Training

Get back into biking!

Seattle Bicycle's new Escargot Series: We don't do these every week but several times a month. The reason I was thinking that they might be of interest to your readers is that we are attracting a lot of women to this new series and a lot of cyclists that haven't been on a bike in 5-10 years or more so they work well to get people back to exercising. See to read an article that the Seattle Times did an article on the excitement of this new ride series.

For free online training, check out Coach Carl Online. He has a wealth of information, including training tips and bike maintenance tips. Here is an excerpt:

What Is Spinning

Basically, spinning is maintaining a cadence of at least 70 revolutions per minute. By this, we mean the revolution of one crank arm or leg. If you drop below 70 rpms, you are "pushing" or "big gear mashing." The reason most people prefer to spin is because it provides a more fluid pedal stroke which saves energy, maintains a more even and regular pace, and increases riding endurance. Most people don't realize that it also improves bike handling, especially under emergency circumstances. To understand why and how spinning does these things, we turn to science. The Science of SpinningOne of the things you learn when studying kinesiology (biomechanics) is that the muscle cells in a muscle do not all contract or "fire" at the same time. If they did, we would have full contraction of every muscle every time we tried to use it. Every muscle contraction would be so intense and violent that we would beat ourselves to death everytime we tried to move any part of our bodies. We would tear muscles, tear tendons away from the bones, and even crush bones with every attempt to move.To prevent all of these not-so-good things from happening, the nervous system only stimulates certain cells at a given point in the range of movement for that muscle. In other words, when you start to contract the biceps brachii (the large muscle of the upper arm which moves the lower arm towards the shoulder commonly referred to as the biceps) of the arm, only a small percentage of the cells begin to contract in a controlled manner as the forearm starts moving towards the shoulder. As the forearm continues moving towards the shoulder, the nervous system continues to stimulate more cells causing the arm to continue moving. This movement will continue until either the nervous system quits stimulating more cells or the biceps muscle becomes fully contracted.

TRAINING FOR FURNACE CREEK 508: SOLO AND TEAM

By John Hamster Hughes, 1989 and 1993 solo winner
Reprinted with permission by John Hamster.

When I coach clients for distance events, I divide their training into four phases, each with a different purpose:

- Building your base takes three to six months, during which all riders, solo and team, build endurance for long rides.
- Intensity, lasting two to three months, is when you develop your speed for fast rides.
- Peaking, four to six weeks, when your training becomes very race specific through long, fast rides.
- Tapering for two weeks, when you store energy for the big weekend.

For solo and team riders the first phase, Building your Base, is the same. The succeeding phases are more specific to the race and thus differ for solo and team riders. I'll discuss training for solo rider first, then team riders.

Building your base: endurance for long rides.
Over this three to six month period your volume gradually increases. You should do two endurance rides each week. One should be a long ride on the weekend, starting with a century and gradually increasing the distance of your long rides until a double century is a comfortable distance. The second ride should be at least three hours long, increasing to about 100 miles by the end of this phase. This ride should be done mid-week to allow adequate recovery by the weekend. Use lights if necessary; one-third of the 508 is ridden at night. In addition you should do two or three shorter rides during the week, including a couple of hilly rides. Don't worry about pace during this phase.

More...

Building muscle mass for biking, an article from City Sports online magazine.

Gym work: What to Do This article has good information about what helps in the gym.

Places to bike

links moved here

 

People to bike with

Women's Exercise Network forum is for exactly this. There are a lot of people looking at this site, so chances are if you are looking for a cycling team or partner, someone or some team is looking for you.