- It's Ask GCN Anything, a fairly self-explanatory title,
but if you've never watched one before,
this is your chance to ask us
your cycling related questions,
and we'll do our best to give some kind of expert answer.
Two ways to ask those questions:
firstly on social media, using the hashtag #torqueback,
or you can leave them in the comments section
just down below.
And if you'd like to be in with the chance
to win three months free subscription to Zwift,
use the hashtag #askgcntraining.
- That's right, and this week
we're gonna answer questions on Arrow helmets,
Sweet Spot, and how to deal with rogue dogs.
- Yes, so let's get the important one
out of the way straight away.
Rogue dogs.
This is a question that came from Schnooks33,
"Me and my dad were riding together down a shared path.
Up ahead we saw two dogs on a leash with a woman,
and not really knowing what to do,
we decided to give them lots of room,
and pass politely without announcing.
Without any warning or time to react,
one of the dogs slipped out of the collar
and ran right in front of us barking like mad,
and both my dad and I ran over this small dog.
My dad was especially beaten up, along with his bike,
but the dog was my real concern.
It looked like it was in bad shape,
and I felt quite guilty after this encounter.
So here's my question,
what is proper etiquette
when passing other path users on a shared path,
and what should you do when dogs
are thrown into the equation?
- Well firstly, I hope your dad's alright,
and I hope the dog's alright.
Sounds horrible.
But as someone who rides regularly
on shared paths as well,
I think the best thing to assume on a shared path
is that you have equal rights
with the other people on the path,
irrespective of what they're doing,
and you should slow down significantly
when passing other people.
Especially when there's animals involved,
because they can act in an unpredictable way.
- Squirrels particularly I find.
There's no way of predicting where they're going to go.
But as you mentioned, you should definitely slow down.
Particularly as as a cyclist on a shared path,
you are the one that's going to be going the fastest,
and therefore could do the most damage,
so just slow right down.
- Feel where you need to think about how
you feel as a cyclist
when you have a close pass from a car,
and it's quiet unnerving and makes you uncomfortable,
and if you're a pedestrian or a runner
on a shared path and a bike comes past at speed
quite close, it's the same kind of thing.
It feels unnerving.
So I would just say treat people
as you wish to be treated yourself.
- Exactly, yeah.
And there's no harm in giving a bit of a shout or warning
that you are about to overtake,
just so they are aware that you're coming up from behind.
I've actually got my own dog related story
from 24 years ago when I first started cycling.
I was a mountain biker,
but in order to get to the mountain bike path,
I had to go from my place in Bransgul,
the village where I grew up,
past another village called Thorny Hill
on the outskirts of New Forest.
And up there, there was this one dog,
that every time I rode past
would come running out yapping,
and try to chomp at my feet.
It was a reasonably big dog as well.
One day I was going in the other direction,
which meant I was on the other side of the road
from the houses where this dog lived,
still came running out, crossed traffic,
and there was a car coming the other way,
and it got run over.
I never had to deal with that rogue dog again,
but I did also feel quite bad,
but at the same time there was nothing
I could do about that.
Anyway, we'll move quickly on from the rogue dog stories
to something else.
- That's awful.
- I know.
I didn't tell him this before we started recording,
so that's the first he's heard of it.
Next up,
we have got a question on Sweet Spot from Daniel S.
"Why is sweet spot beneficial to FTP?
In my mind if you want to produce more power
for longer periods of time
then you should attempt to ride x% over FTP
for as long as you can until that becomes your new
function of threshold power.
Rinse and repeat... Why doesn't that work?"
- Well Daniel, you're not far wrong per se,
but let's start with the fact that almost all training
is developed for and devised for professional athletes
before it then kind of trickles down to us mortals.
- Yeah, I think you need to think of this as sort of
the fact that the levels of training that you're riding at
are more of a continuum.
There's no sort of set start stop
on these sorts of things actually.
And to demonstrate this, or to illustrate this,
I think we should use this graph
from one of my former coaches Hunter Allen,
he of training peaks fame,
in that there are still benefits to your FTP
if you ride above it,
but when you take into consideration the stress,
mental and physical of doing that,
they are less than the line below it.
- [Co-Host] Yeah, hence the phrase Sweet Spot,
it's regarded as the tipping point
between the return for effort and time.
You kind of get the biggest bang for your buck
doing Sweet Spot,
because you can do more of it,
and you can do it on back to back days
more easily so than if you were doing efforts above FTP,
which it's very hard to do that, back to back days,
and recover adequately to do it again.
- I saw these sort of huge gains personally
when I started doing a lot of Sweet Spot.
- Yeah, me too.
- Anyways, time to throw to a video from many moons ago.
Coming up is Si Rickson, along with Alexis Ryan,
are showing you tips on how to improve your FTP.
- Sweet Spot tools are where I make
some of my biggest improvements
in the years just after I got a pammy tip.
It refers to a level just a little bit below threshold.
So it's hard, but it's not so hard
that you can't do a number of sessions per week
and still allow your body to recover,
adapt, and then go again.
- You can vary these sessions
by doing intervals of different lengths
generally over 15 minutes,
and you can also vary the types of terrain
that you use to do them.
These Sweet Spot efforts are often described as
the best bang for your buck,
and they offer the best physiological response
for the time you put in the saddle.
- It's time to announce the winner of
three months free subscription to Zwift
that winner on this occasions is: Adam Newell.
"#askgcntraining I would like to know how to prove
my Acceleration when I am sprinting".
- I wanna know as well.
- Well we both do.
Unfortunately for you Adam,
our resident expert sprinter Crasoby
isn't in the office today,
so you are left with two, we can't even say mediocre.
Two slightly below average sprinters,
to ask the question as best we can.
But we have been doing some research
in the scientific communities,
so hopefully this will give you some tips.
- Yeah, well it's often thought
that to improve one's sprinting ability,
you need to do a lot of sort of high-power anerobic work,
but that's not necessarily the case.
- No, and that's why it's really important
to know what your muscle fibre makeup is,
because for example, if you are predominately
slow twitch muscle fibres,
you're not actually going to respond that well
to high intensity interval training,
i.e., the high torque efforts that you might do.
- Yeah, and a core mistake is that
if you have a large proportion of slow twitch muscle fibres,
doing these sort of high torque anerobic work,
can actually be detrimental to your performance.
- Yeah, which sounds a bit backwards doesn't it,
but bear with us.
Unfortunately you don't need to go for a muscle biopsy
to find out whether you're a slow twitch
or a fast twitch kind of person.
All you need to do is look at your critical power curve,
and you will be able to find that on Zwift.
So if what you can see is that it's really high
from 1 second to about 20 seconds,
it drops off like a cliff and then levels out,
then a lot of it is you are a sprinter,
and that means you've got
a lot of fast twitch muscle fibres.
If on the other hand from this top
it just goes slowly down like this
and flattens out gradually,
then you're putting more of an endurance monitor
with more slow twitch muscle fibres.
- Yeah, and once you've determined
what you think your muscle fibre makeup is,
then you can tailor your training to that.
So if you think that you've got high,
fast twitch muscle fibres,
then you should be doing,
yeah, those sort of high torque anerobic sessions,
and things like standing starts for example
and low cadence drills and things like that.
- So as an example, you could have it on a training session,
where you include five standing start sprints.
Now you want to choose a gear
which is pretty tough to get going,
'cause that will then require you to
not only produce a high amount of power to get it going,
but also a high amount of torque.
Then, the aim is to sprint as hard as you possibly can,
until you've reached your maximum cadence
at which point you can stop.
Between each one of those,
it's important to get a really long recovery,
I.e. around about 10 minutes.
- Yeah, or alternatively you could perform
some low cadence intervals on a climb.
So you do a minute at 110, or over 110% of your FTP,
at about 60 RPM,
and then follow that with a minute of recovery,
an easier while higher cadence.
Repeat this five times,
and then try and work your way up to doing 10 of those.
- On the other hand, if like Ollie and myself,
you have more slow twitch muscle fibres,
and you're looking to improve your sprint,
listen to this advice Ollie.
Currently, according to latest research,
you want to do a higher volume
of slightly longer duration high effort sprints.
So anything from 30 seconds to 2 minutes.
And with these you want a two to one ratio
when it comes to your recovery.
So twice the length of recovery as the interval itself.
- Yeah, and finally, if you're really concerned
about improving your sprinting power
and your sprinting performance,
then you should also think about avoiding
other types of riding and training,
which is gonna be detrimental to that.
So long endurance rides can be fun,
but they can also take the edge off your sprinting,
and your ability to train your sprint
when you're doing those sessions.
- You always get your best power
when you're really fresh, don't you?
- Yeah.
- Hence why big track sprinters,
or one of the reason why big track sprinters
have a much higher power than road sprinters,
'cause road sprinters need to do that endurance training
to get to the finish of a road race in the first place.
Finally, before we finish with this one,
the other thing that you need to consider in this equation
is science really, isn't it, and physics.
Because mass is something that's really going to affect
how fast any object is able to accelerate.
So if you've got any timber to shed, consider doing that,
because if you keep the same power,
you'll accelerate faster.
That said, OP's a lot heavier than both Ollie and I,
and he's gonna beat us in the sprint
every day of the week, isn't he?
So unless we get down to about 31/32 kilos each,
that's not gonna change.
- The next question is from Quinn Hughes who asks,
"What is a good way to get back into cycling
after a couple of months off?"
- Hmm, well I had this myself recently.
I dove straight into the deep end basically
doing lots of intense work
on the turbo training each week,
but I think ideally, you want to just start fairly steadily.
Do not dive straight back in at full intensity.
Two to four steady rides per week,
that are also reasonably short,
where I sort of just gauge how you're feeling really
before you then start to ramp things back up a little bit.
- Yeah, and after two weeks
with three to four steady rides,
I think then would be a good time
to start introducing some intensity to that,
and also the length of your rides as well.
- It sort of depends, doesn't it,
why you've had that time off in the first place.
If it's simply because you fell out of love with the bike,
then you want to try and deduce aspects,
which is why you fell in love with bike riding
in the first place.
If you've been injured and forced off the bike,
then you want to take things really careful,
and just make sure you don't get yourself injured again.
We did though, do a video on this very subject
a few years ago, myself and Science Man,
how to get back on your bike
after an extended period off.
When you get back on,
you forget what you're able to do before,
and just take things slowly.
- Yeah, so if the last ride you did
before you hung up your wheels,
was 100 miles at 25 miles an hour,
you might wanna lower your expectations,
and then build up gradually.
And then also that way,
you get that wonderful sense of progression
as you start to improve again.
- An ultimate question comes in from Tom Jameson,
"I'm doing the Fred Whitton in May this year.
I'm struggling to find the time to do the
five hour plus training rides
which I would like to do in my preparation.
So do you have any advice
that will help me to prepare for a long hilly ride
when the longest time I have for a training ride
is about 3 hours?".
- One of my favourite events.
- I know.
Ollie put this question in, he loves it.
- I won't be doing it this year unfortunately though,
because we're going to the Giro the first week of that.
- We are.
Such a hard life,
and we can't do the Fred Whitton challenge,
'cause we got scheduled early for the Giro d'Italia.
- My end gorilla's going to be there,
so keep an eye out for him.
But yeah - A sprinter
He's better than me.
- But is he a sprinter?
- Well he's better than me.
- But anyway, get on with the question.
- Yeah, well I think the biggest challenge
for the Fred Whitton is the severity
and number of the climbs that are in it,
so I would suggest trying to do VO2 max intervals,
typically 5 to 12 minutes long,
so that you're over your threshold power,
so that you have the engine to get over those climbs.
You can either do those as an interval session on turbo,
or you could build them into
one of your sort of three hour rides
that you mentioned there.
- Yeah, I don't think there's any reason
to despair these days
if you aren't able to put in five hour plus ride,
four or five to six hour sportive,
because it's been proven time and time again recently,
that you can get a lot of endurance
from doing some pretty short rides.
The important thing as ever with this kind of thing,
is that you are consistent.
So if you only have time to do one hour at a time,
make sure you're doing that four to five times per week,
and that will pay off in dividends on the day.
The next question comes in from MrWoo,
"Torqueback I'm about to buy a new helmet
and I don't know whether to buy an aero helmet or not.
Do you have any recommendations about Aero helmets
that you can give me.
I'd be happy about any advice about a specific model
that you would recommend.
Thanks guys!".
- Yeah, it's a good question,
and I think ultimately it comes down to ventilation.
Aero helmets do offer a measurable benefit
in terms of drag reduction.
This has been shown time and time again,
and consequently, I wear one most of the time.
- Even in the office.
- Yeah, especially when racing or walking to the shops.
But the weight penalty of an Aero helmet is minimal,
and it's definitely offset by the drag saving,
but they can be a little bit warmer,
so you know, it depends where you ride.
In the UK, it's pretty chilly most of times
so there's something around it.
But you know, I find that if it's over 30 degrees
I can get a little bit hot in a non-vented,
well, a helmet with less vents,
so I'd probably go for a climbing helmet.
But I'm like if I was only gonna own one helmet,
I'd probably go for an Aero one.
- Yeah, an Aero road one.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, I wonder if you're talking about
Aero Time Trial helmets, or road helmets here,
because the thing with the Time Trial helmets,
is that they're individual
to a particular person's shape aren't they?
They're a little bit like the fastest front wheel
and the fastest foot when put together,
don't necessarily make the fastest combination.
You can take the fastest helmet in the wind tunnel,
put it on somebody's head, it will work very well,
put it on somebody else's,
and there will be a different helmet
that's even faster than that.
So unfortunately, that,
you're either going to have to go
to a wind tunnel to find out,
or do some on the road testing,
which is something we should get around to explaining
how to do at some point - Yeah, that'd be cool.
The Chung method.
Anyway, not time for that this week,
because that is the end.
Oh it's not! We've got one more question,
got one more question, sorry.
Comes in from Stephan Tovell,
"Why is it so rare to see riders switch helmets?",
a helmet question,
"switch helmets after crashing in a race?
If they're good to carry on racing
(ie no major injuries) surely it's in their best interest,
to get a new helmet from the team car
in case the original has been damaged in the collision."
Which is a very good point.
- But you know what, I mean,
it sounds blindingly obvious
now he's mentioned it in a comment,
but hadn't actually thought of that before.
- No, I hadn't either.
- Yeah, but I think one of the reasons is that
well when riders crash, it's very rare fortunately
that they actually do bang their heads.
We do see it sometimes,
but often they damage other parts of their body.
But the spare helmets
generally aren't kept in the team cars are they?
- I don't remember.
They've got spare everything else, shoes,
and all the kit you could imagine
in the bag in the back of the car,
but there aren't generally any,
or at least many helmets in there,
but that's a very good point.
We might suggest it to the teams
when we go out to the Giro d'Italia,
involving the Fred Whitton challenge in the process.
I don't know the answer to that,
so we probably shouldn't have included this question
and actually shown it this week.
- Yeah, well I think the one thing we can say
is that if you do break your helmet in a crash
as a professional or non-professional or whatever,
then you probably shouldn't be carrying on with the race
or event you're doing.
- No, and that is something that cycling is doing
reasonably well now,
the whole concussion thing, because in the past
they might of just gotten back on their bike
as soon as they could,
even if they were completely out of it.
Thomas Schrödinger I remember from the Tour of California
a couple of years ago,
but the teams and the doctors now are really on this,
and the embassador for example
recently at Tourino Jasico has gone home,
and they've been really looking after him well
after suffering from a concussion.
And actually, we wish him all the best in his recovery
and the return to racing soon.
But good to see that development
in the world of cycling, I have to say.
I think that's the end.
That was indeed the last question.
I have some even more sneaky ones
at the bottom of the script here.
So we shall shortly say goodbye,
but before we do, a reminder of how to get in touch
with next week's questions.
Two ways to do it:
on social media with the hashtag #torqueback,
or in the comments section down below,
and don't forget if you want to put yourself
in with the chance of winning that subscription to Zwift,
the hashtag then is #askgcntraining.
- Yeah, if you've enjoyed this video,
then please give it a thumbs up,
subscribe to the GCN channel if you haven't already,
and well, for another video, why not check out,
since we're talking about helmets and safety,
the Bell Test Lab.
- Oh yeah, good idea.
So I went over there a year ago two ago,
you'll find that just down here.