New Go Full Gas site

Please check out this location for more recent blog posts. I've switched to wordpress for better/ easier design. Of course, just click on the links on the left for current pricing of my coaching programs.Thanks!

Road Climbing Tips

As road cyclists, it's inevitable that we will come upon hills steep or long enough to be categorized as "climbs". This doesn't mean necessarily that we're talking the Alpes or Rocky Mountains here, but enough that you have to shift into the little ring or dig deep out of the saddle. And while there are some who would categorize themselves as sprinters, for the fact that they can't climb alone, disregarding a similar inability to sprint past snails, everyone can use tips for getting to the top, and over it, as quickly as possible. As Greg Lemond has said "(Climbing) never gets easier, you just go faster".

These tips are applicable to any group riding scenario, be it a training ride or race. The goal is to stay with the riders at the front, or ride off the front yourself. The first tip I have is for managing to hang on to a group going harder than your comfort zone.

For short and steep hills, it is best to dig deep and use whatever power you have at your disposal to make it to the top with the group. The riders will probably take a deep breath for a quick recovery and you will be right with them. If there is any gap at all, they will be starting to ramp it up again just as you arrive and you'll lose any time to catch your breath.

For longer hills, you should focus on climbing within yourself, at threshold, but not above. If you dig too deep and crack, what was a small gap will quickly increase beyond your ability to control it. Save your energy for bridging the gap once you are over the top.

Now, if you are the rider at the front, you need to be able to put the others into discomfort and soften them up for the end of the ride/race. For short hills, attack as hard as you can sustain to the top of the hill and beyond. The climb doesn't end as soon as you cover the crest. In my opinion, the climb doesn't end until you have begun either the next climb or a descente. I always think of the Zen quote "when you get to the top, keep climbing". If you attack so hard that you crack on the topside, then you've gone too hard.

This is true for the longer hills as well. Just like those that don't handle the climbs as well, if you start off too hard and crack, you will lost contact with the other climbers or slow the pace such that the non-climbers can hang on. Keep the pace hard while alternating in and out of the saddle tempo changes to throw off others rhythm. From here, attack over the top to further distance those being gapped and to keep the pace high as the group, or yourself alone, come over hill crest.

Lastly, just as you've come over the top, take one huge deep breathe to get maximum oxygen into your lungs and legs. This can also help to stabilize your breathing and accelerate your recovery.

Philadelphia International Airport

I rode down to the airport for a nice lunch time ride. After yesterday's hard sprint workout, I wasn't sure what my legs would be up for. I was initially thinking to ride two hours medium tempo; a couple laps of the airport plus a lap in the Heinz Wildlife Refuge. Once I got down the airport though my legs were feeling good and medium tempo turned into a solid 20 minutes at hard tempo, just under threshold. 10 minutes recovery took me perfectly back to the beginning of the loop so I figured 3 x 20's were in order. The second 20 was very hard right at threshold while the third 20 was difficult, and not quite as hard power wise. Now that I'm home and have had a great post ride recovery smoothie, my legs are really unhappy I made them do that. Unfortunately, I might not get out at all tomorrow, so this was too good an opportunity to miss.

Bear MTN

I've had great experiences at this race, as well as some of the worst. I was beginning to think that it was the cold and rain of the past few years ruining my ability to do well, and that this years good weather was going to bode well for me. Unfortunately, good weather or no, lack of climbing legs is the first thing that took me out of contention. Wow, this was a hard and fast race. I felt great the first two laps, easily staying with the field up the main climb and the subsequent rollers. However, gravity and time took their toll and I lost them at the beginning of lap three's long climb. I stuck it out and completed two more laps mostly solo before pulling the plug when my body just shut down. Too much sugar and no good solid food was not making me happy! I have an idea again of what I'm training for and have motivation and high expectations for the coming race at Bear MTN in September.

Good top ten list

Here is a list of things to think about as you are preparing your race season, setting goals, and developing as a racer. Click through for the article at saris.com

Memorial Hall Criterium

Go Full Gas athletes had a successful weekend of racing, with stellar results to show for it. Craig Lebair doubled up, racing the cat 3/4 and the 1/2/3, navigating the rain and riders crashing, with a field sprint win for third place in the 3/4 and holding tight in the 1/2/3 for a 21st place, totaling some 2.5 hours of racing! Mike Csuy raced both the 45+ and the cat 3/4. Even though he has a great sprint, he isn't afraid to work in a breakaway, and was endlessly attacking or bridging up to potential moves. However, most of the races resulted in field sprints and Mike took 5th in the 45+ and worked hard in the 3/4 to help set up Craig for the sprint.
In the Woman's 1/2/3 Kelley Bethoney belied her sprinters legs with multiple moves off the front, ending up with a 10th place sprint in the field, for 13th overall after three women broke off the front early on.
Yours truly survived after a week without training and worked to set up Craig for the sprint, chasing down breaks and keeping the tempo high. Unfortunately, I didn't have legs for the last two laps to chase down the two riders who broke away at the end.

Drives Ride

I did the drives ride this week, not really meeting up with anyone in particular, but I ran in to Woody and Dan, Ashley D., and a handful of others. Woody and I discussed ways we could save the Philly International Pro Race. Fortunately, they didn't need our help.
I realized that, while it is a good workout, the benefits (hard effort, race pace, ?) don't outweigh the negatives (too big a group, lack of competitiveness, sketchiness, guaranteed crash, etc) for me on that ride. The AM sprint workout is harder, more race like, and even more competitive, for a more all around effort. And the smaller groups means there's no hiding.

Lower Providence Race Report

Craig Matt H and I lined up with one goal, deliver Craig to the line for the field sprint. We weren’t terribly concerned with breakaways, but we weren’t going to let something silly get away, like a group of 10 or something. The race was mostly status quo, save for the bakers dozen QCW riders at the line. Literally, thirteen of them. They raced smart and repeatedly counter attacked until they finally got two riders up the road, Sean and Tyler I believe. They only had 5-10 seconds for a few laps, and I wasn’t too worried about it. I asked Craig if he preferred I work to chase them down or save it for the lead out, as I only would have juice for one or the other.
Since he chose the lead out I just decided to forget about them. I was still surprised that the other larger teams couldn’t put a chase together. Everyone seemed to think they could bridge solo, instead of working together. With the windy course, that wasn’t going to happen. Due to the wind though, drafting was very key to staying safe, as there was a head or crosswind on three sides of the course. I think this was a factor in lots of people getting dropped.
What finally gave the break the last little push it needed to succeed was a terribly disgusting sounding crash, that I could hear echoing off of the buildings before I could hear the sound directly. I was in second wheel with Craig dutifully right behind me and all of a sudden there was the tell tale metal crunching, tire popping, brake squeeking nastiness of a multi-rider pile up. Matt H crushed some guy after sending his own bike (and Craigs wheels) sailing through the air. He was able to walk away thankfully. This happened in the right shoulder cross wind section and resulted from over lapped wheels.
So we’re down to the last three laps. Craig knows to hang onto my wheel like he owns it. We are doing a great job staying at the front and playing it smart and safe. We’re coming into the last lap and Craig starts telling me “all the way around, keep it up”. As a couple guys had tried attacking already on this lap, I was thinking “Okay this is it, grit your teeth and go”. I dial it up, not sure if it was actually fast, or just painful. I take it around two damn corners into the finishing straight. I’m thinking with Craig in second wheel I’m gonna drop him off too early. But I dig deep and start sprinting. I’m dying, digging so deep I can’t think. I shift it two gears harder. Out of the saddle not even looking ahead.
I can’t believe Craig hasn’t come around. In fact, no one has. Is Craig letting me take third?
RING RING RING RING RING goes the bell signaling last lap. FUCK!
I pull off, apologize to Craig for being a total idiot and leave him to fend for himself. I swallow the puke in my mouth, cool down for two laps, and go straight to the car and drink six beers while watching the ladies race.

Early Riding

Got up early to meet Mike C. to ride for a couple hours. Here's the sun rising behind the city and my big head. We headed out W. River and did six of the eight hills on the usual ride out to Conshohocken and back. Keeping a steady tempo, we were back at the Art Museum bu 8:15, a solid 1h45 of riding and a total of 2h15 for me, after a super hard 2 hours the day previous. I've had a nice two easy days since and I'm ready to tear up the wet roads tomorrow. I'm going to head over to NJ for the UNO ride, I hope there's someone else with the same idea!

New Mobile Site

You can now access the basic details of my coaching fees via your mobile phone. Go to http://gofullgas.everywhereigo.com/ to view.
This is a cool new mobile application that optimizes your mobile browser viewing and even has a fully integrated direct customer marketing tool, that I won't be using mind you, but has lots of interesting opportunities.

No rest for the weary

This past weekend was the 2-Day Philly Cycling Classic, hosted by Philadelphia Ciclismo and Cadence Cycling. I did both days of racing, working really hard for the team sprinters, Dan and Mike. With this new onset of allergies, I barely scraped together five hours of sleep the past four nights but I managed to get up this morning for the usual sprint workout in Fairmount Park.
Surprisingly, I actually rode stronger today than I did this past weekend. I handily crushed two of the seven sprints, attacked hard a couple times, and generally worked my butt off.
Now I find myself incredibly exhausted at work, after three cups of coffee to try and prop me up until 6:30. Yikes.
I am excited about my new team and the guys I'll be racing with, people I will work hard for and will work hard for me. I look forward to this racing season for sure!

Tuesday AM Sprints

Today was a great workout. It was only the second Tuesday that we have done these this year but already we had nine riders show up. Some new faces, some returning riders, and riders with varying fitness and handling skills, but all with the same ultimate goal: Get in shape, make improvements, and become a better rider.
I am excited to have joined the Philadelphia Ciclismo team for 2009 as I am making great new friends to ride with and hopefully hang out with in normal clothes at some point too.
After todays ride I am experiencing something new, fatigued forearms. I've had this happen after really hard training blocks in the past, but not after just two hard rides. Holy cow. Just sitting here my legs and arms are letting me know today was a tough workout.
I am excited to race with Dan and Csuy this year, as both have complementary characteristics with me and we should be able to have some good results together. With Craig hanging tight for the crit sprints, we should have all of our bases covered.

University of Delaware Road Race Report

Tim, Dan and I discussed what our tactics were going to be for the road race as we were waiting for the start. Our initial idea was to mark attacks and sit in, to not initiate anything, but not to let the race go away without one of us. Somehow, I ended up taking care of that for everyone.
Off the start line a Boston U rider went up the road and I rolled around some people to stay with him. I wasn’t thinking breakaway at this point, just stay at the front of the field. But only one rider came with me. I pulled through on the Boston rider and we started a tentative paceline, but it quickly dissolved as the other two were concerned about going 68 miles off the front. I tried to tell them that there was no way other riders weren’t going to bridge up and that the break was the place to be, but they drifted back anyway. They seemed to think that you have to go either 110% or not at all.
In breaks during road races, there is more time for things to play out, so you don’t have to go full gas from the gun. There wasn’t one time in the break that I was holding on for dear life. Honestly, I think it was easier up front than it was in the pack. Dan mentioned there were times when he thought he was going to get shelled, and he is much better fitness than I. The break was smooth, throughout the course, and except for a lack of fitness, I didn’t find it that hard.
Just as I anticipated, a tall Rutgers guy came up with another rider and the three of us were now the break. Then a Vermont rider came cruising past all of us, followed by Bucknell and Columbia towing up the smaller Vermont guy with the orange sunglasses. Once we came together, we were eight riders, including John Hunter from Temple, with 30-50 seconds on the main field.
As we made it into lap two, I was trying to take it easy since I knew my fitness wasn’t as great as the other guys. I was climbing as well, and taking strong pulls, but I knew that I would crack after two hours at pace. I’ve done 3.5/4.5 hour rides, but nothing with three hours sustained intensity.
For the most part, everyone rode smart and kept the paceline smooth. The orange glasses UVM rider was touching everybody the whole time. I thought I was the only one, but John mentioned the same. I guess he’s trying to do what he sees in the pro races. My advice, unless you know someone, don’t touch them. That goes in the supermarket, the bus, in night clubs, and it goes in bike races. He would push me when I was in the slow lane coming back down the paceline. Apparently I was bugging the Bucknell and Columbia riders too, as they were making remarks. Eventually, I decided that if they were so annoyed, I would just ride in the back and stop pulling.
Unfortunately I made a rookie move and wasn’t paying attention as a gap was opening up in front of the Rutgers rider. John chastised him a bit and jumped across while I was too slow getting on his wheel. He was able to make it across but I was slammed in the headwind. Once they made the right hand turn into the tailwind it was all over.
I should have sat up then and worked with the Rutgers rider, but I kept going until I had totally cramped up. But I still managed to hold off the field for another half lap, managing to stay with them until the final hill. I rode the last three miles in solo after that. All in all a great course, great training, and good times on the bike.

Post race thoughts and learning points

First and foremost, thanks to everyone who cheered. I’m sorry I couldn’t get there earlier to watch everyone else race. And since I barely finished even a third of either race, this isn’t go to be much of a race report, but I did learn/ re-learn a lot this weekend that may be of help, so I’m going to share my thoughts.

General
Make sure your race bag is packed with all the clothing you will need for any weather situation.
This means shoe covers, leg warmers, knee warmers, arm warmers, long sleeve jersey, 2 short sleeve jerseys, 2 pair bibshorts, rain jacket, wind vest, gloves, long finger gloves, sunglasses with clear, red, and dark lenses, visor cycling cap, helmet, shoes, and 3 pair of socks (thin, medium and warm).
This seems like a lot of redundancy but you never know what the weather is like 1-2 hours away and storms can blow through pretty fast too.

Warm up longer for shorter races, and always warm up. Don’t be afraid to warm up a lot before a 60-90 minute race (or even longer) Think of your hard weekend rides, say the Vino Velo or whatever. It’s a three hour ride that can end pretty hard like a race. You know you can finish strong after all that. So you’re not gonna ruin your legs by warming up for an hour before a race.

Remember to eat and drink. But most importantly, find what works best for you and practice it. Know what food and drink you need before during and after races and make sure you pack the night before.

Always find at least one positive thing from your race to commend yourself on. Even if it seems really lame, like lasting a whole five minutes longer that you did the day before. There’s always plenty of negative, even if you win, so just don’t forget the positive points too, because you’ll learn from these points as well.

Weekend Races Specific
Crit was damn hard, having to sprint from the start to the 90 degree turn and then the 100 meter climb. Position at the start was key, and this was something that I blew. Probably wouldn’t have made a difference, but still. Make sure you do whatever you can to get good field position at the start; and don’t blow it by not being able to clip into your pedals and sprint at the gun. Maybe you should practice doing this.

Practice cornering at speed. Read how-to manuals, watch videos, race your friends. Cornering is a skill that can be developed. It’s not your bike, your fitness, your wheels; it’s your mind. Take your hands off the brakes, put your outside foot down and look through the corner and steer your bike to where your eyes are looking.

If you get gapped sit up and wait for the group behind you. Recover and be ready to get in behind them as they pass. Theres almost always someone behind you and you’ll be happier at least continuing and trying to finish than just quitting the race.

The circuit race was very dynamic with short risers into a strong headwind while the downhill section on the backside had a strong tailwind. It’s important to know where the wind is coming from and this is something you should always ask yourself until it is second sense to you. “where is the wind coming from, where is the draft, which way should I pull off the front”. Once this is second nature, you’ll be amazed at how much of a better rider you are in the pack.

So in a headwind the bunch slows down because no one wants to work. The pack spreads across the whole road and you can’t pass anyone or get stuck as riders jam on the brakes. And when the pack gets to the tailwind section the pack gets back up to speed and you’re hanging on for dear life. So how do you ever change position in the pack?

Corners- take the inside line and sprint up the inside. Works best when the wind is coming from the other side of the field.

Tailwind- There will always be someone else trying to advance their position. Hop on their wheel and follow them as far as they go and pass them to advance further if necessary. This may be the only time the field is narrow enough to not be spread across the whole road and your only option. Of course, if you’re strong enough, you can do it with out drafting.

If it is a cross tailwind, try to advance on the side of the field where the wind is coming from. Working with teammates, you should offer to help advance a teammate to get them to the front, especially if field splits are happening. You don’t want to be left in the field as the escape group heads up the road without your team in it.

That’s about all I have right now. It’s a good exercise to write your thoughts down after races and review them before the next race. Then you can set goals based on the previous experience to try to improve.

Thanks again and keep on getting better.

Riding the trainer

I have been putting more time in on the trainer lately, for a couple reasons. First, the weather hasn't been great. Second, time has been short with both school and part time work. Lastly, I am getting over a cold, so my time is best spent indoors right now. I have a great workout I've been doing that my friend Mike sent me and I have been modifying it depending on the day to suit my training needs.
Power intervals- cadence greater than 105 rpms
3 minutes on max power, 3 minutes off, , 7 reps for 21 min total effort at max, 1.5 hrs total with 30 minutes warmup and 20 minutes cool down.
What's great about this is that 3 minutes is pretty easy to hammer out, even at max intensity. And 3 minutes is just enough recovery time. And the interval is short enough to not let your mind wander too much.
I like these for preparing for breakaway training, chases, and last lap lead outs.
Best, Coach Brian