One of the secrets to riding to your potential is to be able to create a state of flow. Flow describes being fully immersed in what you are doing, where time flies, and your level of competence matches the challenge. It is a highly absorbing state, and a beautiful one to be in. The overriding basis for flow is that of being ‘non-grasping’ to the end product or outcome, and purely focused on the process. For example, maintaining focus on your breathing, posture and cadence, rather than focusing on being at the top of the hill. In this way logical steps take over and flow is created. Aside from focusing on the process, there are several other key factors that can help you get out of your own way. They will increase your chances of reaching flows optimal state and ensure you continually improve to allow you to ride to your potential.

Let go of judgments

Before you do anything, your emotional brain filters and judges your ability to do that thing you are about to do. How do you let go of this? Remind yourself that having an opinion about what you are doing serves absolutely no purpose. As an example, judging your ability to ride close to others in a bunch serves you no benefit. If you catch yourself doing this, let go of these thoughts by replacing them with process thoughts such as ‘relax shoulders, look where I am going.’

When you replace judgment thoughts with process thoughts, there is no room for judgment. You cannot think of those two things at once.

Routine

Our bodies love routine as this is rooted in our hormones, which have their own routine, regulating our bodies’ rhythm. When you create routines you are in harmony with your natural rhythms. Positive routines are those that move you closer to what you want. Having a solid routine of commuting by bike or training, and using skillful organisation and planning, moves you closer to your goal. It sets up ideal conditions to create flow. Your body knows and expects that at this time of day you will be riding.

Prioritize
When you want to achieve flow you need to set up the conditions to help you achieve it. Choosing to get up early before work and go riding is prioritizing riding over sleep and if you are going to do this, then prioritize further by training to achieve 100% gains in improvement in that session.

Stop before you need to

By setting aside a small amount of time to train, you don’t waste time. You want to have ‘golden minutes,’ and by always creating conditions whereby you stop before you need to, you keep enthusiasm and thirst for future training.

Remove distractions

Busy traffic routes, iPods or mobile phones can be very distracting. Plan quiet routes and put your phone on silent to remove distractions and ensure there is no engagement with the outside world that could draw you into thinking about things other than your cycling, that may ultimately prevent flow.

Intention

The last condition is intention. If you give yourself fully to an activity it is easier to initiate flow. You can do this by setting an intention. As an example, if I am going to have only 60 minutes to ride, my intention is quality training, not distracting myself with thoughts of my day. Having an intention of quality training, and of flow, switches on your mind and body to create this ideal state.

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The art of coffee riding
Brake well, ride well

Braking, the act of slowing down is not just a single action of pulling on your brake levers. There are a number of thoughts and actions that contribute to slowing your bike to the speed you need it to be. When riding alone, or in a cycling bunch with others, being able to slow your bike without pulling your brake levers helps you enjoy a smoother ride. The following are four simple but effective cycling tips to brake well and ride well.

Slow before you need to
Looking well up the road ahead of you will help anticipate any need to slow down. If you see traffic lights, an intersection or know there is sharp corner coming up, you can start to slow by stopping your pedalling action rather than pulling on your brake levers. If you are riding behind others you can edge your wheel into the wind to slow your speed. If you are riding on the drops of your handlebars or on the brake hoods, you can move your hands to the handlebar tops, to create extra wind resistance to slow you down.

Using your brake levers
Use your brake levers smoothly, gently squeezing them. Your front brake is your power brake and your back brake is less strong in slowing you down. Do not be scared of your front brake. Yes, if you rapidly squeeze only your front brake like the trigger of a gun it can flip you over the handlebars, but this is your strongest braking option so don’t be afraid to use it gently in conjunction with your rear brake.

Pulse brake
When riding in wet conditions always remember to pulse-brake. That is to pull both brake levers towards your handlebars for a few seconds and then release your grip on the levers, before pulling on them again. The first time pulling on the brake levers will not slow you down, but clears the water off the wheel rim so when you pull again, the brake pad will grab the newly dried rim.

Descending and cornering
When zooming down hills or through corners, it is preferable to brake before cornering. By doing this you will adjust your speed when still riding in a straight line, allowing you to naturally flow through the corner without the need for braking while actually cornering. If you brake while leaning your bike into the corner, this action will pull you away from your intended direction making cornering and descending difficult.

By following these four simple cycling tips you can effectively brake when riding by yourself or with others and enjoy a smooth ride.

Previous posts:
The art of coffee riding
For the house to appear, change has to happen

I had just returned home from a four-hour ride in the green hills of the Waitakere ranges and found there was no food left in the house. While my brain became foggy and my movements jerky, I stared at the empty cupboards hoping something might appear. Then, sitting down at the kitchen table, I looked at the clock in despair… it would be a full two hours until my flat-mates got home from work and we would be off to do our Monday night supermarket shop. And thank goodness for the flat bank account for I had no money.

My energy-depleted muscles were desperate. It was then I spotted the jar containing that stuff that smelled nice but did not taste good. I figured ‘what the hell,’ I have no other options, so I stuffed a couple of teaspoons of instant coffee into a cup of hot water along with a couple of teaspoons of sugar. And thus it began… fourteen-years later instant coffee is not allowed in my house, only the finest espresso.

Cycling and coffee are best friends. Perhaps it is because of the social nature of both, or the performance-enhancing benefits of the latter? Whatever the case, there is an art to coffee riding. To make it a good one some conditions are essential, otherwise it is like drinking a fine wine out of a marmite jar: the ride is just not the same. Below are some crucial things to consider when coffee riding, to ensure you have a great experience:

• Best-served coffee rides are with friends and take in either scenic routes with sea views, beautiful landscapes or highly interesting urban craziness where you play pedestrian-dodge like a nervous mosquito.
• Pre-plan the café and acquire word of mouth recommendations. A café with a sunny outdoor area to sit, with your bike near, is always a bonus. Nothing ruins a coffee ride more than having to walk home afterwards.
• Check other patron’s coffees for dark creamy crèmes. This can be disguised as though you are hunting for the right vacant table.

If you see latte cups the size of a baby’s bath and bright white milky froth sticking up like curious dog-ears, run (or ride)! Commit this to memory: quantity does not make up for quality.

• Before committing to sitting down check the brand of beans they are using. Scroll back through your memory banks. Have you had that brand before? Was it good?
• Don’t be afraid to back up the truck. If you are not satisfied with the patron-crème-check, or the beans they are using, turn the other way and walk out of there, fast. Do not worry what the café staff may think with their queried looks at your sharp exit. Your taste buds and your coffee riding experience, are at stake.
• Drink and enjoy your coffee at a pace not too slow nor too fast. Reflect on the ride you just did or the latest pro-cyclist whose freaky genetics allowed them to do inconceivable things at the most recent UCI race.

Finally, roll home in the after glow of fine caffeine and be sure to go forth and explore more cafés. Don’t always go to the same place. Your taste buds will appreciate the adventure of somewhere new, just like taking a new ride route. Most importantly, report back and share the coffee goodness for all of us to enjoy.

When building a house, wishing for it to just suddenly materialise will not make it happen. For the house to appear change has to happen! You must have a blue-print. The builder has to come, the nails have to be hammered, and the plumber and electrician have to do their thing. It is the same with cycling. Improvement has to involve pre-planned intentional practice. You cannot ride the same way every week and expect your cycling to improve. For change to happen you must have a plan and put it into action!

It is easy to fall into the trap of seeking improvement by repeating the same training over and over again. This will seldom bring improvement, but we often continue like this anyway. We can stay trapped in this stagnant nature for many years, wishing for the house to appear, and not realising why it does not. In this situation the ups and downs of our performance are purely based on random events such as the weather, holidays away from the bike, our friends’ freshness or how refuelled our muscles or minds may be on any particular ride.

There is a simple five-step process to get yourself out of this common trap:

1. Establish a benchmark for where you are at a given time in your training and how you would rate improvement. More simply put, what would your success or improvement look like? Success might be winning a race, conquering a hill climb or being able to finish the ride with your friends. The definition of success is different for different people.
2. Gain knowledge of what you need to do to close the gap between where you are and achieving your measure of success or improvement.
3. Build yourself a plan of changes to put into action; like the blue-print to build that house.
4. Execute the plan and keep a record of how you go.
5. Review your progress against your initial benchmarks from step 1. What has improved, and by how much? Are further changes needed? If so start again at step one.

It does not matter if you want to do some renovations or build an entirely new mansion. Whatever the case, the steps above are essential otherwise nothing will appear and you will be consistently dwelling on why you aren’t improving. If you want to improve your cycling take the steps to create the blue-print and make it happen.

Related posts:

The first time, every time

Getting started

When you are training to achieve a goal you must do a certain amount of riding that pushes you beyond your current cycling-fitness level. Going beyond your current level induces changes in your lungs, legs and muscles, and these changes increase your level of cycling-fitness. But what how much and what is the physical training that will help you to achieve your cycling goal? Let’s start by looking at the frequency, or how often you need to ride your bike each week.

How often you need to ride will first and foremost depend on your goal. If your goal is to enjoy a cruise with your friends once a week then riding once a week might be sufficient. Unfortunately, riding once a week will not significantly improve your riding performance, but you will be achieving your goal — to enjoy a cruise with your friends.

Riding twice a week will maintain your current level of fitness. However, if you want to improve your cycling fitness, then riding three days a week is necessary, with the content of those three sessions changing every week. In later articles we will explore how you can do this.

With as little as four days in a row off riding your bicycle you will start to lose your cycling fitness. “I’ll start Monday” is something I often hear. Do not start Monday. Start now. Do just one thing to move you closer to your goal. Even if it’s not riding but instead booking time in your schedule to ride, organising a baby sitter or friends to ride with. Be proactive and don’t start Monday.

If you are training for an event that is 100+kilometres in length then four or even five training sessions a week are ideal as this provides a regular and therefore much larger training stimulus to improve your fitness. This can be logistically difficult and may mean that you need to make changes in your daily routine. So, when goal-setting, this illustrates that not only must you decide what you want to achieve but also consider how setting out to achieve it will impact your day-to-day life.

Begin training toward your goal by increasing your sessions incrementally. You may already ride twice a week so start with this and then build in one more day every two to four weeks. Gradual changes are much more sustainable than trying to jump ahead to the ideal situation right away. And it’s important to allow the other aspects of your life to adjust to your new routine. Going from black to white, or no training to four times a week will guarantee a struggle and possibly failure.

You will definitely achieve your cycling-fitness goals with suitable physical training and it starts by making sure you are training frequently enough. In later articles we will explore what you do in those sessions and how long you should ride for.

Related articles:

Getting started

Adventure on two wheels

I have never possessed the kind of wondrous natural talent that would let me skip over hills as if on an easy Sunday ride. If I am to get over a long climb, or a series of them, I have to train hard and suffer often. However, there is one thing I know. If I am still there with the leaders at the end of a race I have a really good chance of turning that race into a win. When I became strong and fit enough to be there at the finish of a race I learnt that all the grovelling I had done had started to pay off. You see, when you grovel you learn how to follow wheels in a bunch to ensure you do not spend one ounce of energy unwisely. If you are an aerobic diesel and can keep up with the bunch easily and waste energy you do not learn to be shrewd.

“How do you train your sprint?” Damien asked me after we had crossed the finish line. I had beaten him again at the Thursday night club race, winning the sprint. I was 16 and he was three or four years older than me… and a bloke.

To sprint and win, or even to get a place, you first need to be able to accelerate. Add to that a healthy dose of conviction and some processing tactics… that’s a winning combination. So what exactly were those tactics that allowed me to beat a rider older than myself and arguably more capable of beating me?

It happened because the win was pre-planned. It was not an accident.

In my warm-up I measured where 150 metres from the finish line was and mentally noted a driveway on my left as a landmark. It was a slightly rolling, up-hill finish with a left-blowing, front-on cross wind. Normally I would take a measure 200 metres out (usually my full sprint) but, with the up-hill finish and the strong wind, I knew this would decrease the distance I could sprint for.

Once the race had gotten going I chased the occasional break only when I really had to. I took short turns on the front when riding into head winds, and longer ones in tail winds (where the power required is always lower). I always made sure I stayed in the top third of the pack. With five kilometres to go I was even more determined to stay in the top ten riders. Everyone started getting itchy, wasting energy at the front and pulling hard on the short power climbs as if trying to break away. I continued following wheels, swapping from one rider’s rear wheel to another and holding my place in the bunch. As we rode closer to the finish line I moved closer to the front and then for the last kilometre I was perfectly placed in fifth wheel; the position that would allow me to watch and to react if need be.

The wind was coming in from the left, but the four riders in front made a vital mistake… they rode close to the left gutter. I formed an echelon to the right, giving me the perfect amount of shelter. The strong wind meant I couldn’t hear if any riders changed gears behind me, so with the sun slightly behind us, I kept watch on them via the shadows on the road. As we sped closer toward the finish line I noticed two riders in front of me change to a harder gear. Now normally when preparing for a sprint, I would also change to one or two gears harder so when accelerating I don’t have to change mid-sprint. But the slight up-hill, cross- and head-wind conditions meant that I needed my legs to be turning quickly… punching a big gear would have slowed me down.

Inevitably, the most nervous person always goes first, and often too early. From the shadows on the road I could see riders accelerating up behind me, so I started to accelerate, too, and jumped on a wheel as they shot past on my right. They had just taken me to 400-metres out from the line, and I was nestled on the right of their wheel, in their slipstream. I could see the 150-metre driveway edging closer but we weren’t yet close enough for me to face the wind. Other riders responded by sprinting hard. With 350 metres to go I knew they were either silly, ambitious, or very confident. So I kept jumping on their rear wheels, like a checker piece on the diagonal of the game board, taking advantage of their slipstream.

Finally my 150-metre driveway was there on my left, so I kicked to the right. The wind was coming from the left so I went as far right as I was allowed, very close to the white centre line of the road. This ensured that anyone drafting off me would have a hard time of saving energy in the minimal slipstream between that white centre-line and me. When I kick nothing else matters. All thinking is over. It’s 150% effort until the finish line, no looking around, no nothing. I just go, pushing and pulling on the pedals and handlebar drops as hard as I can… all the way through the finish line. You never know what can happen in the last metre, so I picked a spot on the horizon just past the finish line, and aimed for that.

Every ride, every event, every race, is an accumulation of processes or micro-steps, and micro-decisions. By focusing on these mirco-steps and planning ahead you have more control over the outcome. And remember… winning is fun!

Research shows that it will take thousands of hours of practice to reach your full potential. Therefore the work required to gradually build improvement in your riding ability is, in reality, quite tremendous. Maintaining the motivation to complete this practice can sometimes become a real challenge. It helps to set goals. Goals are important in providing direction for your training, identifying priorities to address and helping to optimise time management.

Sometimes we outgrow our goals. We don’t always notice that we are evolving all the time.

You must have a hunger to want to achieve your goals. Accordingly goals should not be arbitrary targets, but have meaning you can relate to. Meaning feeds your hunger, creates motivation, and ensures enjoyment. Meaning comes from the reasons why you ride

Peter had ridden the Lake Taupo Cycle challenge so many times that his name was featured in my first book, the Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge Guide. As the years passed he noticed that he would start his preparation closer and closer to the event and as a result did not meet his goal of riding his personal best time on the day. He was loath to complete another lap of the big lake and finish disappointed so we sat down and I asked him, “why do you ride?”.

He came up with the following list of whys:
• Social time spent with friends
• To keep fit and healthy
• To spend time outside and get fresh air (Jonathan’s work was office-based)
• To partake in a physical challenge
• For the simple enjoyment of riding his bike

Peter very rarely rode during the rest of the year, and he continued to prioritise his goals for cycling solely around the Taupo event. He didn’t need to continue to ‘do Taupo’, it had merely become a habit he had gotten into each year. Initially, the event had been the driving force behind Peter’s riding goal and did have real meaning for him at that time. But the passing years saw the meaning for riding Taupo diminish and the reasons why he was his riding change, both of which meant that his goal no longer wholly aligned with his whys. This lessened his motivation and killed his cycling mojo.

Do you know the reasons why you ride? Do your goals relate to these reasons or are your goals unrelated ends unto themselves? You must ensure your goals are aligned with your reasons for riding. If they are not it is vitally important to reassess them otherwise you may be setting yourself up for failure. By keeping a regular check on the reasons you ride and adjusting your goals to accommodate them, you will maintain your cycling mojo and more importantly, continue to enjoy it.

Related post:

Adventure on two wheels

Once you are into road cycling it does not take long before you start to accumulate a lot of equipment. Aside from cycling clothing and the most obvious purchase, your bicycle, your next purchase is more than likely to be a cycle computer and/or heart rate monitor. These are intended to make your training more specific and to help ensure you are training how you need to, in order to improve your cycling. They also have the added benefit of providing some entertainment value, too, especially as you achieve your first century ride or when zooming down a hill at over 70 kilometres per hour.

It is easy to purchase a cycle computer and in no time at all you will wish you had a different model with different features. This often happens when buying out of haste or from not determining prior to buying it, what needs and wants the computer is to meet. I made this exact mistake recently. My long lasting Polar that had everything except wattage finally died so I purchased a low-end model to meet my needs at the time. Five months later I have outgrown it and got a Garmin to allow me to more accurately prescribe my training. So here are a few tips to help you with your next cycle computer purchase.

Step 1
Determine what you want to use the cycle computer for:

• Do you want to measure your cycling distance?
• Do you want to measure heart rate or your cycling speed?
• Do you want to be able to download your ride data?
• Do you want to be able to measure your cadence (number of revolutions your pedal does a full 360 degrees per minute)?

Step 2
Make a decision on how much you want to spend.

Step 3
Before you make your final choice, be sure to think of these five factors:

• How addicted are you to road cycling right now? If your levels of enjoyment are high and you are really into it, then consider buying your cycle computer with features you may want to use in two years time, instead of buying for your needs right now. Otherwise it is likely you will outgrow it very quickly.
• Is there a service centre local to where you are, or even in the same country? There is nothing more irritating than when the battery runs out and requires a service centre to replace it, or if the computer becomes defective and you have to send it half way around the world to be serviced, causing you to miss out on your riding data for maybe three or four weeks.
• How many cycling tools do you already have on your handlebars? For example, do you have a front light and a cycle computer and you are pondering getting a heart rate monitor? Consider the amount of room remaining on your handlebars before buying another gadget.
• Wireless: most cycle computers are wireless these days, meaning there will be no cords that run from the handlebar mount through to the speed or cadence sensors. This has the advantage of limiting problems with cables possibly being broken, or going rusty in winter weather.
• Do you require GPS with mapping features as you ride?

If you already have an operational cycle computer but you are upgrading, get rid of your old one in a constructive way. Use websites such as trademe, ebay, or amazon to sell it. Or even better donate it to a young rider whose parents cannot afford a cycle computer, instead of letting it collect dust in your garage. Your local secondary school may have a junior member of a cycling team who would love to use it.

By working through the steps above you can refine your choice of cycle computer, get the information you want from it and avoid the trap of having to up-grade within a few months of purchase.

A rider I coached insisted a six-hour ride he was doing with his friends was of great quality and he didn’t mind that it took the following three-days to physically recover from it. When we added a power-meter to his wheel and collected trip data, this showed him that of his six hours riding time, three-hours and forty-five minutes was spent in an intensity zone we call ‘active recovery’ (also-known-as a waste of time if you are doing any more than one hour of it). We cut down his rides to 3-4 hours of quality time spent in prescribed zones of riding intensities, designed to improve specific areas of his fitness. Not only did his performance rapidly improve, but he was able to train more effectively on the other days of the week and recover faster. This follows Joe Friel’s concept of ‘train just enough to improve.’ Legendary hour record-holder Graeme O’Bree, stuck to this same concept. He only trained if he was recovered enough that he could reach his desired power output during a given training session.

We will expand on this concept of ‘stop before you need to’ in further articles to be posted, but for now, here are two tips on how to put this philosophy into action and help optimise your cycling training.

Three quarters will get you there
When training for an event or race you do not need to actually ride the entire race distance in your training, especially if you are limited in time available to prepare.

You can limit the volume (distance) you do to only three-quarters of the event distance. Your body will take you that last quarter on the day, guaranteed.

Focus instead on such things as improving your speed or how you ride, for instance cycling technique or your ability to change pace on a hill.

Stop doing intervals
If you can no longer ride at your desired speed then stop. For example, you are completing multiple five-minute 35kph intervals and for the first three you achieve 35kph. If during the fourth you manage only 33kph, stop the interval efforts of this ride. Even if you had six on your schedule to do that day, don’t continue when you are unable to ride at the speed you wanted to achieve. Doing additional intervals at 33kph will not help you achieve your speed goal of 35kph but instead teach your body to go hard but slowly.

The take-home message here is to stop before your training is sub-optimal. Less is more and more will make you faster.

Previous articles:

How and when to warm-up for a cycling training session

How to ride in a cycling bunch [part 2]

What you bring to your ride is your ride

Our bodies are a bit like classic cars. They need a little warming-up before they can purr along a motorway and allow you to put your foot down. In cycling, a warm-up is riding for a specific amount of time at a prescribed pace before the start of the actual training ride. Warming-up allows your body to gradually get used to the intensity you eventually plan to ride at. If you do not do this you will put yourself into debt.

Debt in cycling is where you pay too much (in pain and effort) for riding at a certain cycling speed.

When you warm-up, your don’t incur a large debt before riding at your intended cycling speed and you will be able to ride faster, for longer, making your training much more effective and satisfying.

When to warm-up

If you intend to do a nice easy coffee ride with friends you do not need to warm-up. If you intend to do either of the following then a warm up is required:

1. A training session that includes moderate efforts.
2. A training session that includes high intensity efforts.

1. Warming-up for a training session with moderate intensity efforts

These sessions may include tempo training at an intensity where you are putting some tension into the pedals and puffing but your legs are not burning. To warm up for these types of sessions start by riding at a very easy intensity for 10-20 minutes where you are putting very little tension into your pedals. This gently gets your blood moving and opens your lungs.

After the easy start, spend three to four minutes at your intended moderate speed (or intensity) then ride easy again before the real start to your training session. The short exposure to your intended moderate intensity tells your body ‘this is the intensity you are going to work at.’ Your body then responds by releasing appropriate hormones, such as adrenalin, by constricting specific blood vessels while relaxing others, all to get you ready to work at this higher intensity. The easy riding period that follows allows your body to recover so when you do start properly you have ‘opened up the gaskets’ and you can put your foot down and ride at the moderate speed much more easily.

2. Warming-up for a training session with high intensity efforts

High intensity sessions may involve riding hard hill climbs, or completing sprints, threshold or speed intervals. To warm up before this intensity you need to complete the warm-up for scenario one, though adding on a few more moderate intensity minutes such as five to ten minutes in total, then spend three to four minutes riding at an easy intensity to recover. After recovery, pedal two to four minutes at your intended high intensity (or speed), and follow this by three to five minutes of easy riding before your first ‘true’ high intensity intervals, hills or sprints start.

Through allowing your body to gradually work its way up the pyramid of intensity and by including recoveries in between, you will be able to complete more effective moderate and/or high intensity training sessions and move closer to achieving your cycling goals.

Previous article:

How to ride in a cycling bunch [part 2]

Coming soon:

Stop before you need to