How to turn pro, the optimal macronutrient composition for cyclists, preventing dehydration on cold rides and more in Episode 275 of The Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast.
Last year my main race was a 100 mile MTB ride with 5000+meter climbing on quite tough terrain.
Leading up to the event we have beautiful weather. On the day it was terrible. There was a cold northerly wind blowing, with rain all day. I stopped at 100km, with a lot of people dropping out due to being too cold to change gears. I battled a couple of times to use the dropper post as my thumb was too cold to work the lever properly.
Eating and drinking was very difficult. If I drank anything, I needed to pee, and this was using High5 hydration tablets in the water. Then eating is difficult without drinking so I was not eating enough making the situation worse. I was a bit under dressed for the conditions, but not by a long way (they were much worse that forecasted).
I don’t know how you solve this, and haven’t seen any advice that actually helps.
I am curious about the saddle sore talk at the very end. Does a person’s skin play a role in how often they get saddle sores? Or is it a bike fit issue? Or bib choice? Or just a matter of training volume? I assume it’s some combo of all of the above.
I’ve never had a saddle sore and I’d really like to keep it that way. I’m asking what people find the factors to be in order to mitigate them as I increase my training volume. I used to ride about 10 hours a week, all outdoors. This included commuting, so just one or two “workouts” a week. Now I’m on a medium training plan with one additional outdoor, unstructured ride.
Thanks for answering my question about standing! I ride mostly on flat roads with some rolling/punchy sections outdoors and am looking to do some criteriums next year on similar terrain. So it sounds like standing in these intervals is probably helpful for my indoor training if that mimics how I ride outside, and I definitely tend to stand when the gradient rises for the steep parts.
That said, it’s good to know I can add standing into the workouts if I feel like it will help me complete an interval. Sometimes I just need some of my bodyweight on the pedals to keep the cranks turning over even if it means it isn’t as efficient. Sounds like Brandon may have a similar feeling if he’s standing a lot too.
