I’m newish to TR, but not structured training. I’ve used TR in the past for base periods only but due to all the recent tools the team has added (thanks guys!) I now going to do all of my structured training with yearly planing and analysis in TR now.
I’m a fixed gear crit racer and the following base/build/speciality plan what what I am thinking for the winter;
1 Sweet Spot Base
2 Short Power Build
3 Criterium Specialty
Fixed gear crit racing is still just crit racing and not like any of the track disciplines.
I’ll be doing a LV base period for the next 6 weeks (since I run in the fall and can still get outside and ride until the weather closes in here in NYC), a few weeks off the bike in Dec, a Christmas trip to a warm place to get back on the bike and diving into a MV base/build for the following 14 weeks which bring me near race season and speciality phase(s).
Additionally my other “discipline” is fixed road riding, gran fondo’y/Patrick Seabase type stuff. A lot of climbing and descending… sustained power build, climbing road race speciality and/or a lot of long outdoor rides in the summer cover this.
What I’m wondering though is this. For fixed gear and track riders how much of your training (TR specifically) is done on a geared bike vs. a fixed gear?
I have been planning on doing all of base on my road bike with any outdoor rides I do on my fixed gear (80%+ of my miles yearly are fixed). While I CAN hit all the power numbers in base fixed AND I’m fine with the cadences I need to run at (90-140rpm generally) what the geared bike gives me is better recovery between intervals. On a fixed gear 110w recovery turns into a 45rpm shuffle… I’d rather keep my cadence over 80rpm generally. I may end up doing some of the flatter and more mellow rides (i.e. Baxter is great fixed) on my fixed gear (I very much prefer riding fixed over geared bikes) but that involves swapping pedals and rear wheel (trainer tires and dumb trainer) which isn’t something I always have time for (I rarely ride the road bike this time of year so it’s completely setup for the trainer right now).
But… For the build and speciality phases I’m unsure what to do. I was thinking along the lines to triathletes and doing the work in their aero position. In my case that would mean picking my gearing that is workout appropriate (my race gearing vs. training/general gearing)… though I feel in those phases proper recovery periods with decent cadences to keep the legs alive will be very important during work outs.
I feel very confident in the tools TR provides to analysis my training and as I learn more of the TR workout library I’m sure I’ll learn a few other workouts that are good fixed (Baxter has been my go too for a while, it’s even pretty amazing on rollers with the right gearing)… so I’m really looking for some POVs here from other fixed/track risers and/or TR coaches.