Training Tips

A Secret Weapon for the Hills-an Extra Gear

August 14, 2017 by Gareth Eckley

Recently I completed my first road race, the Armstrong Century Ride, held early in the season, May 28th.

I was riding up Knob hill, which averages 4% with some steep 9-11% sections and is 3km long with 112 metres vertical. This hill destroyed many of the riders and was the area they were most fearful of.

I found it fairly easy as I had a secret weapon, I literally had an extra gear. I run an 11-32 rear cassette, while most bikes have 11-25, 11-26 or 11-28 cassettes. I changed my cassette last year.

This extra gear allows me to get up a hill with less effort than before and to keep a higher cadence for climbs. I then have more energy to go fast on the flat sections.

Another benefit of the extra gear is that you can keep your heart rate fairly steady and avoid spiking into the max heart rate zone too often. Here is more detail on heart rate training.

Do I need an extra gear ?

Consider this if you are older, heavier or less fit than most cyclists. You can also start the season with an 11-32. When you have built up your leg muscles and are powering up most hills, swap a lower range cassette, such as an 11-28, back in.

You don’t need to do this if you are a frequent cyclist, young, with strong legs, fitter than average, or if you live in a flat place with no hills.

I live in hilly Kelowna, Okanagan, BC. We have many category 4 climbs and hills with 10-12% sections, so I take the easy way out. I feel that an 11-30 cassette will actually suit me better. The gear steps are smoother, and I intend to replace my 11-32 with the 11-30 soon.

Top cyclists will point out the negative to the extra gear, you will be slower than a rider with an 11-28, or 11-26 who has the power and strength to drive the lower gear up the hill.

Stronger cyclists may well be standing up for most of the hill. If you have that ability, then great, you don’t need this advice. More on when to sit or stand up for hill climbs.

However, if you’re not quite as strong and you try standing up for a long time, odds are that you will blow up on the hill, spike your heart rate to the maximum and have nothing left after the top.

I find that the extra gear gives me an option that I can use if I need to. If I am feeling strong or the gradient is not too steep, I can ignore it.

My experience is that giving up 2 -3 mins on a climb to arrive with energy to spare for the rest of the event may give you a faster overall time when you cross the finish line.

Select Your Chainset

The chain-rings on the front of my bike are a compact 50-40. This is designed for average areas with a mix of hills and flat roads.

Many pros and experienced riders use a standard 53-39 chainset. They have the power to drive the bigger gears and can achieve higher overall speeds.

Your choice of front chain rings has an impact on your rear cassette gear ratios. A rear casette of 11-28 combined with a standard 53-39 chainring is similar to an 11-25 with a compact 50-34 chainset.

How to do this

You can purchase a replacement cassette for your bike very easily. but buy an inexpensive model first as you experiment. You can purchase a more expensive higher grade cassette later. This will be lighter and may perform better.

In my opinion, this change can be the most effective upgrade for your bike and have a huge effect on your riding and overall average speed.

Your local bike shop can change your cassette for you. If you have a home workshop it is not too difficult to change a cassette yourself. You will need a few tools like a chain whip to do this.

Even the Pros at the Tour de France are using larger cassettes

There is a belief amongst many cyclists that the best cyclists don’t need or use easier gears for the mountains. There is a lot of truth to this, better riders and pro cyclists do generate more power. They can drive bigger gears than normal riders.

Pros can use smaller cassettes for riding up hills but they also face bigger challenges. The mountains that they climb are huge and often very steep.

Many pro riders at the Tour de France use an 11-28 cassette, some are even using an 11-30 cassette. The reason is to help to control their effort and their cadence so they don’t blow up on a steep climb.

Geeky Section – Explanation of gear ratios

There are many guides to gear ratios that can go into deep mathematical detail, which can become very complex. Here is one link that explains the basics very well – Gear Ratios explained

What is your opinion?

Have you changed your cassette to make hill climbs easier ?
Do you swap mid season after gaining power through training ?
What gears do you ride with ?
Do you ride a Compact or Standard Crankset ?
Do your friends comment on your choice – negatively or positively ?

Please leave comments in your review.

Many thanks,

Gareth

How Your Family Vacation Can Prevent Overtraining

July 10, 2017 by Andrew Funamoto

If you’ve been putting in the time, diligently doing your intervals and pushing yourself further than ever before, then it can be tough to take a break. When you’re finally getting faster than your buddies, your upcoming vacation may have you stressing that you’re going to lose everything you’ve worked to hard for.

Take a deep breath, and enjoy your family vacation. The break will help you prevent overtraining.

how your family vacation will save you from overtraining — ILB contributor, Morgan, knows how to take it easy on vacation. Photo by Dave Gillam @djgillam (instagram)

Cyclists Need a Pitstop

What if we approached rest during a season of training like F1 drivers approach pit stops? F1 drivers know that they will need to stop for fuel and a change of tires a couple of times throughout a race. Teams and drivers strategically plan for this. Reassure yourself that when you are taking a week off the bike, it is not necessarily a week of training lost.Your competitors will also have to take a week off at some point or another.

Think of a rest week as reducing your risk of injury instead of lost fitness.

If you get hit with a bad cold, you could easily be out two weeks. The bonus of taking a week off, is that your body will have had time to rest, recover and adapt to the previous week’s training load.

Routine Maintenance Off the Bike Mitigates Overtraining

Maintaining your body off the bike is extremely important both physically and mentally. Adding strength, mobility and stability through cross training mitigates the potential injuries that you might sustain if you are otherwise not committed on doing so.

ILB contributor Jem suggests that cross-training and time logged off the bike does not contribute to fitness on the bike– You will not find many people disputing this claim, but what is the cost to your fitness if you end up sick, injured or burnt-out as a result of neglecting other parts of your health and wellness?

Plan Your Mid-Season Breaks

If you plan for these breaks and are strategic about it, pitstops can win the race. Most of us have family, friends and obligations. Use vacations, weddings and other times that you may be forced off your bike as a mid-season pitstop. Try and slowly build intensity and duration of your training up until you go on vacation. That way when you are visiting museums, broadway shows or sitting on the beach enjoying an afternoon snooze you won’t feel so guilty.

Training is like money in the bank. Everyone is saving, and everyone is constantly banking fitness so taking time off the bike is hard. Follow these four easy steps to avoid burnout and enjoy your vacations:
Step 1: Maintain your body throughout the season
Step 2: Listen to yourself and your body
Step 3: Plan your training around specific events during the year
Step 4: Stick to the plan or make small adjustments to avoid burnout

How To Stop Cramping Now!

June 28, 2017 by Jem Arnold

Cramping Myths and Hydration Truths

Cramping and fatigue in general are still relatively poorly understood physiological phenomena, but every cyclist has experienced Exercise Induced Cramping, and knows exactly how uncomfortable they can be! There are plenty of myths, anecdotes, and magic cures peddled by companies and fellow riders alike, but what can the Science tell us about cramping?

What Causes Cramping?

Cramping is not necessarily a sign of poor hydration or electrolyte imbalance. Cramping is not necessarily a sign of poor nutrition, poor warm-up, or poor preparation for race day. Cramping is not necessarily even a sign of poor fitness… but all of those factors may contribute to fatigue and cramping.

Exercise Induced Cramping occurs when you push yourself harder and for longer than your body is used to: ie. a combination of greater volume/duration and greater intensity than your body has adapted for.

The current best theory for Exercise Induced Cramping is related to neuromotor fatigue. Basically, the nerves that carry signals to and from your muscles and your brain get tired just the same as your working muscles. Those nerve signals begin to misfire This neuromotor fatigue can send overlapping, uncontrolled signals to your muscles. This can result in twitching, cramping, complete locking up of your working muscles or the feeling of ‘dead-legs’ and an inability to produce power.

Hydration and Electrolytes

When you sweat you lose both fluid and ‘electrolytes’, which refer to a variety of minerals dissolved in the body’s fluids and tissues, and are essential to overall function. Sodium is the most abundant electrolyte lost in sweat, and so ‘salts’ are occasionally used synonymously when talking about replenishing electrolyte balance.

Sweat is hypotonic, that is: the electrolyte concentration of sweat is lower than the electrolyte concentration of your blood. This means that when you sweat you lose more fluid than you lose electrolytes, and therefore fluid loss will be the limiting factor to performance and is more important to replenish during exertion. During activities longer than 90min, and especially endurance events longer than 4 hrs you will lose both fluids and electrolytes to sweat, and both will need to be replenished.

Studies have shown that performance is negatively affected when total body weight loss approaches -2% via fluid loss (although even this finding has conflicting evidence). You should aim to replenish fluids during activity to avoid this extent of fluid loss. A general guideline is to drink at least one bottle – 500-750 ml – of fluid per hour.

Can you Drink Too Much?

You may have heard horror stories about athletes over-hydrating during endurance events and suffering from hyponatremia, or severely low electrolyte imbalance. These instances are an extremely low percentage occurrence and most often only seen in extreme ultra-endurance events. Studies found only 0.1-4% of an ultra-endurance population exhibited signs of hyponatremia, compared with 80% occurrence of basic dehydration.

Under-hydration can affect your performance during even short-duration activities and should be a far more significant consideration than over-hydrating. You have to try really hard to give yourself hyponatremia, but dehydration takes effort to avoid.

Fluid and Nutrition

Drinking an electrolyte-fluid mix can be effective to maintain performance and avoid cramping and fatigue, but the fluid is certainly more important than the electrolytes in that bottle of mix. Mix offers a more obvious advantage to performance, of course: as a nutritional source of carbohydrates (sugar/glucose). Some electrolyte supplements can be low or zero calorie, but more common is for drink mix to contain both carbohydrates and electrolytes.

Briefly: nutrition is a completely different topic which I won’t tackle here, but suffice it to say that calories from carbohydrates, protein & fats are significantly more important to performance over a multi-hour endurance event than electrolytes. You don’t have to choose one or the other!: carbohydrate + electrolyte mixtures can be a great way to replenish both on the bike! For optimal performance, you probably need to be eating more than you think!

I would suggest that if you find that drinking a carbohydrate/electrolyte mix helps you avoid cramping and boosts your performance, this is more than good enough reason to continue what works! This may be in order of importance; 1) the fluid; 2) the nutritional calories, and finally; 3) the electrolytes.

So What Should You Do?

The first thing that needs to be said is don’t worry about changing anything if you know what works best your you! Your body is very good at regulating itself: It will take in whatever you give it with very little fuss. The science indicates it should be unnecessary to supplement salts or electrolytes as long as you eat properly leading into your cycling event. You should get all the salts, minerals and electrolytes you need from a nutritious diet, not to mentioned ensuring optimal performance on the bike. Longer events will require fluid, electrolyte, and calorie replacement and you can get that from any combination of solid foods, gels, or drink mixes.

How to Prevent Cramping?

Nothing magical, just expose your body to greater duration and intensity of training stimuli. ie. go harder for longer, and next time you won’t cramp as early into your event! Training in the heat will assist acclimatization to the heat, and training in the cold, to the cold. You can experience cramping in any conditions to which your body is poorly acclimatized to.
Take care of the low-hanging fruit as part of your pre-event preparation: Ensure you are fresh, well-rested, with sufficient nutrition and hydration in the days leading up to a particularly hard event. Come prepared with sufficient nutrition and hydration for the length & intensity of the event and for the expected conditions on the day. TrainingPeaks has a fantastic guideline for basic pre-, during, and post- race nutrition & hydration planning.
There is also a potential genetic predisposition to cramping. so… get different parents? 🙂

How to Relieve Cramps Once They Start?

The fastest & most reliable method of temporarily easing cramps is passive stretching. Trying to stretch a cramping hamstring while on the bike is a good way to come to grief, but if you can slow up or even dismount and stretch the affected muscle it can provide much needed relief.
Continuing to hydrate remains important when you begin to cramp. Cooling via fluid intake will also help. However by the time cramping is occurring, hydrating and cooling probably won’t have a quick enough effect. You’ll be forced to slow down first, which probably has a more direct benefit.
Speaking of slowing down, an obvious (and often unavoidable) way to reduce cramping is simply to reduce your effort. This eases the demand on your working muscles, your heart & lungs, and also your neuromotor system by reducing the amount of voluntary nerve signalling to your muscles. This allows your entire neuromotor system to relax and recover.
Finally, recent headlines have highlighted using pickle juice, capsaicin (spicy pepper, chili powder, etc.), vinegar, or mustard as cramp cures. I haven’t explored the evidence in-depth, but the proposed mechanism is not actually the salt in those foods, but rather that the spice/acidity of these foods overpowers the rest of the neurological system and reduces nerve firing activity globally through your body. Similar to how biting your tongue “distracts” you from the pain of your stubbed toe.

Are Cycling Shoes Worth The Leap?

June 13, 2017 by Andrew Funamoto

If you are thinking about buying cycling shoes, you may find yourself in the following circumstances:

Thinking of buying a bike and cycling shoes for exercise
Currently commuting to work
Riding on weekends with friends
Exploring the city & countryside

Seeing cyclists hobble around in cycling shoes is not pretty, so there must be a reason why people insist on wearing them.

What Do Cycling Shoes Do?

The first and most obvious aspect of a cycling shoe is that they clip into the pedals. With a distinctive “click,” cycling shoes with clipless pedals will encourage power through all portions of the pedal stroke. Think of a clock and how the second hand moves through all 360 degrees.

Secondly, cycling shoes provide a rigid platform that allow power to be transferred into the drivetrain with greater efficiency than running shoes, sneakers or high heels. When you apply power into the pedal with sneakers, the flexible sole that offers comfort when walking, deforms around the pedal. This means energy lost and sore feet.

Cycling in running shoes is like cutting veggies on a plate with a butter knife. Switch to cycling specific shoes and you’ll be cutting veggies with a proper chef’s knife on a wood cutting board. The combination of clipless pedal with cycling shoes will have you slicing and dicing your morning commute.

Types of Cycling Shoes

Mountain Bike Shoes

There are two main types of cycling shoes. For someone looking for an all-round cycling shoe, a mountain bike shoe will be a good primary option. Mountain bike shoes have thick tread that allow mountain bikers to navigate tricky terrain. It sounds counter-intuitive at first, but that same tread helps commuters and new cyclists navigate slippery tile floors and the stairs up to the office.

Contributor Morgan and her MTB shoes. They are more versatile than road shoes. (Photo by: David Gillam)

Road Bike Shoes

Road bike shoes are typically lighter and more breathable. But the weight comes at the expense of functionality. Road shoes don’t have robust tread like mountain bike shoes and they will often be completely smooth; this is by design. Road cyclists will sometimes ride hundreds of kilometers before un-clipping for a stop light or an esspresso. Hauling around a few extra grams is not efficient (yes roadies are that Type A)! The speed and efficiency comes at the expense of being awkward. The cleats that clip into the pedals protrude, and you’re left quacking around the supermarket during a quick grocery shop on the way home from your ride.

Even Blondie knows these road shoes are awkward to walk in!

So What Type of Cycling Shoe Should You Buy?

Are you doing a quick rip to the farmers market? Mountain bike shoes will likely be a good choice. The tread will be good for navigating mixed surfaces and the added strength of the nylon sole compared to your runners will make the ride home a lot less uncomfortable.

Are you doing a long commute to work and riding on the weekends? Road shoes might be a good option here! Check out these Shimano touring shoes. They can almost pass as your work shoes!

Are you riding a shorter distance but looking for more support? Brands like Chrome manufacture a happy medium between cycling shoes and runners. They add a stiff base plate in the heel and mid-shoe to help with power transfer, but still offer lots of comfort while walking around. These shoes last for years, they are extremely tough.

Taking the Leap: Cycling Shoes

New Bike Day

OK, so you’ve decided you want to give cycling shoes a go, now what? If you are new to riding and have just bought a brand new road bike, wait a few weeks before stepping into a pair of cycling shoes and clipless pedal. It takes a few weeks to get used to the handling of a new bike, and cycling shoes with clipless pedals can be one too many items for your brain to process. You might end up tumbling over at a stop sign– or maybe in your driveway. Take your new bike out a few times with flat pedals before leaping into clipless pedals.

Commitment

Now it’s time to commit to new shoes and clipless pedals in the parking lot. Practice clipping in and out with both feet.

Tip 1: When coming to a full stop, clip out one foot well before you know you need to and coast into the corner. Clipping out before you need to put your foot down sounds obvious, but tipping over happens to all of us!

Tip 2: When stopping, pick a side that you are more comfortable clipping out on, and stick to that side. Then, when you arrive at the stop gently lean you bike in that direction, using your un-clipped foot is your anchor. If you keep your bike verticle, a gust of wind can tip you over onto the side that you are still clipped in on! It’s happened before, and it will happen again!

Smash It With Cycling Shoes

Now get out there and start smashing your way commute back from the office, farmer’s market or apple orchard!

How To Ride Long Climbs Faster

April 30, 2017 by Andrew Funamoto

In part two of his climbing series, Travis explains how to ride long climbs. From reaping the rewards of endorphin highs on the top of the hill, to the best pacing strategy, Travis gives us some tips on how to tackle long climbs. If you missed his previous video on gearing and cadence, check it out here.

Why Do We Ride Long Climbs

Uninterrupted riding
Sustaining heart rate
Reward of accomplishing something huge!

How To Ride Long Climbs

Pace yourself (don’t go too hard in the first five minutes)
Vary your position by standing every once in awhile
Relax. Relaxing will allow you to breathe properly on the bike

We would like to thank Jody, one of our readers who inspired us to get this video online. Jody just turned 50 and asked us if we had any tips on tackling Mauna Kea, so if you are in the same boat of ambition stay tuned for more videos. Also, check out Joe Friel’s book Cycling Past 50.

Increase Your Cadence and Climb Efficiently

April 11, 2017 by Andrew Funamoto

Climbing 1,000,000 Feet in 2017

It is our pleasure to introduce to our readers a climbing specialist and new contributor, Travis Streb. Travis is a Vancouver-based cyclist who lives at the base of one of the most daunting climbs in British Columbia. 12km at an average gradient of 8 percent serves as an excellent backyard playground but it also taught him how to climb efficiently.

Climb A Lot, Climb Efficiently

Travis has pledged to climb over 1,000,000 feet to help raise awareness for pancreatic cancer. His cycling club, Glotman Simpson Cycling, has raised over $2,000,000 for pancreatic cancer research to date, and is preparing for it’s 10th year of running the Cypress Challenge. Travis has decided to one-up us all. Suffice to say, he knows a thing or two about climbing.

Throughout the year, Travis will keep us updated on his progress, and contribute his tips to becoming a better climber.

Travis Says: Climb at the Right Cadence

“Climbing on a bike can be a ton of fun and it’s a great way to get a boost to your fitness. The problem is that too many cyclists end up mashing their gears and riding at a very low (and inefficient) cadence. In the first part of this climbing series, we’re talking about climbing at the right cadence and how your gearing (especially your rear cassette) can help you achieve this.”

Three Climbing Tips to Take Away

Spin at a high cadence (keep track of it with a cadence sensor):
- 70-90 RPM
Find the right gearing:
- Make sure you have an 11-28 or 11-32 rear cassette
Climb a lot!

How Functional Mobility Will Make You Faster

April 3, 2017 by Andrew Funamoto

Another season begins, the snow melts, and the flowers bloom. The giddiness and excitement of your new bike overwhelms you and you’re putting a ton of kilometers in the bank. Your quadriceps are sore, your hamstrings are tight, your hips begin to seize. This is all part of getting faster, right? Wrong. Speed and strength does not have to come at the expense of mobility.

Due to the repetitive nature of the pedal stroke, cycling puts us in a particularly vulnerable situation. We spend hours hunched over the bars, spinning our legs at 100 revolutions per minute. The impact is low, but over time the muscular imbalances take a toll. Adding mobility and stability off the bike will bring your riding to the next level.

Stretching

We’ve heard it a thousand times: “Stretch!” But before you stretch, there are a few things to understand before you go whole hog and start lunging in the car park before the Saturday club ride.

Pre-Ride Stretching

Dynamic Stretching is the best way to get your body prepped for the rigors of your ride. While static stretching has been shown to negatively impact speed and power, dynamic stretching will get blood to your muscles, and mobility in your joints. Get a few of these dynamic stretches in before you down your coffee and crumpets.

Throughout the Ride

It’s still early in the season (remember?) and you’re barely hanging on late in your club ride, and your shoulder, neck and back are acting up. Take the time to move around a bit. Stretch your neck, roll your shoulders and move your back. Cramping or feel a twinge in your calf? Skip a few turns in the rotation in order to take a minute to stretch those tight muscles.

Post Ride Stretching

You made it home, had your shower and post ride nutrition. Time to take a few minutes to reset your muscles. Have a look at ILB contributor Jem’s post ride routine. Post-activity stretching has been shown to reduce Delayed Onset Muscular Soreness (DOMS), increase rates of recovery and improve range of motion in your joints. While there is some debate as to how long you should stretch, anywhere between 15-30 seconds will yield the desired results. There is no debate, however, as to how deep you should stretch: Make sure you are only stretching as deep as it feels comfortable. Any signs of pain, pinching or discomfort signals that it is time to back off a tad. Stretching longer than 60 seconds, or deeper than comfortable is more than likely causing unnecessary trauma.

Mobility & Yoga

Yoga is trendy, but the activity has been around for thousands of years (in comparison, the bicycle is about 200 years old). Yoga provides focus to both static and dynamic stretching, and always adds a component of movement to the practice. The nature of the sport and the position on a bike renders basic balance and maintenance a challenge. As time and intensity on the bike increases, certain muscles are worked to exhaustion, while others become dormant and atrophy. With a very limited range of motion of the legs, and a virtually static upper body, finding movement in other directions, off the bike, is vital to longevity. If yoga isn’t your thing, adding some basic functional stability workouts will help. While yoga stresses mobility and flexibility, functional strength training stresses strength and stability– Both have their place in a monthly cycling training plan. An hour or two a month dedicated to mobility will help you in a few key areas.

Flexibility

80 percent of your aerodynamic drag is caused by your position on the bike (sadly, the $10,000 aero bike will only help you 20% of the way. Imagine how fast you would be if you invested $10,000 in your position and coaching?). Adding a few yoga practices to your training plan will slowly improve your position and gift you a handful of free watts. Wind tunnel testing suggests that a position change can improve your aerodynamic drag by well over 20%. That might be the difference of being able to ride with the A group instead of the B group!

Stability

Yoga and functional strength training will frequently introduce movement in directions other than forward and backward. Forcing you to engage your core and stabilizer muscles will improve bike handling and stability on the bike. The changes are subtle, but feeling more confident into corners, descending and staying in an aerodynamic position when on the front of your club ride are not to be ignored.

Discovering Injuries

Adding a few days of strength and mobility may also reveal weaknesses and muscle imbalances that you didn’t realize you had. Did a certain yoga practice relieve some chronic back pain? Maybe side lunges will suddenly ease knee pain that you recently discovered.

It should be noted that certain types of yoga can be pretty tough on your muscles. A rigorous Vinyasa or a slow, deep stretch Yin class can have your legs feeling pretty slow on the bike the next day. Plan an easy ride for a day after yoga. Taking the time to assess your body off the bike will give you an added boost in confidence and self awareness.

Fascial Therapy

Get on the roller. If you haven’t heard a friend say this, get some new ones. The foam roller is your new best friend. Fascial tissue has been neglected for a long time, and is only making it to the mainstream in recent years.

What is Fascial Tissue

There is a lot of current research on fascial tissue, but it used to be regarded as the sack of tissue that keeps all of your muscles and organs in place. The new understanding of fascia suggests that the membrane act like a coil providing direction, stability and recovery to muscle tissues. Neglecting this vital tissue may be hurting your performance on the bike. A number of recent studies show that fascial release (like getting on a foam roller) reduces injury and increases function of the muscles. When we do exercise, we create scar tissue– Massaging your legs with a foam roller will release built up scar tissue and allow the fascia to realign itself and function more efficiently.

Let’s be honest, we aren’t professional cyclists even if we have a soigneur at home. We are weekend warriors, and have very little time outside of family, and work obligations — But maybe a bit of cross training will pay more dividends than you expect.

Postlude

I come from a background in (American) football. When I started cycling, I came into the sport carrying all of the baggage from football (both physical mass and methodology for training). There was very little focus on mobility and flexibility. In the off season we had a rigorous training plan that included 4 heavy lifting days, interlaced with 2-3 practices per week. The workouts were not functional, and were focused on building a lot of mass. In any case, over the course of my career, I naively assumed that mobility and flexibility would ultimately come at the expense of strength– The reality is just the opposite. Working on mobility, flexibility and stability will only improve your functional performance. 5 years removed from contact sports, I am now clearly seeing the benefits of introducing strength training and yoga throughout the season. I’m getting faster and stronger while simultaneously becoming more stable and much more mobile.

Battling the Holiday Weight Gain with Cycling

December 29, 2016 by Josh Friedman

The end of the year is a time of revelry, and with that revelry comes indulgence and over-consumption. The weather is turning for the worst too making riding a bit more difficult because of condition and not wanting to suffer through bad weather. Devising some tactics to deal with holiday weight gain can keep you happier and healthier along with maintaining your fitness through this season that is fun and fraught at the same time.

Indulgence and Holiday Weight Gain

There are sweets at work. There is alcohol at the party. There is a feast at your family’s house. It is hard to handle all the indulgence. Find some strategies that work for you to enjoy yourself but also to keep holiday weight gain to a minimum.

It is okay to have treats and delicious food. Make sure whatever you are consuming is really worth it and increases your enjoyment of the moment.
Before going into a situation, set limits for yourself. An open ended commitment to eating and drinking will not end well.
Be honest with yourself when you are full or you have had enough to drink.
If there are a lot of options, take small portions so you can get a taste of everything you might enjoy. Then you can make a decision about what you really like and go back for more (if you are not violating the previous point).
There is no obligation to force feed yourself. Remember that peer and societal pressure is a thing, even when you are an adult and make a conscious decision to ignore the pressure.
Choose to fill up on the healthier options on offer – vegetables, fruit and other non-processed and less calorie-dense foods. It will make you feel fuller without dropping a calorie bomb in your gut.
Hydration levels affect your perception of satiety. Make sure you are well hydrated while partying the month away. An additional bonus to good hydration is that it will help you cope better with alcohol in your system.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line to battle holiday weight gain is to keep pedaling or staying active in some way. If you are already riding regularly, find a way that you can continue even as the daylight fades, temperatures drop and precipitation increases. A good set of lights might help to keep you on the road in the dark; nothing beats them to see or be seen. All the high visibility colors and reflectors do nothing compared to active illumination.

When the weather is sure to make you uncomfortable, set up a space indoors that you can ride in on a trainer or rollers that will keep you motivated. You will need a fan and some sort of entertainment. Staring at the wall or your bike computer the whole time sets you up for failure. Music, movies and friends make the time go by much faster.

Prepare a manageable schedule for yourself that you can stick to for your rides. A commitment will keep you on the bike and keep the holiday weight gain at bay. The more you ride, the more you can indulge, within reason of course. If you are lucky enough to have a schedule that allows you to ride more than usual at this time of year, the easier it is to burn off those treats. But beware – those treats do not provide optimal fuel for training.

Other Activity

The winter is also a great time to throw in some other activities to your exercise program to stave off holiday weight gain. Find something that is interesting to you that you may not get to do when it is nice out and you are more committed to riding. Again, make a regular schedule so you can stay fit and keep burning those extra calories you may be eating. The activity could also be a nice mental break from all of the riding; when you come back to riding, it will be fresh and exciting again.

You Already Know

You are already aware of what the end of the year can do to your body. It is hard to handle the indulgence and holiday weight gain if you do not have a plan. Make a plan and try to stick to it. You will be even more committed to the plan if you write it down and tell others about it – this works for anything. This will lead to a happier and healthier season, and that is what it is all about, right?

TORQ USA-Why Should I Fuel

December 13, 2016 by TORQ USA

*This Article was contributed by TORQ USA whose products are based around science and natural ingredients for optimal performance. You can find their products in our I Love Bicycling Shop.

To help you better understand the fueling process, we’ve strung together a series of short animations to demonstrate exactly what happens to your body when you exercise without ingesting any carbohydrate (0g per hour), compared with some carbohydrate (30g per hour), significant carbohydrate (60g per hour) and optimal carbohydrate consumption (90g per hour)…

After working through this short section, please take the time to read through the TORQ Fueling System background where we explain how the optimal delivery of carbohydrate (90g per hour) is only possible if all of the carbohydrate you consume during exercise consists of 2:1 Glucose Derivatives:Fructose. That said, the animations below clearly demonstrate that ‘any’ carbohydrate consumed during exercise will benefit performance. The question is, how fast do you want to go, or how long do you want to last?

Firstly, it’s important to understand the differences between ‘Endogenous’ and ‘Exogenous’ carbohydrate:

Endogenous (ENDO) refers to carbohydrate that is stored in your liver and muscles – called ‘Glycogen’. Even on a diet rich in carbohydrate, the most you can expect to store is around 500g or 2,000 kCals (and that’s if you’re a well trained athlete – the less conditioned you are, the less you can store). When your stores are full, they’re full – so continuing to ingest high degrees of carbohydrate in the hours approaching exercise will have no effect on your stores if they’re already saturated. To clarify this point, it would be like leaving the tap running on the bath – once the water level reaches the overflow, the bath will get no fuller however much water you keep pouring in. This is a vital concept to understand and it’s where many people go wrong when it comes to fueling for optimal performance. One final and very important point to note about endogenous carbohydrate stores is that when they run out, your metabolism will grind to a halt and your pace will drop off dramatically. This is called ‘Bonking’ in cycling or ‘Hitting the wall’ in running.

Exogenous (EXO) refers to carbohydrate consumed during exercise and this can be in the form of energy drinks, gels, bars or chews if you consider the Fueling System items from the TORQ range. Any carbohydrate consumed during exercise, even if it’s a banana or a candy bar, is still considered exogenous carbohydrate. This carbohydrate enters the blood stream and is burnt preferentially over your endogenous stores. Exogenous carbohydrate isn’t stored, it’s used straight away and the more you can get into your blood, the less of your stored carbohydrate you need to use. It’s important to note that for high intensity endurance activities, it’s impossible to supply sufficient exogenous carbohydrate to halt the depletion of your endogenous stores, all it will do is slow down the regression. The TORQ Fueling System section of this website explains how all exogenous carbohydrate sources are NOT the same and how 2:1 Glucose Derivatives:Fructose formulations have been proven beyond doubt to deliver at a faster rate and higher volumes of carbohydrate than any other.

Play the short clip above. This demonstrates how a cyclist relying entirely on endogenous stored carbohydrate quickly drains his/her stores and becomes fully glycogen depleted after 1 hour and 20 minutes. Note that the exogenous needle doesn’t move at all, because the cyclist isn’t consuming anything whilst exercising. All of these animated clips assume a very high intensity effort, >70% VO2, (the effort is exactly the same in each example) and you may have to play each of them a few times to gain a clear understanding of what’s going on.

In the clip above, we demonstrate how every time 30g of carbohydrate is consumed, the use of exogenous carbohydrate slows the burn rate of the endogenous stores, the overall benefit being, the maintenance of pace/performance for a longer time period. In this example, the cyclist lasts another 10 minutes as a result of low level fueling.

The clip above demonstrates how consuming 60g of carbohydrate per hour extends time to exhaustion further still through the greater preservation of endogenous stores.

And finally, if you play the clip above, notice how much longer the cyclist can sustain his/her performance when consuming 90g of exogenous carbohydrate per hour.

The clip above summarizes the 4 different strategies of 0g, 30g, 60g and 90g exogenous carbohydrate consumption per hour and hopefully this makes our message crystal clear when you see all 4 cyclists exercising together.

As well as explaining why you should fuel, hopefully these examples have made it very clear that the greater the exogenous carbohydrate absorption per hour, the better your performance will be. Not all energy products are the same, because a number of factors can affect carbohydrate absorption/delivery rates. You will only be able to consume 90g carbohydrate per hour if you consume fuel that consists of 2:1 Glucose Derivatives:Fructose and this is backed extensively by a significant number of peer-reviewed published research studies.

Incidentally, just in case you’re wondering, if we were to run a series of animations showing what happens during lower intensity endurance exercise, the results would be exactly the same in relative terms. In each example, the cyclist would last longer, but the same principles would apply – the greater the exogenous fuel intake, the longer the cyclist would last.

In the final clip above, we pull all of these principles together and demonstrate how fueling ‘affords’ a higher pace over a given time. In order for the athlete consuming 0g of carbohydrate per hour to be able to sustain a consistent pace for a 2 hour effort, his/her pace needs to be moderated downwards to avoid bottoming-out the endogenous stores and bonking – this means riding slower. On the other hand, the athlete on 90g of carbohydrate per hour can afford to push on at a far stronger pace, cover a larger distance and still finish with fuel in the tank. In this example, the well fueled rider covers 10 more miles over the same time frame and still has 25 to 30% of his/her endogenous stores remaining at the end of the effort. The fact that the endogenous stores are less damaged despite a higher intensity effort is actually fundamental to understanding the principles of the TORQ Recovery System. If you fuel diligently, you will not only have performed better and created a bigger training stimulus, you will also have kick-started the recovery process.

It’s not just better fuel, it’s better fueling.

We have partnered with TORQ USA to offer you their high profile line of products to help you achieve your cycling goals and objectives.

TORQ USA Sports Nutrition Products Now Available to Our Readers

December 10, 2016 by Bria Edwards

We at I Love Bicycling are proud to introduce our partnership with TORQ USA to bring you the highest quality sports nutrition. We want to provide our readers with insightly articles as well as quality products to fuel your cycling endeavors. Whether you are a novice rider or professional, TORQ Nutrition products can help enhance your performance on (and off) the bike. Nutrition products should be able to work with your body to make riding easier, not make your stomach and body work harder. This is the backbone behind TORQ Nutrition. Their line of nutritional products including: energy bars, gels, chews, and both active and recovery drink mixes are made with no artificial ingredients. The only ingredients you will find in these products come from natural sources. This allows your body to easily process the carbohydrates so your body is ready for whatever riding you put it through.

With many different nutritional products available to cyclists on the market, it can be hard to sift through which products will work best. TORQ Nutrition backs their products with proven science and an underlying philosophy that they will not compromise on the ingredients used in their products. Therefore we hope you can join us in utilizing TORQ Nutrition in your cycling adventures too! It’s time to say goodbye to upset stomachs due to artificial flavors and sugars, and hello to fueling your body with sustainable natural energy.

Check out this “Cramping, Electrolytes, & Hydration…” article that gets into some of the details of TORQ Performance Nutrition and why it works.

TORQ Nutrition products will be available to readers through the I Love Bicycling Shop.

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