believe, what corrected the problem for good was a revised pedalling technique. This is a benefit of indoor cycling: the focus that is possible without the distractions of roads, cars, other cyclists, and weather, and the ability to develop good habits. Even after having done six weeks of training at five to seven hours a week, it took an injury for me to realize that I was flexing my left foot slightly more than my right. I corrected that, and have since moved on to plans with a higher weekly TSS at a higher FTP and have had no issues.

Posture is also important, as is learning to let go of tension. It took a lot of hours to get there, but I think I’ve managed to relax my grip, shoulders, and face, and keep my sit bones grounded on the seat, while working at high watts. I’ve also increased my cadence, to where I’m comfortable in the 95-100 range; I got a 50-34 chainring for climbing this year.

Incidentally, as I’ve become increasingly lean, I’ve found that I’ve had to think about new saddles. The Specialized Toupé Expert Gel I used last season now seems too hard; I’ve switched to the Fizik Antares that came with my R5.

Proper breathing can make the difference between powering through an interval and dying. And I’ve found that focusing on efficiently expelling breath after a difficult interval can greatly reduce recovery time.

Focus. With the exception of a few of the longer aerobic workouts, especially those few without instructions, I do not listen to any music or podcasts on the trainer. I figure that I won’t have them out on the road; they can be distracting and a bit of a crutch, and I think affect heart rate and, especially with music, cadence.

Wahoo sensors can be problematic. I’ve been running TrainerRoad on my iPhone. Rather than buy an ANT+ adapter for my Garmin cadence and heart rate sensors, I have been using Wahoo’s Bluetooth sensors. Their cadence sensors work well attached to the shoe, but seem to have significant problems when on the crank; I’m not sure why, but when the sensor rotates around a different axis, it can produce erratic readings. I got a replacement from Wahoo, whose service is excellent, and the problem persists. Keeping it on your shoe doesn’t always make a lot of difference until you are doing single-leg drills, but still. The “TICKR” heart rate sensor seems similarly unreliable: I’m currently waiting for a replacement. Fortunately, the KICKR itself has been very reliable.

Be aware of the location of your screen. I have attached my iPhone to my bars with a Quad Lock, which is excellent. I’m probably looking down at the app, rather than ahead at the “road,” too much, but there’s not much I can, or at least for now want to, do about that. However, be conscious of the left-right orientation of your device. I spent the first few months with the iPhone to the right of my stem; at a certain point I realized that as a result I had started leaning right a little bit on the bike, so switched it to compensate. Changing things up periodically is probably a good idea, unless you can rig something to centre-mount your device.

Conclusion: The real test of all this work will be how I do outdoors this year. I’ve been on one short ride recently, and as a result there’s little question in my mind that it’s all going to pay off. One thing I did notice out on the road is that, despite all the work on quadrants, my downstroke is slightly emphasized at certain power levels and cadences; this requires some further work.

Thanks for reading. Follow me on Strava!

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