Belgian Opens

Shortly....a few hours actually....the "REAL" race season kicks off, as it should be, in Belgium. Far more erudite and experienced race prognosticators can walk you through the history, the favorites, and the course specifics.

Me, I'm interested in the spectacle of it all. The new kits, new riders on new teams (well, they are new to me since I haven't read any of the other race stuff this year yet). The narrow roads, the cobbles, the mud and grime and dirt. The snow and cold and cloudy skies. The race.

It's easy to become a bit complacent about the racing after 20 years deep in the sport - another race and there will be one on Sunday. Then they'll line up and do it again all season...but here's the thing, it's about the race. It's the battle that goes on everytime they tow the line. That's why I'll get up early and tune in - to watch the action develop over the last few hours and I'll do it again on Sunday - and I'll love every minute of it!


Here is Saturdays' course:

Omloop Is Punchy!

Sunday we get K-B-K....Podium Cafe has a nice review, including pictures! I'll admit that K-B-K carried more sentimental weight as a younger fan....maybe it was more covered by Winning, so it resonated more. I don't really know the course by heart...but it's straight out of Flanders so it must be meritous!

Video is always fun too....

Oh Fitness, Where Art Thou?

I've got a really bad trend going...let's call it the ebb and flow of fitness. For the fourth year in five my fitness has ranged far too wide during the course of a year. If a Chronic Training Load above 75 TSS/day is considered the cross over point of 'real' fitness then I've managed only a few scant months of such over the last 60 months. I'll admit that I have a pretty good excuse for the loss of 2012 fitness, but still it's a bit disconcerting when you strive to be your best and it's constantly transient. First let's look at training volume over the past five years:

2008 is the largest at 390 hours for the year - about 33 hours per month, 2010 the lowest at a mere 243 hours, or just over 20 hours per month. The last 2 years are very, eerily, similar on a host of fronts. I don't know if I can hit 400 hours this coming year, but it is certainly a goal. Here is a look at my CTL track (blue line), with notes the last few years:
2012:

You can see the ramp rate jumps in May after a terrible spring. Peak 20m power is the highest I've tested since 2008 at 361W for 20m. CTL is also at the highest point since I started training consistently with power at a peak of 90 TSS/day in mid September just before 'Cross Vegas.

2011:

A slightly longer runnup to high CTL - peaking at 88 TSS/d in late August - had me better prepared for the CX season than in either 2010 or 2009. The fact that CTL dropped so readily in the months of the season illustrates the same lack of training consistency that is my unfortunate habit. Peak 20m values for the year

2010:

Peak value for CTL was only 64, again in late summer. Not sure why the bottom fell out of my early spring, but the fact that peak CTL was only 64 says I was pretty busy with the rest of my life this year.

2009:

This was one of the better years with regard to consistency of training after September 1st. Peak CTL was 74 in early August, but didn't plummet until the end of November. Instead it approximated the kind of gradual drop in CTL that would normally accompany a block of racing. 20m best was actually from a race in November.

2008:

Certainly a different look to the season. Peak CTL of 83 was in early May rather than late summer. This was the first season of Sterling 'Cross and CTL stayed high (well, sorta) thru the season, varying only 10 points from September to the end of November.

So what is the take away from all of this? Essentially it's that consistency is the most important part of fitness - and I'm pretty mediocre at consistency. Life has a funny way of interrupting training! Will 2013 be any better? Given a new situation I am optimistic...

Playing With Numbers....

Montebello is a sweet little climb near my house that has a couple of steep pitches, it’s a favorite.  I use it pretty regularly for what I call 3-peats, 3 times to the school (2 miles up),  usually in the 13-15 minute range.  Today I didn’t want to ‘hit out’ super hard…hoping to keep good form away a bit longer before my annual implosion, so I decided to do a little experiment.  My current FTP is set at 320W, so I thought I’d see the difference in pacing a 320W effort on three trials. First I did the climb at 320W aveage. Then I did it again at a 320W average, but did the first 5 minutes at 10% over (352W) and gradually lost average power the rest of the climb as close to 1 watt at a time as I could. Finally, I tackled the climb at 10% under FTP (288W) for the first five minutes and then tried to raise my average back to FTP over the remainder of the climb in 1 watt increments. Scientific? No, not really…but let’s see what we got anyway:

	320W Steady	320W First 5m 110%	320W First 5m 90%
Time	15:36	15:44	15:28
Average Watts	320	321	321
Normalized Watts	323	323	324
Kilojoules	300	303	298
TSS (Intensity Factor)	26.4 (1.008)	26.7 (1.008)	26.4 (1.00)
VI	1.01	1	1.01

Very interesting…the fastest was the 5m @ 290W start, but let’s see what else stands out...

Here are the three efforts laid out together:

yellow @ 320W, red @ 320W+10% and green @320W-10%:

Recall that green was a steady push from 5:00 on and you can see the slight uptick in power (top graph) and cadence (lower graph). I like to look for landmarks in the files as time stamp reference points. For example in the first 5:00 the file shows a noticeable jump in cadence at around 3:00 –  4:00…this is where the course flattens out for a bit and you can see that the second effort (+10%) moved to both a higher cadence overall and a bit earlier than the other two. In contrast the third effort (-10%) had a much lower cadence in those first few minutes (closer to 40RPM) as I had to try and keep average watts down, so the stair step of cadence comes nearly a minute later, and the power remains well below the other two at all points.

Moving a bit farther up there is a final ramp that shows up nicely. On the first run it is about  1:30 @ 350W and 71rpm:

On the2nd run it is closer to 1:39 @ 302W and 65rpm as I tried to keep the average at 320W for the whole interval.

On the 3^rd pass I am still chasing the 320W average a little bit (started the final climb at ~317W), but had to be careful to not go too hard. In the end that got me to the top in 1:22 @ 359W and 72rpm, very similar to the first pass, so why the 9s second difference in time? Entry speed.

You can see the differences in speed over the last 6:00 of the climb in the graph below. It’s pretty easy to reference landmarks on each and you can see that the final pass was faster in almost every area over the final minutes as I was both chasing the targeted 320W average and covering more ground. The first landmark is the obvious bump in speed around 6:00. The red represents the +10% pace, so I arrived at this ‘flat’ section about 20 seconds faster than the first pass and about 35s faster than the final run. By the second speed surge at around 9:00 the gap is down to about 5-8 seconds over the first pass, but still hovers near 35 seconds to the final run. Finally by the third speed surge, about 11:30 in, the final effort is starting to close the gap, down to about 15 seconds. Note that the final 0.22 miles were done at 9.2 mph (1^st pass), 8.2 mph on the second and 10mph for the third pass. In the five seconds before the final surge I averaged 19.7 on the third interval, but only 18.5 on the second, and a modest 17.3 mph on the first. This section is flat to slightly downhill, offering a small respite before the final surge if needed, or a chance to make up some time if you can.

For comparison let’s look at my fastest time up Montebello, a 13:01 effort that averaged 357W (I was about 7 pounds lighter too!).  The five seconds before the final surge only averaged 16.4mph, but the final surge was done in 1:04 at 473Wavg. The full climb is demonstrably more impressive all around when looked at side by side with these three...

Power:

Speed:

Guess I need to lose some weight and ride harder!

UPDATE: A friend asked a couple of good questions about the climb itself and my efforts relative to the grade, so here is some additional information on the climb - the full climb is just over five miles (5.3) and averages 'only' 6.9%

But I only went to the school:  

Info and the gradient graphs from a really great site:


Here is the raw data:

Raw Data:

Dist    Grade   Alti.   Location
----    -----   ------  --------
0.00    15% 550 start - Stevens Canyon Road
0.01 12% 555
0.04 10% 570
0.07 10% 580
0.10 11% 600
0.14  4% 620 Brookside Stables - left turn
0.16  9% 630
0.18 10% 640
0.22 12% 660
0.25 10%  680
0.28 12% 690
0.30 12% 700
0.33 10% 720
0.35  7% 730
0.38  6% 740
0.41  8% 750
0.44 8.5% 760
0.46 4.5% 770
0.50 6% 780
0.52 6% 790
0.54 8% 795
0.57 8.5% 810
0.59 9% 820
0.63 13% 840
0.66 11% 855
0.69 8.5% 870
0.71 12% 880
0.72 12% 890 Peacock Court
0.75 12% 905
0.77 10% 920
0.80  5% 930
0.84 5.5% 935
0.86 9% 940
0.90 9% 970
0.93 6% 980
0.96 10% 990
0.99 13% 1010
1.02 14% 1030
1.05 14% 1050
1.07 16% 1060
1.08 12% 1070
1.10  8% 1080
1.12  6% 1090
1.15 5.5% 1100
1.18 8% 1110
1.20 11.5% 1120
1.23 9.5% 1130
1.27 8% 1150
1.35 7% 1180
1.38 8% 1190
1.41 10% 1200
1.44 11% 1220
1.47 8% 1240
1.49 4% 1240
1.52 11% 1250
1.56 11.5% 1270
1.60 10% 1295 View
1.65 10% 1310
1.68 8% 1335
1.73 9% 1350
1.75 7% 1360 Pichotti home
1.78 1% 1370
1.81 -2.5% 1370
1.83 0% 1370
1.85 8% 1380
1.87 12.5% 1390
1.89 9% 1400
1.92 9.5% 1410
1.94 8% 1425
1.97 6% 1430
1.99 8% 1440
2.03 10% 1455
2.05 8% 1465
2.07 1% 1470 Montebello School

Sprint Technique

One of the best things ever is when a couple of sprinters, should I quotes that(?), "sprinters" get in a huff off. It happens every few months on a blog I follow and it's a riot every time. Thanks for the entertainment, did you ever decide who was the fastest Cat 4 world threat?

Alas, while sprinting may come down to hubris and elbows, in the end technique trumps the day.

Good sprint drills are ones that challenge you to deliver power in a variety of ways.  Before I knew much about power as a training tool I wrote an article about delivering power that is an interesting perspective in the discussion of technique. The focus was on technique and rider bike connectivity rather than watts production - and although incomplete for not discussing the high cadence end of the equation, I've posted it below...

First a sample workout that you might like:

FTP Coastdowns - As easy as it sounds...ride 2:00 at your Threshold Power with your average power screen visible and intervals view on. After 2:00 at FTP soft pedal and coast your AVERAGE power down 10Watts then SPRINT it back up to the FTP average and repeat the 10W Loss/Sprint sequence for an additional 8 minutes (10 minutes total on interval). Rest 6-8 minutes between and repeat. Do 2-3 reps the first week and add a rep or additional time to the interval each week. Here are a few graphs that break it down a bit:
1. Full Interval - 1h16m at 0.94 IF (288Wnorm/FTP 300) - you can see the 2:00 start off interval each time and the high variability of efforts. VI was 1.3 for this workout - not quite steady state, yet a circa threshold effort for the duration

2. Interval Detail:

10:00 @ 1.10 / 1.03 VI / 88rpm avg overall

3 Individual Effort Detail

Lots of short and crisp efforts in the 12 - 15s range, and a nice block of 1:20 averaging 341 @ 96rpm early in the interval when power spikes higher and return-to-average times are shorter. As the interval continues the peak power values drop, the efforts take longer to return to FTP:

Throwing those efforts all together we get a quadrant analysis that looks like the one below and reflects the Neuromuscular/Quadrant 1 inclination of the efforts, with a solid foundation of Type II muscle fiber recruitment in Quadrant 2:

Thanks for reading...the reward is my 1998 Intro To Power...

POWER! It means different things to different people, but rest assured if you want to be a better cyclist you

need to have more power. Yes, endurance work, planned recovery, lactic acid work, and VO2max efforts are all important components of a complete training program, but in the end power is what drives the bike forward. In assessing your power you must ask yourself these questions:

1. How much power do I have? We offer a couple of otions to assess your current power

2. Where is my power best? Flats? Steep climbs? Downhill at high rpms?

3. Where is my power worst? Focus on improving these areas first

4. How do I get more? Read on faithful scribe...

Watch top World Cup riders in both Cross Country and Downhill. They rely on and deliver power with

amazing grace and blistering efficiency. They apply power throughout the pedal stroke, at all different RPM’s and across all conditions. They have mastered the technique with brutal effects. To help you develop this type of focus try these three easily adaptable techniques:

*Note: If you haven’t done the requisite base training then don’t attack power efforts with too much vigor in the early season or you will pay for it through injuries and overtraining.

1. Big Gear Efforts: Riding a big gear at high RPM is a great way to increase power. First, get comfortable turning a big gear at low RPM’s. Try 50-65RPM in your largest or second largest gear for 2 minutes. Focus on applying pressure throughout the pedal stroke in a smooth and circular manner; literally pedal circles. These efforts help you improve your muscle fiber recruitment and increase the total number of muscle fibers involved in each effort, making your pedal stroke more efficient. Once you’ve developed base level competency at low RPM, it’s time to work with higher RPM efforts. Start with 30 second to 1 minute efforts at 80-90 RPM (RPM efficiency varies from rider to rider but is usually highest around 90 RPM). Use manageable gears to begin with (53x19 road, 46 or 48x17 MTB) and work up from there. Spend a few weeks adapting to this new form of training and begin increasing the duration of your efforts. You only want to attempt focused power intervals 1x per week, although you can incorporate power into much of your regular riding too.
2. Rider/Bike Connectivity: This is the relationship between you and your bike. Sorry, but you won’t need to buy it new tires and a bell to get it. What you need to do is ride your bike. Learn how it reacts to your inputs and commands. Practice riding your bike with little or no upper body movement. Watch your favorite professionals, emulate their strengths and overcome your weaknesses. When climbing click up one gear before you stand, this helps you maintain the same rhythm and speed. Practice riding wheelies, jumping objects and skidding the front and rear tires (yes, you can skid the front tire). All of these techniques will make your application of power more supple and responsive. Get to know your bike and feel you are part of the same symbiotic relationship, because you are.

3. Ride with Stronger Cyclists: If you can’t find anyone to ride with who really pushes you, get out and broaden you circle of riding partners! Seriously though, riding with people stronger than you helps develop power across a spectrum of conditions and tactical situations. Hard accelerations uphill, long gear wind-ups for the finish line, sprints to single track, all of these tax your power systems in different ways. When you’re with stronger riders, attack them! Don’t be afraid to go hard because you might “blow up.” What’s the worst that can happen? You blow up, get dropped and have to ride the rest of the 50 miles home into a fierce headwind by yourself? Hey, great opportunity to work on your low RPM power!

That's It For Now!

H.I.T.oo Early

H.I.T. - a current buzzword for lighting it up....High Intensity Training is all the rage! It seems that most everyone has a workout or class that is HIT...and given the nature of exercise physiology one must ask why?

What's the nature of physiology? Well, high intensity - anaerobic (despite the misnomer) efforts are produced via fairly straight forward pathways..namely the ATP-PC system (very short term) and Glycolysis (up to several minutes)...these capabilities - capacities, are the result of developing the infrastructure needed to support them whether by volume of 'stuff' that facilitates energy production or the aparatii that allows sufficient recovery, neither of which I have currently.

As I have both terrible fitness and occasionally surprising power on rides during the last month or so, it seemed like a terrible idea to do a HIT workout on Thursday, but I did it anyway as I was riding with a client and it was on his schedule. The workout is called FTP Coastdowns and it consists of riding 2:00 averaging FTP and then letting that rolling average drop 10 watts or so by softpedaling for 10-20 seconds...then sprinting the average back up to FTP before letting it again drop 10W...and repeating for 8-12 minutes total interval time. Rest intervals should be at least 1:1, but we cut it short a little...anyway, here is what the workout looks like in both macro and up-close views:

Close up of a coast down - 2:00 at FTP'ish (in this case 330W - which is really about 110% of my current FTP) followed by a block of efforts between 5 and 15 seconds at between 400 - 880 watts...usually with about 17-20 seconds at ~180 Watts for recovery.

The upside is that I could do 7'ish minutes of it..the downside is that it was a 10-12 minute interval, and I was DONE by the third block! That I could consistently turn out 5-15s efforts at better than 500W is probably more about Type II muscle mass and genetics than training - but I'll be curious to see what I can do when true fitness returns. True fitness requires taking the time to actually build those systems mentioned above...so that is my goal these next months, but I can't say I'll swear off the hard stuff completely. Here is the workout macro view - 34 efforts like the ones above:

Would I improve by doing just these types of efforts - or doing more of them..probably, but my hypothesis is that I'd plateau much earlier than if I take the time to build a more efficient engine and improve my overall endurance and capacity. Guess we'll see. I need to do some more reading to better understand how this all falls together...

US PRO - The Wayward Championship

Check The US Pro Cycling Jersey Site

Since time began...or at least since 1985 the U.S. has chosen their National Champions in stark contrast to most of the rest of the World. While all of Europe holds their National Championships on the same weekend - not coincidentally in the weeks before the Tour starts, the US has followed its own path. For years (1985 - 2005) we had CoreStates US Pro Championships in Philadelphia, but even that was a bit different since the race was open to any pro who wanted to race it - and almost as often than not a European rider won the day:

1985 - Eric Heiden
1986 - Thomas Prehn
1987 - Tom Schuler
1988 - Winner Roberto Gaggioli (ITA), US Champ Ron Keifel
1989 - Greg Oravetz
1990 - Paolo Cimini (ITA), US Champ Kurt Stockton
1991 - Michael Zanoli (NED),US Champ Davis Phinney
1992 - Bart Bowen
1993 - Lance Armstrong
1994 - Sean Yates (GBR), US Champ Steve Hegg
1995 - Norm Alvis
1996 - Eddy Gragus
1997 - Massamilliano Lelli (ITA), US Champ Bart Bown
1998 - George Hincapie
1999 - Jakob Pil (DEN), US Champ Mary Jemison
2000 - Henk Vogels (AUS), US Champ Fred Rodriguez
2001 - Fred Rodriguez
2002 - Mark Walters (CAN), US Champ Chann McRae
2003 - Stefano Zanini (ITA), US Champ Mark McCormack
2004 - Francisco Ventoso (ESP), US Champ Fred Rodriguez
2005 - Chris Wherry

In 2006 they moved the race to both the fall (?) and Greenville, South Carolina. They also made it a US only race finally.

2006 - George Hincapie
2007 - Levi Leipheimer
2008 - Tyler Hamilton
2009 - George Hincapie
2010 - Ben King
2011 - Matthew Busche
2012 - So, what does this year look like? Given the level of racing in the U.S. this year it's a pretty wide open event. Certainly the Euro-Based Americans have an advantage - they are still a tier above the domestic pro's, but there are some US riders who've shown some amazing talent the last few months, including Andrew Talansky, TJ Van Garderen, Chris Horner, and Tim Duggan with US riders like Ben Jaques-Maynes, Nate English, and  Chris Baldwin on my short list for the final selection...but we'll see come Monday.

For 2013 the Championships are moving to Chattanooga Tennessee and a local climb called "Lookout Mountain" - I've looked on Strava and there are a few options that could prove interesting, but I still have to wonder about Tennessee as a race venue. They have less than 2% of USAC membership, probably less than 0.5% but good stats are hard to find. TBRA - Tennessee Racing Assocation - shows typical race fields of 10-25 riders per category and events most weekends of the summer, so I'm not down on the race scene, I'm really not. I'm wondering about the community support more and my reference is the CX Masters Worlds in Louisville KY last year and CX Worlds coming up in January. Good venue by most accounts bu tjust NO presence to speak of. Industry didn't turn out, racers sorta turned out and crowds largely didn't. I'm afraid the same will happen in Chattanooga..but I hope not. I would like to see the race have the same kind of ambiance and excitement as at CX Nats in Golden Gate Park or the past few years in Bend, Oregon. Our National Championships deserve no less, so I'm crossing my fingers.

Sticky Stupidity

Topic #1: Sticky Bottle Stupidity

Watching various live coverage over the last few months it's occurred to me time and again that the infamous sticky bottle has jumped the shark in relevance. Now, I'm not saying that getting an assist from time to time isn't acceptable, especially on climbs if one is truly fetching bottles and the like, but now we see riders coming back for a chat and getting said hard surge of asssistance for no reason at all. Perhaps the most flagrant example is when they take it even while sitting directly behind the lead commisaire's car...within meters of the field! Such was the situation today at the TOC, several times!

So what does the UCI say? Oddly, nothing specific in the technical guide for road racing, although there are some interesting tidbits like 2.3.030 - "The greasing of chains from a moving vehicle shall be forbidden." or 2.3.031 - No equipment for riders may be prepared or held ready outside the following vehicle. Persons riding in vehicles shall  ot reach or lean out." - but not much on Sticky Bottle Syndrome.

Speaking of Sticky Bottles....quick google search lead me to Sticky Bottle.com ...which is an Irish racing site that gives an almost admirable definition of it's name sake:


A stickybottle, put simply, is the knackered cyclist’s best friend. As a rider is being dropped from a group, the team manager or support worker in a following car holds a bottle out the window to hand it up. As the handover is taking place, the rider grabs the bottle tight, as does whoever is handing it up, enabling the rider get a good tow and push from momentum of the car. It’s known as a stickybottle because it appears neither the rider nor the person handing it up is able to take their hand off the bottle; it looks stuck to their hands. But please don’t try this at home. We’ve been slyly cheating this way all our lives; it takes a while to perfect.

I like that they refer to its application for a 'knackered' rider - and that seems somewhat reasonable..but somewhere it got lost in translation as it's now become derigeur for most every situation where a rider may be at the cars. So, who's to blame? I dunno, but I'm guessing it's with the Directors. Most are former riders who, having been on the edge innumerable times, may justify their actions as merely trying to help their riders stay in contention, but really in the classical application it's to try and gain an advatage, any advantage, that might pay off later, and in the modern iteration it seems merely a slap in the face of tradition and the rules.

So is it part of the tradtion - if I want to argue that, probably need some evidence right? There's a great scene in "Stars and Watercarriers" about twenty minutes in where a rider is dropping back to the medical car - a legitimate need certainly - except rather than grab the car and go for a ride, he rides along side and waits patiently for the ointment. This is followed by several scenes of riders in various states of conversation at team cars and none gets assistance. About 37 minutes into "Hell on Wheels" there is a segment about going back to the cars and you see a Saeco rider toting something like 14 bottles and he takes a couple of lingering holds, but it just seems different - and that's because the car doesn't jam on the gas to add a couple of miles an hour. Check it out from 36:00 on...



Contrast that with the coverage of late...grab a bottle and get a free acceleration! "But today's races are faster!"...uh, not that much, or really at all actually according to VeloFacts.com. (I may have a new favorite blog btw!)

So I'm going on the war path over Sticky Bottles...they've become almost as much an embarrassment as open jerseys...

more tomorrow...

Giro Stage 9 - What Really Happened

Todays Topic: Stage 9 Crash, What Really Happened

Lots of talk, analysis, blather, and an admission on the Stage 9 crash...but let's look at it in detail.
Here is the video:


Pick up the action approaching 400m to go...the field is tight and fast, running from the right side barriers to those on the left, a natural inclination. Pozzato's lead out man is just about done and the scrum begins

At 400m we see Goss start to swing out in anticipation of the hairpin as Svein Tuft accelerates... 

but everyone else stays inside, clearly driving towards a late apex of a super-tight turn, not quite what you want to do. You can see the Tuft start to reposition outside, albeit a bit too late

meanwhile Bennati and Pozzato continue the inside line. Bennati is playing a good position game - in the video you can see Goss drops back behind Bennati as they start into the corner giving the advantage to Bennati, except for being too far inside to take the corner at full speed that is. This is when Pozzato starts to lay back a bit in order to change his line and get outside of Bennati to try and carry more speed thru the turn

and promptly runs square into Goss. Notice how Tuft and  Bennatti  are still out of position and hard on the brakes....

Clearly Pozzato put himself in a bad position - on the inside leading into a tight corner = no speed. I think  the fault lies with  Svein Tuft and  Bennati for running too long up the inside line - . Initially I faulted the finish recon - and that may be the case in the end, but Goss set up correctly while the others did not. Did he "see" the right line sooner? Doubtful as he was in the draft until 400m, then slipped right to set up the correct apex. The others either didn't get good recon, forgot what they'd been told, or simply mis-timed the corner. Unfortunately each of the protagonists, save Tuft, paid the price in the end...