- It's that time of the week again
where it is ask GCN anything.
Quick reminder that if you've got a question
that you would like us to answer,
the easiest thing is to leave it
in the comment section just down below,
but if you think of one while you're out
and about and away from YouTube perhaps
and you want to do it on social media,
the hashtag is TORQUEBACK.
- Yeah, right, should we start?
First question, this one come from Omar Tan,
"If you don't race, how do you plan your
"training program since there's
"technically no off or on season?"
well that is a good question, actually, isn't it?
I've not really thought about that one before.
I guess it little bit depends on
what you actually do with your cycling.
I mean 'cause you might not race,
but you might have sportives or gran fondos
that you target and that you want to get better for,
in which case you just use those
and plan your season around those, I guess,
so that you will be at your best on the start line.
- So take the day of the event that you want
to do well, and then work backwards from there.
So your taper, which comes just before the event
and bit before that, you do your speed and your power work
and a bit before that quite a long block
where you work on your base and your foundation.
However, if you're not competing anywhere
and you're not doing any major events either,
I guess you'd just go out and ride your bike.
When the weathers nice and go fast when you want to
and go easy when you don't want to.
- Sounds a bit like what you do, Dan.
- Yeah that's exactly what I do.
- Well and me as well, actually.
The only thing I would say though is that
you don't have to have an event
to want to get better on your bike,
but I would say if that was you
is, actually, to have a goal of some kind
so that when you go out and you think,
well I really want to get better at
riding up hills or riding for longer
or this that and the other, and that's the point
at which you can then start to think
about how your training works
and while you may not ever need an off season,
it's always good to have a little bit
of downtime every few weeks, isn't it?
Just so that your body can, kind of, recover and catch up,
and remember that you actually improve
when you're resting not when you're training.
- Yeah that's a really interesting question,
I'm sure Omar would appreciate any more
information that you at home have got
if you don't do any events but you still like
to get fit and train, what do you make as your goal
and how do you go about your training and periodisation?
Leave them, again, in the comments section down below.
If you are wanting to train for a sportive or gran fondos
or century or something along those lines,
this is a video that we did early last year on how
to train and prepare for the Maratona dles Dolomites.
- You can tell when you filmed it
'cause you've got no hair in it Dan.
- Yes.
- Keeping a training diary or journal
won't just allow you to check progress
that you've made over the previous weeks,
but it also acts as a great motivator
as you're far likely to actually do
what you've actually written down in the first place.
So use your diary or journal to plan and then
note down what you've achieved and also how you feel.
- You will also then be able to retrospectively
look back through what you've been doing
and analyze what works best for you.
- Dan that's not my training diary.
- I should hope not, there's nothing in it.
- Next up, we got this question from
Christopher Cilley came in on twitter,
"I read about Kendal Mint Cake
"playing a role in the first ascent of Everest.
"They are popular in England
"with hikers and cyclists, right?
"I can't easily buy in the U.S., but I've found recipes.
"What are your thoughts on their use
"for racing or distance cycling?"
Kendal Mint Cake is basically like a bar that you get
and it's, kind of, very minty and very sugary.
- But not very caky apparently not.
- No weird ain't it?
- I've got a story about Kendal Mint Cake though so if you'd
like to hear it - Have you really?
- Yes, back in the late 90's.
- Oh so this precedes Cervelo Test Team.
Alright listen up everyone, we've
probably not heard this one before.
- Yeah I think it was late 90's, maybe 2000,
you remember there used to be an
under 23 national road race series?
- I do.
- Well there was one quite near where
I grew up in the South of England.
- Sixpenny Hadley?
- Around Sixpenny Hadley and Cranborne Chase,
which I really, obviously, wanted to do well on my home turf,
it went up Zig Zag hill, which is like a mini Alpe d'Huez,
no where near as good, obviously,
but anyway, it was raining the whole day
and I completely blew my, blew up.
Yeah anyway, I went back to the team cars,
and winding down the window was Keith Lambert,
he's a bit of a cycling legend over here in the UK,
and he said, here up take this lad.
That's my best accent of Keith Lambert.
- This is quite a story Dan.
- I know, it did the trick because
I did feel a little bit better
than I had done after I downed this Kendal Mint Cake,
but my goodness is it sweet and minty.
- Yeah, well that is a great story Dan, thanks for that one.
You know what, the reason why it probably
hit the spot for you then is not necessarily
because of the ingredients of the Kendal Mint Cake,
but actually just because it tasted so sweet
because there is signs of proof that shows
that just tasting something sweet
actually improves your performance.
In terms of whether it's actually really good for you,
I think it's probably not actually the best
fuel for cycling, not by a long shot
because it is just pure sugar, so sucrose basically.
So, actually, if you were looking for something specific,
you'd be better off with an energy gel
that's got a different type of carbohydrate in there.
Because although it is good, it's basically
no different from having a can of coke
or a bar of chocolate or anything like that,
so I put it in the category of normal food,
in which case, there's other things I rather have
where as in the category of sport nutrition,
it doesn't quite cut the mustard.
Basically you want to look for something
with a different type of carbohydrate in it,
probably a maltodextrin which is actually a starch
not a sugar but it's very quickly broken down into glucose.
Whew, there you go.
- Learn something new everyday, don't you.
I guess for the majority of people who are only riding their
bike for five, 10, maybe 15 hours a week,
you should be fine using bars and gels
and not getting bored, it's only when you get onto
that ultra endurance style event,
a little bit like what you've been doing recently,
or perhaps pro cycling where you're doing grand tours
and day after day for three weeks,
when you do want to diversify so you don't get really bored,
and find out what works for you
and what you like on your palate.
- Yeah, basically.
- Well, hopefully that answers your question,
but we might also be answering a bit more
of your question in this next video, which is how
to improve your training results through your nutrition.
- Endurance athletes in general, not just cyclists
but across the board, probably under consume protein,
although I think the research and the use
of good sport nutrition partners like Science In Sport,
for instance, are not communicating the importance
of protein to endurance athletes.
- [GCN interviewer] It is a quite controversial subject,
isn't it as well, there's a lot people
who think you can just eat carbs,
I mean full stop without protein
at all, which is quite interesting--
- Well, you know the reality is muscle is made of protein,
and when you perform hard exercise sessions,
you're essentially degrading all
of those muscle protein stores to recondition
that muscle and rebuild that muscle,
you have to put protein back into the system.
- Should we make the quick fire round quick fire?
- Oh yeah super quick.
- Right, first up, G. Matusick,
"What variables are considered with respect to "form"?
"We hear riders are 'on good form',
"or haven't yet reached 'peak form';
"what exactly is that, is it health, bike fit,
"performance, results, sock-length or what?"
- Oh it's sock-length isn't it?
Basically, it's, no sorry, I'm joking.
Yeah, your form, it's really different
'cause people mean different things by it, don't they?
But effectively it means,
it refers to your physical performance.
And so, when you're really, really, really going for it,
you will build and improve and improve and improve
until you get to a peak, which is like your best form,
and then after that, you, kind of, can't really hold it
and you start to drop off again.
So basically it's a combination of factors.
But also, very important is your mental state as well
'cause you can have great physical form
but if your heads not in the right place,
you're not gonna do anything.
So it's, kind of, like a bit of both,
which is where socks come into play
'cause with nice socks, comes great mental form.
- At that peak, we kind of say you're pinging don't we.
- We do yeah.
- It is a combination of all sorts of things,
but you often find that when you're at your peak,
not only are you better on the bike
but you recover so much quicker between
each effort as well, it's really quite remarkable.
- We're rattling through this one mate
- Yes we are, yeah. On to question number two from the quick fire round
from Philip Phil K, is there any possibility
for an aspiring young 17 year old, South Asian citizen racer
to immigrate over to Europe and be an EU member,
I'm not sure about that, so you can have access
to racing much more efficiently.
Well we always say about Belgium don't we,
a lot of people from Britain go over to Belgium,
as youngsters because it's so easy to get into races
'cause they have these kermesse races.
You don't need to be part of a team,
which can be a stumbling block
in France and Italy and Spain.
I don't know the politics of becoming an EU member,
but I'm sure you could stay in Belgium for a few weeks
and get some great experience there.
- Yeah, absolutely, I don't know quite
how you go about coming over here.
Student maybe, that's a great opportunity to race your bike
and do something else worthwhile at the same time.
Ah right, LisaPet, "Are the Giro riders
"recording their stages on Strava?
"If not: how could we know what happened?"
Well that is a good point, how would we know
what happens at the Giro if it wasn't for Strava.
One or two of them put their rides on Strava, don't they?
- Yeah, Velofacts on twitter pulled a number of riders
Strava from the rest day, so that will go to show you
who's putting their rides up there on that website.
- Velon tells us what they're doing by the way,
it's at this Giro, so they've got loads
of data if that's your bag, power data and so forth.
- Gian Carlos Arciga, hi GCN, how old are you starting
to ride your bike and what is your
favorite mountain bike or road bike?
- Ooooo I was eight years old, started on a mountain bike,
didn't get a road bike until my late teens, I think.
Oh man, what's your favorite,
it's like choosing your favorite child, isn't it?
I couldn't do without either to be honest.
Although, if I only had a mountian bike,
I would probably get really frustrated,
but if I only had a road bike,
I would be a little bit upset,
but I'd probably be happier,
but that doesn't mean I prefer it.
- Yeah well I was 14 when I first got
a proper mountain bike and started competing.
I think at this point in my life,
if I could choose one or the other,
I would probably go mountian bike.
- Whoa. - Like when you're kids
on their mountain bikes in our local forest.
- Peter Sagan chooses mountain bike too, didn't he?
I was reading an interview the other day,
yeah, that's his favorite.
- Indoor Cycling says or asks,
"Is it better to do one longer training session
"during the day or two shorter?"
Possibly too big of a question for the quick fire round.
- Yeah, it just depend on what training
response you want to get out of it.
If you want to do an endurance type of training session
then obviously one long one is better,
if you want to improve your peak,
like, one minute power or threshold power
then probably two shorter ones would be better,
but I used to hate split days,
I really hated split days. - Well yeah because
you don't relax do you, you've done one hard session,
you spend the rest of the day
worrying about the next hard session.
- Oh I hated that.
- But they do apparently work.
- Yeah, I should have done more, but I hated them.
- Dannie's Daze.
- Dannie's Daze, random question, some of the best.
If you don't wear pants with cycling shorts,
do you were a bra with your jersey?
I don't know, Dan?
- Si?
Well we're not really best equipped
to answer this question, or not yet at least.
- No, but we could probably have a guess at it.
I would say, we aren't going to too many anatomical details,
probably where you sit on a bike,
there's a lot more motion involved, maybe, a bit more
pressure. - Potential chaffing.
- You're more likely to get chaffing whereas,
I guess, you could probably get a nice sports bra
with less seams, so I would probably
go with that, I'd wear a sports bra.
- You're basically not rubbing your chest across
your saddle much are you, so it should be okay
with a bra, I would imagine, but we'd have
to ask somebody else. - Why did we even tackle
that question in the first place, Dan.
That was just-- - Let's move on.
- Yeah very quickly.
- Wout De Vylder, I like that name.
Would it be possible to lose muscle for cycling?
- You're asking the wrong guys.
(both laughing)
- I have quite a lean body but too
many muscles in the upper area,
oh we are the expert on this,
you should have seen us when we were 16.
- Well see I was massive, just so big.
- And is there a way to do such things
in a healthy manner, griz from Belgium.
Well I've got a slight answer for this.
- Is it quicker than the Kendal Mint Cake one?
- My friend called Martin Smith, who was in the Army
and a bodybuilder when he was young.
Well he got into cycling, I think, in his early 30's,
and he just found that over time, of course,
when he was doing long endurance rides
that the muscles did just start to
eventually come off, but I mean,
you don't want to be going
catabolic too much and starving yourself too,
so it's gonna be a long process.
- Yeah, I don't think you'd want
to rush through it, would you?
But it certainly is possible and just by riding your bike,
you'll definitely get more seasoned towards bike riding.
- Here's a question that we need your help on, actually.
Greg Loper asked, if a time trial rider
in a grand tour could use a full length skin suit,
including the pants, or the leggings,
to get an aero advantage, if so, why don't they?
We didn't know what the answer to this was, did we?
Because they do wear full length
skin suits in terms of the arms.
I'm not sure what the ruling is
for the legs because they do wear excessively
long socks because it's more aero don't they?
- Yeah, probably 'cause not many
pro cyclist shave their arms.
Some do I guess. - Some do yeah.
- You'd have long sleeves so you'd have nice hairy arms,
really nice ones. - But lycra is quicker
than skin, isn't it than if you shaved.
- Yeah 'cause I asked the guy from Castelli, Steve Smith,
whether Ryder Hesjedal would go faster naked,
and apparently he wouldn't.
Yeah, well he's got clothes to sell, doesn't he.
Last one, - That's a good point.
- For the quick fire round that's probably, I haven't
got a watch on, lasted for about a quarter of an hour.
Lara Maco, or macho, does the current champion
of a grand tour need to defend the title,
or can they just refuse to participate in the next race?
- Ah there's no obligation to defend their title.
In fact, we do often see it, don't we,
that a rider perhaps will win the tour of Italy one year,
and then come straight on the Tour De France the next,
but it's, kind of a cool thing to do, isn't it,
to defend your title, but yeah,
there's certainly no obligation for a rider to do so.
- It's quite common for the Tour De France winner
to try and go back and defend,
but less common for the Vuelta or the Giro,
but it is good to see Dumoulin trying
to defend his Giro title as we speak.
- Yeah, I mean, that was rapid, boom.
- Next up, this question from Bec McColl,
what's the best way to regain your fitness
after not riding for a few months?
- Well that's a good question that isn't it.
I suppose riding your bike is probably the best way,
but you definitely have to watch out for a few pitfalls.
And the first one is to try not to rush,
particularly if you had good fitness,
and then you want to get back there quickly,
you could end up, maybe, doing a little bit
too much too soon, potentially running the risk
of getting injured or getting over trained and so forth,
so I'd try and sit back and maybe just take things gently,
maybe even write down the riding that you're going to do,
or the training that you're gonna do over,
like a four week block, and that should get you back
into the kind of shape that you want.
- Patience is the key.
- Absolutely.
- It's very easy to go to hard too soon
after you've been off the bike for awhile.
What I would also say is don't look
for improvements every day or even every week
because they won't come and you'll get frustrated.
It's a little bit like losing weight, isn't it?
You don't want to weight yourself each day
'cause there'll be fluctuations,
but you want to see the trend
going generally in the right direction.
It's exactly the same when you resume your training.
You might not be fitter one day after
a particular training ride but after six weeks
you might look back and you've gone much better
than you were six weeks previous,
so that's what you want to be looking at.
We haven't done a video directly
on just having a layoff for a few months,
but we have done one for getting back into it
after you've been injured, which is not dissimilar,
I guess, so you might want to check that video out now.
- First up, you need to identify the why's
and where fors af the injury itself.
Unless it's something plainly obvious,
like a post crash trauma.
Understanding why you got the injury in the first place
will help your rehabilitation and also make sure
that you don't suffer from the same injury in the future.
- Yeah if you're coming back from
something like tendonitis of the knee,
there's generally a root cause,
so that needs to be identified
and remedied before you start again.
It could be something like a twisted shoe plate
or something a little bit more complex, like a twisted back.
- Right, next question from Olwood.
- I have a question, actually.
- Whoa, we got there already?
Gosh, gone so fast.
- I don't suppose anybody's watching.
- Must be that Kendal Mint Cake story.
"How do pro cyclists avoid sunburn
when racing long stage races?"
- Basically the same way that anybody else avoids sunburn,
really, by using suncream or sunblock
or whatever you want to call it.
You do get some riders, I remember Dave Miller,
at one point of his career being almost allergic to the sun,
I think he was, he was having to wear
very thin lycra white arm warmers,
not to keep warm, obviously, but to keep the sun
off his skin, and then some really,
really strong sunblock on his legs,
so he looked ghostly white, didn't he back
in the slip stream days for awhile.
- Yeah he did, didn't he?
We've got a video though, where we literally ask
pro cyclists what suncream they wear,
and you should probably have a watch.
- Factor 50, that's pretty much all you can do.
Wear this jersey, and keep as cool
as possible, but it's pretty hard.
- 50
- Ahh I don't go much more than 30,
do a good 30 SPF, I thinks good enough.
- I just put a bit of 50 on my nose,
and with these jerseys as well 'cause they're quite thin,
you have to put 50 on the back as well,
but on the arms and legs, I don't use any,
probably should but I just, I don't know,
I don't burn once I get a decent tan,
I quite like getting a nice brown, you know, so.
- Right, well hopefully that has answered those questions,
of course, if you have any questions about cycling,
then please leave them down below as Dan suggested
you did right in the beginning of this video,
or on social media using the hashtag TORQUEBACK.
- But don't forget that since it's the Giro d'Italia,
we have got some special edition t-shirts in the shop,
including this pink one, which I've braved today.
- And this one. - From Si,
shop.globalcyclingnetwork.com,
and sticking with the Giro d'Italia,
Emma Pooley was over there in Sicily last weekend,
and she took a look at the climb up to Mount Etna,
the stage is already finished now,
but well worth taking a look.
- What a beautiful climb. - It's a really interesting
look down here, somewhere.