I am a big fan of rollers for indoor riding or getting yourself a cross bike and riding outside.

I am not super excited about trainers due to the lack of improvement ive seen in riders that use trainers all winter vs. those that do rollers or (the best idea) ride outside.

you guys that say you sucked at road racing..what are you sucking at? just curious so i know what to be prepared for

I was too fat, basically, for the elevation change in our road races. I did two and both were hilly. The second one was also on a really fucking hot day in May that kind of came out of nowhere. I also was still relatively new to the whole thing as well and not that fit. I dropped my weight down from 215 to 168 in the course of training and racing, but my two road races came relatively early in the season. I just wasn't fit enough to hang and, in particular, climb with the pack.

My first race had a big fucking hill right in the first mile. Not long, but very steep. I passed two people standing on the side of the road with their chains in their hands - they had broken their chains trying to get up it. I fell off the back on that climb and never caught up. The second road race I held on for about 12 miles but a big hill eventually separated me from the pack.

By comparison, I did probably 15 or so crits and improved quite a bit by the end of the season once I got my weight down and my general fitness improved.

I hope to do better this year in the road races since my weight is already down and I'll be focusing on fitness and endurance more. I want to actually put together a training schedule and think about it more than just focusing on weight loss like I had to do last year.

ah i see where you are coming from then. the first race i picked is 31km, and its description says rolling hills so im not worried about that. where i live there are hills of every kind everywhere. i go to climb a hill just to get out of me neighbor hood. fitness wise im 23, 175lbs, around 10-12% bodyfat. always been active and into sports so overall i think im in pretty good shape. i know i need to make sure i have the speed endurance for an entire race and just getting seat time in so i have the legs for it

Yeah, you are in far better shape than I was going into my training. I had been riding for about five years recreationally, but never with any structure. I will say that training for racing was one of the best things I ever did healthwise - it got me in the best shape I had ever been in.

Racing on the road is very much about energy conservation, and that requires skill and confidence in the pack. Getting in shape is important, but it is also very important to get accustomed to riding in a pack if you aren't already. The first time descending into a turn at 30+ miles per hour with 30 other riders and very little margin for error was terrifying.

400lb motorcycle inches away at 100 mph is much scarier than a bunch guys on a bike at 30mph imo lol. i get what you are saying though...

ugh i need to get outside for some long rides

The new sufferfest video comes out tomorrow, and since its gonna be well below zero and windy all weekend, I'll get my long weekend ride in down in the basement. Winter race coming up on the 30th. Even though its short race, I'll be riding my 38lb bike and would prefer to finish in the top half at least.

Supposedly the new video has more of a storyline to make it more enjoyable (painful). Its nearly 90 minutes long too!

TONS better then staring at a bunch of other people on trainers

yesterday did 5 minute time trials intervals for an hour...tonight did sufferfest: fight club. 1 lap was 4:00 time trial effot at 7/10 effort + 2:30 of climb at 8/10 effort + 3:00 of rest. did 5 laps of that with 5 minute warm up and cool down. whole thing was littered with surprise attacks. had to increase cadence by 15rpms and give 10/10 effort. was probably over 20 attacks. love these videos though!

I've been curious about these and just put a new TV in the pain cave that I can hook the computer up to. Downloading a couple of them right now and will work out to one tonight.

downward spiral wasnt TO bad, but it still sucked lol

got 51 miles in on sunday. first race is the 26th. its a grand fondo. 31 miles, combined cat4/5. over 40 registered so far. im ready to get out there!

sufferfest hunted tonight.

26000ft of climb in 26 miles? holy smokes

how did the race go cheese?

Has anyone trained with a powertap or computrainer?? I've been thinking about getting one or the other just not sure if I'm ready to drop the cash yet.

I took the lead by a few yards and crested the steep part of the hill and continued the last 70 or so yards up the false flat to the finish. I saw a guy on my left and at the line he qnd another guy got me. I got 3rd by .1 seconds. The first two guys had the same time and the 2nd place guy was a U19 kid.

First crit today, Philadelphia Naval Yard Crit. Flat, 1.4 miles, 8 turns. 11th out of 46. Shoulda done better but I didn't position myself well, wasn't aggressive enough and was working on 2 house of sleep and just didn't have the fire in me today

good write up! that road race sounds like hell lol wind is def a bitch. my first two road races i just sat in the middle of everyone so i didnt get buffeted around. aero wheels are a PITA too. sounds like overall you did pretty solid though. whens your next race?

i just ordered one of the new garmin 500 gps's with HR and cadence so ill post up some of my races in the near future. i have a 25 mile cat 4/5 2 mile circuit race this sat with a hill that has 20% grade for like 75 feet, literally,and a fast descent and next week i had a road race so hopefully this gps comes and i can bust out some stats.

again, good job!

no races for me this week, one next weekend.

Bikeforums.net is the only general forum I ever really look at. The road cycling forum there is as you described - 90% garbage. The road bike racing subforum does have some useful training and racing info.

There were so many hills, at times I was climbing at 5mph for about 10 then hitting close to 40ish on the way down.

How far did everyone ride this weekend? 81.27 miles for me

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/84336125

I've been banging it out on the trainer every single day the last 2 weeks.

wat?? don't you live in cali? isn't the weather nice? how do you manage riding a trainer everyday, i'd go crazy trying to do quality riding on a trainer.

sweet! just got approved and im now a CAT4. woot!

I gotta tell you though...those trainer rides (while short) are fairly intense, and my bike fitness has skyrocketed in the last 2 months.

Another freaking flat on lap 14 out of 20. 2nd one in the past 3 races. F.

I'm on my way up to my trainer.

Stupid fucking tornados.

You are one of those people who is basically just passing through on your way to Cat 3.

I hate you.

Shopping for and buying a house has cut into some of my racing. Have a crit on Sunday that I plan on racing in. Then there really isn't a whole lot on the calendar around here for several weeks.

So one of the guys who went down today is in the ICU and unconscious after having surgery to relieve bleeding on or in his brain

This kind of stuff makes me think about taking up tris instead.

or just getting out of CAT 5

september issue of bicycling magazine has a little 1 page article/interview about me. check it out!

Pretty cool - how did that end up in your lap?

I've not done squat for about a month now - two training crits and a time trial since July 1. Work travel, buying a house, preparing to move and preparing to rent out the current place have all taken priority.

In addition, in a race I was in at the end of June, I guy went down hard and suffered a very severe head injury. He has not recovered and is not going to recover - they are moving him to hospice and going to end life support soon. Its kind of spooked me and my wife, who never liked me racing anyway, really doesn't like it now.

I'm probably done until cross season starts since my fitness has gone to shit.

I'm still getting out 4-5 times a week. Haven't done any endurance races or local races at all this year though, just haven't really felt it. I was going to do the the local fall mtb race series but the first race is right when I leave for whistler and I definately won't be in race shape for race #2 since I won't be doing anything but downhilling and beer drinking for a week and a half while on vacation. Maybe i'll make up for it by doing road and mountain races next season.

Nice looking shoes. You're like a chick when it comes to bike shoes eh? I like having bike shoes for every use but my sworks mtb shoes set me back too much so super fancy road shoes will have to wait until next season.

everybody stop riding?

Bike? November? AZ? You doing the Tour De Tucson?

everybody stop riding?

Did the MS Ride over the weekend. Obviously not a race but this year they introduced chip timing.

I ride at least 3 days a week on the trainer. Saturday mornings are great here we put on a indoor group trainer ride usually about 10-15 people show up and grind it out for around 2 hours.

I've been hook on the sufferfest videos. Fight Club puts my legs in the crusher every time.

How are you guys balancing your strength and weight training with cycling? I'm thinking of going to 3-4 days a week on the bike (2-3 short-ish rides and one long one on the weekend) and 2 days of weights/strength.

Thinking of selling my 50mm carbon clinchers and getting the 88mm instead.

There's an article in the new Bicycling mag about rim depth and width, since new road rims seem to be going wider