Now that the holiday cookies are gone, and all the chocolate treats have been devoured, it’s time to focus on getting back to basics. For cyclists, the winter months always prove to be a challenge when it comes to training, no matter what your goals are for the upcoming race season. For some, the inability to ride during the day because of work hours can cause frustration, and lack of interest in training. Since most of us are not seasoned professionals, and can’t go where the weather is warmer, we have to make the best of the situation. That being said, if you want to have a successful year on the bike, the time is now to prepare for the months ahead. Here are a few ways to get started on your new cycling season.

Miles: I’m talking about base mileage ladies and gentleman, and those miles will be the foundation of your season. While riding outdoors may be difficult during the work week, the weekends will give you the best chance to get those precious road miles in. Riding with a group will help you get motivated to ride through the cold, and keep it fun at the same time. At the Caffeinated Cyclist, road rides leave Sunday morning from the shop at 9am, and all riders are welcome to join! Along with riding with the group on the weekends, be sure to keep track of your miles with a Cyclist’s Training Diary. If you have a GPS cycling computer or a GPS enabled smart phone, you can upload files through software like Garmin Connect, Strava, or Map My Ride. With these applications, all your data is stored automatically, and you can keep track of what your friends are doing also! There’s nothing wrong with a little healthy competition, right?

Training With Power: Yup, just like the 90’s band Snap said on their #1 hit “I’ve got the power”, well, you do have the power! Unlike the early days of training with heart rate, technology has allowed us to train more specifically with power, or watts as they’re called. Training with power can maximize your training time and give you a more accurate understanding of your fitness. This doesn’t mean heart rate training is obsolete; in fact training with both heart rate and power can go hand in hand. There are many options to choose from when looking at power measuring devices. Companies like, Garmin, CycleOps, SRM, Quarq, and Stages Cycling offer products that will help meet budget and training goals. Choosing the right power meter is the first step, after that, working with a doctor or coach to determine specific training goals will take you all the way. The Performance Lab, in Cherry Hill, N.J., is a great place to start with testing. Dr. Michael Ross has worked with amateur and professional athletes for many years, and can help you plan out specific goals for the year, all while training with power!

Indoor Cycling: Dreading riding your bike indoors? Well don’t. With today’s technology, being bored while riding indoors is a thing of the past. Many companies are offering virtual reality trainers at more affordable prices. The company Tacx carries the i-Genius which allows you to ride through a virtual world that’s so real you won’t be able to tell you’re riding indoors! New on the market is the Powerbeam Pro Trainer from Cycleops, which uses PowerTap technology for maximum accuracy. With Cyclops, you can create custom rides with the CyclopsOps virtual training software and GOOGLE maps, so you’ll never have to ride the same road twice! If riding inside at home doesn’t motivate you, then indoor spin classes might be what you’re looking for. Indoor spin studios, like CycleOn Studios in Sicklerville, N.J., offer daily spin classes with instructors that keep you motivated through the winter. You can ride one of their spin bikes, or bring your own bike and ride one of their three Kurt Kenetic Rock and Roll trainers!

Weight Training: While cyclists aren’t known for bulking up and putting on muscle mass, time spent at the gym can offer more than just lifting weights. Specific weight training can improve muscle fiber strength, and give you more punch out of the saddle. Many cyclists also focus on core strength workouts, something most cyclists don’t pay attention to. Strengthening your core muscles improves mobility and flexibility on the bike. Many cyclists suffer from lower back pain, or muscle pain because they neglect strengthening their core. Working with a personal trainer will allow you to properly exercise, without causing injury to yourself, so be sure to speak with someone that is knowledgeable in that area of exercise. You don’t want to cause an injury that will jeopardize you cycling season!

The important thing to remember is to have fun, and mix up your training. Focusing on too many details could cause you to burn out early in the year, and nobody wants to do that. Allotting time spent on the bike and at the gym will help change things up, and something as simple as riding a different route on the road, will certainly make it more fun. Whatever you decide, the key is that it’s your time, so make the most of it!

By: Matt Kupsky

When people ask me what I like to do during the off season and I reply with “cyclocross”, the big question is “what is cyclocross”? Rather than bore you with the long history of the sport, I’ll just tell you that it originated in Europe in the early 1900’s as a way for professional racers to stay fit during the winter months.   The idea behind it was to create obstacles on a course to make riders get off their bikes and run with them. The forced running sections would deliver warm blood to the feet and toes as well as exercise other groups of muscles. The bikes themselves are basically modified road bikes with knobby tires and cantilever brakes, designed with high clearance for mud.  The racing is shorter than road racing, lasting as much as 60 minutes for the elite men, and 40-45 minutes for other races. While riding a perfectly good bike through mud, snow, sand and other elements may seem ridiculous, there is actually more to it than that.

Cyclocross is all about technique, and being as smooth as possible when conquering obstacles such as barriers, sand pits, mud, and steep hills.  While it is important to ride as fast as you can without putting yourself in the proverbial “hole”, transitioning on and off of your bike has to be almost seamless.  This will prevent you from wasting energy and keep your momentum going.  Because cyclocross can be so chaotic at times, the slightest misstep can cause you to lose your footing, making you have to work that much harder to get back in the race.  While technique may be important, bike set up is important as well.  You want to make sure that your tire pressure, lube, and tire choice works for the course you are racing on. This will give you an advantage over your competition! Other than bike set up, clothing choice is very important.  It’s best to use trial and error when choosing the right clothes for the day, so start your warm up with more than you need and peel away the layers as you get closer to your start time.   That way, you won’t over heat during your race!

The sport of cyclocross is one of the more social cycling disciplines that I know, mainly because everyone is there to have fun and ride in the dirt!  Between the crowds and the racers, there are so many things going on, it can be overwhelming. Some crowds can reach in the thousands, just to get a glimpse of their favorite local racer. And because cyclocross courses are so spectator friendly, you can see the entire race in some cases from one vantage point!  If cyclocross sounds appealing to you, and something you want to try, visit the Caffeinated Cyclist, and our friendly sales staff will point you in the right direction of all things ‘Cross!

Photo Courtesy of Joe Fultano

By: Matt Kupsky

            As a competitive cyclist, I’m always looking for new challenges when it comes to racing my bike.  Most of my races consist of local crits, a few road races and an occasional time trial, all of which are generally in the tri-state area where I’m racing with the same guys week after week.  My new team this year, The Performance Lab p/b The Caffeinated Cyclist (insert sponsor plug here), has given me the opportunity to do races I normally wouldn’t put on my calendar other than the typical racing you see in New Jersey.  Since a lot of my racing will be mainly in PA, where my team is based out of, I will get to experience some fast and technical racing this season, which is kind of taking me out of my comfort zone so to speak.  It’s important to try new things, especially when you’re competing often, so you don’t lose interest in why you got into the sport in the first place.  For me, it’s the challenge and the excitement in doing something new!  So when my team decided to do the Tour of the Battenkill this year, of course I jumped on the chance to finally experience one of the toughest one day races in North America.

For those of you reading who aren’t familiar with this behemoth of a road race, let me tell you, it’s everything they advertise it to be.  My race consisted of basically 150 national Category 2 riders, 10 dirt road sections, and about 80 or so miles total distance with 4,000 feet of climbing.  Throw in a covered bridge that was as wide as a one car garage, and you’ve got yourself a bike race!  There are a lot of decisions to make when preparing for a race like this like choosing the right equipment, nutrition to fuel your body, and what my training should be like leading up to the event.  The more obscure decisions like when to take a sip of water, take a gel, float mid pack to save energy or when to move to the front of the race, also revolved around my head.   Although these decisions are important, I had to remind myself that I’m human and I will make mistakes, so I would just do what I could to have a successful race.  I had three goals for Battenkill:  Win the race; place in the top 50% of the race; and finish the race no matter what the circumstances.  Two out of three goals were pretty realistic ( I have to believe that I have a shot at winning any race, or why would I have bothered to compete) but I needed to find the confidence in myself to reach those goals.

With a car stuffed with gear, spare wheels, and three bikes, my teammates and I were ready for our pilgrimage to Cambridge, NY.  We made a quick stop at our hotel, which closely resembled the Bates Motel from the movie “Pyscho” and unloaded our gear.  We took some back roads (which resembled the actual course) and headed to town to pick up our race numbers and check out the vendors that were there for the weekend.  My teammate Dave Dawson and I decided to drive the course to check out the new dirt sections and the condition of the roads.  It was at this point that my confidence in my chances began to diminish.  The dirt sections were at least 1.5 miles in length, and rough in some sections.  The descents on the dirt looked even more treacherous, but it was the climbs made me cringe the most.  My stomach sank as we drove the car through each corner, up every climb, and down every dirt road.  I tried to joke about the course to ease the anxiety, but there was no faking it, I was feeling like I was in over my head.  After a short training ride to open up the legs, we made our way to dinner to “carbo load”, but my nerves were getting the best of me, and trying to finish the food on my plate was becoming a chore.  Back at the hotel, we prepped water bottles and food for the feed, put our race numbers on our bikes and kit, and checked over the bikes once more for race day.  Getting a good night’s sleep before a big race is always important, but that night for me, it never came.

Race day finally arrived and we drove into town to grab some coffee, and breakfast.  I barely ate, I just picked at my scrambled eggs, as though I was some hipster who felt eating food wasn’t cool enough.  It was so ridiculous to think all the years racing, and I couldn’t get the right mindset for this race.  By the time we were all dressed and ready to get to the start line, I felt a weight lifted from my shoulders for some reason.  I began to feel more in my element, knowing that what I’m about to do is something that makes me happy. I love racing my bike, and after all that worry and anxiety, I finally found a real sense of calmness.  I had done everything I could do leading up to the race, now it was a matter getting through it successfully.  I was ready.  We rolled to the start line on our shiny new Cannondale’s, listened to a few words from the promoter, and we were off!  Like a casual group ride, the peloton strolled down the main highway out of town to the first turn, as riders eagerly began to shuffle to the front to get to the first turn safely through the covered bridge.  We would roll through the first dirt section without real incident, except for a few riders that had flats or broken wheels.  My teammates and I looked solid, and we were set to tackle the climbs ahead.

It was at the first climb, before the second dirt road section (only 10 miles into the race) that I would make a decision that would cost me the race win, and a chance at a top finish.  As I moved to the back to take my Castelli vest off and stow it, a rider went down and caused a small pile up at the base of the climb.  I was caught behind it, and I weaved my way through the wreck only to watch the race ride away in the distance.  I turned on the gas up the climb with several other riders to try and make contact again with the field before the next dirt climb.  But it wasn’t enough, the race was gone, and I was left on my own.  I actually had company for the first thirty miles, but by the time we reached the first feed zone, guys were dropping out of the race!  Myself, and one other rider worked together to get to the finish, even though we knew the race was an hour up the road.  We pressed on, climb after climb, dirt road after dirt road, both having the same mentality that giving up wasn’t an option.  Along the course, I saw riders with flat tires, broken wheels and broken dreams, as their Battenkill race was abruptly ended.  I had a working bike, and my legs were still turning, so there was no reason for me to quit.  As we approached Meeting House road, I was dropped by my “wingman”, unable to hold his pace.  I pressed on anyway, dragging my body over the climb, and down the descent to the final feed zone at the 62 mile mark.   I grabbed a water and Accelerade from a support feed and continued to ride the final 20 miles to the finish.  Looking at a cheat sheet on my top tube, using some landmarks I had seen while driving the course, I knew the final stair step dirt climb up Stage Road was near.  As hit the base of the climb, I was out of the saddle, mouth open, turning the pedals at a slow but manageable cadence.  I was passed by a JR race (probably 17-18 judging by their excessive foul mouthed remarks which I won’t repeat) and looked on, as the future of US cycling left me in the dust.  But still, I pressed on as I finally made it to the summit of the climb, I tucked down into the drops and made my descent into town.

The crowd in Cambridge was huge, all waiting for the arrival of the races that had departed hours ago.  As I made the final turn with 200 meters to go, I felt a huge sense of relief and accomplishment that I was able to make it back safely and finish such an epic day of racing that could have easily ended early.  Completely covered in dust, sweat, and salt I made my way back to the car to clean up, replaying the whole race in my head over and over again.  My teammates, who finished and hour before me, were happy to see I made it through without incident.  I was completely exhausted as we talked about our day in the saddle, reliving everything that had happened.  I had finished the race, dead last, but finished none the less and took the experience home with me.  For a race that was completely out of my comfort zone, I can say I did alright and would actually consider going back to do it again soon.  This race is downright awesome, enough said.

Important Tips For Riding Indoors This Winter
Now that winter has arrived, it’s time to start thinking about maximizing your training.  You’re probably wondering, “how is this possible”?  The days are shorter, the temps are much lower, and group rides are almost non-existent.  Most professional cyclists are able to gallivant across the globe to warmer climates, but not you.  You don’t have that luxury, most of us don’t, so you need to focus on making the best of your situation.   Riding indoors is the only option when the weather gets foul, and can be more beneficial than you think.  When you are riding indoors, it’s easier to control important performance variables such as intensity of effort, cadence, gearing selection, heart rate and power-if you have a power meter.  Controlling these variables enables you to dial-in precise workloads during training and measure the effectiveness of your training program. 

TYPES OF TRAINERS:
There are a couple of trainer options available, the most common are wind, magnetic, and fluid trainers.  With a wind trainer, your rear wheel hooks up to a roller and uses wind  to create resistance.  Cycleops, Blackburn and Minoura offer wind trainers at an affordable price!  The magnetic and fluid models work similarly to the wind option, but provide a much quieter ride. (9 out of 10 roommates, spouses, and companions will agree especially during those early morning training workouts!) There are also Virtual reality trainers available that offer the rider a simulated workout.  These workouts can be tailored to that particular athletes fitness goals and make for a more enjoyable setting than just watching the TV or listening to music.  Virtual software allows you to race other riders, change weather, chart your own course, and even race against yourself!  One of the most popular virtual trainers available is the Fortius Virtual Trainer, from TACX.   Those who prefer to have a real road feel without being bound to a trainer will ride Rollers.  Rollers allow you to work on your balance and will greatly improve your spinning technique, however, out of the saddle sprints are not recommended.  The ELITE Arion rollers offer a built step for easy mounting and dismounting and fold up easily!  At the Caffeinated Cyclist, we have all types of trainers to fit your budget, just stop in and ask one of knowledgeable sales team members!

PROPER ENVIRONMENT:
Once we’ve determined which indoor trainer is right for you, it’s important to make sure that you have the proper environment set up for your trainer exercises.  Make sure your area is large enough to accommodate you trainer with the bicycle.  You will need a riser block for your front wheel, and if your area has hard wood floors, we recommend you place a trainer mat underneath the bicycle to prevent any damage to the floor.  Be sure you can also accommodate a fan to circulate cool air during your workout, this will prevent you from overheating.  Be sure to drape a towel over your handlebars, this will help you keep your face free of perspiration while you’re exercising.  Remember to keep a bottle or two nearby to keep hydrated, use water or your favorite sports drink if wish.  Be sure to drink 16-24 oz of fluid every hour or more, especially since you’ll be indoors.  If you don’t have adequate space for your trainer, some gyms will allow you to use it in their facilities (remember to ask permission first).  An indoor cycling studio, like CycleOn Studio’s in Sicklerville, NJ, is also an option if you can’t workout at home.  Aside from spin bikes, CycleOn Studio has Kurt Kinetic Rock and Roll trainers available for cyclists to set up their own bikes for workouts.(be sure to sure to find out first if the studio of your choice can accommodate your bike).

KEEP IT FUN, BUT REMEMBER YOUR GOALS:
Sure, sitting on the trainer and watching American Idol is great, but don’t forget you have a workout to do.  Start with a warm up, about 5-10 minutes of light spinning.  This will get you loosened up for the workout.  You can make it interesting by incorporating cadence drills by increasing RPM’s every minute or so ( 60 at 110, then 60 at 120 etc.).  Repeating these drills will help you keep the bouncing to a minimum and improve your pedal stroke during those road rides.  Once you’ve got your drill work down, you can move on to any interval training to increase endurance.  There are training DVD’s available by CTS to help you with your interval workout if you don’t have a coach or training plan available.  Indoor cycling studios are great because they offer a fast paced workout that will keep your mind from wandering!  So don’t get discouraged when the weather gets extremely cold, there’s plenty of ways to keep you motivated and in shape this winter.  If you’re not sure how to get started, stop in today and we’ll get you on the path to success this season!

Cold Weather Riding

The cold weather has arrived, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a great ride outside.  There’s nothing like waking up in the morning, gearing up for your ride, only to step outside and realize it was colder than you thought.  Before you get on the bike, make sure you’re equipped with the gear you need to enjoy your ride rather than cutting the ride short.  Here’s a list of some things you may want to add to your checklist before you head out.

Base Layer – It doesn’t matter how tightly bundled you think you are, a base layer is a must before any cold weather riding.  The base layer is the layer that is closest to the body.  In cold weather, the body sweats the same as it would in the warm weather, but as we all know, moisture against the skin in cold weather only makes you colder.  The base layer is designed to pull moisture away from the skin, keeping you drier and warmer.  Your body creates heat that escapes through the base layer, but with the proper layering, the heat is kept within the base layer.

Hands & Feet – You have to brake, shift, and pedal right?  Your hands and feet are definitely parts of your body you should pay extra special attention to, especially in the cold.  Companies such as Pearl Izumi, Castelli, Glacier Glove, and Giro make several different models of gloves depending on how “hardcore” you are.  Once you’ve picked out the right gloves, don’t be so quick to forget about your feet.  Your warm weather riding shoes will work, but your feet will be cold minutes into the ride.  If you’re riding this winter, companies such as Pearl Izumi, Mavic, and Castelli offer shoe coffers which are designed to protect your feet from the cold and wind.  Winter riding boots are also a great option to protect your feet from the elements.  They are insulated and water proof, keeping you warm and dry throughout your ride!  Look for these boots by Mavic and SIDI!

Protect Your Head – Most of your body’s heat is lost through your head.  Your cold weather beanie is just too fat to fit under your helmet, so what do you do?  Ear bands are warm but balaclavas are warmer!  A balaclava is a form of cloth headgear that covers your entire head with only your face exposed.  Some balaclavas cover your entire head leaving the eyes, nose, and mouth and sometimes just the eyes and mouth exposed.  Any helmet should fit comfortably over a balaclava.

Cream – No, not the song released by our favorite hip hop group in 1994 or even the stuff you put in your coffee.  We’re talking about warming cream.  Warming cream isn’t necessary, but on the colder days you may want to take that extra step and apply warming cream to your legs.  On days that its extra cold or breezy out, warming cream will keep your legs warm and depending on the application, hot.  Not only will the warming cream keep you physical temperature warm it’ll also keep your muscles loose.  So if you have a flat or some other mechanical problem, you will stay nice and loose.  Adding leg warmers, or leg tights combined with warming cream will keep you well protected from the elements!

For all those people who love outdoor riding, winter riding is an animal in itself.  Don’t hesitate to make as many stops as you’d like for coffee, tea, or any other warm beverage.  Bundle up and stay warm out there.  Spring will come before you know it!