- We've been invited here,
to Team Sky's Mallorca training camp by Wahoo,
to join the team in an indoor training session,
where I'll be riding along with
the likes of Michał Kwiatkowski and Wout Poels,
and I must admit, I am looking forward to that.
- Bucket. Bucket for Matt.
- Before we do that,
we're also going to look at
how Team Sky integrate the Wahoo KICKR
into their training routine.
(dance music)
- First up we spoke to Tim Kerrison,
to ask how important home trainers are
to Team Sky's training strategy.
- Yeah, power trainers are really important
to all professional cyclists
at this time of year, in winter when they,
when the weather's a bit unpredictable.
The guys do quite a lot of work on the KICKR
to replace what they're not able to do on the road.
- What about the warm down as well,
warming up and warming down,
because that's where Team Sky have been
a bit of a trail blazer in the Pro scene
for the last few seasons.
- Yeah, warming up and warming down's
really an important part of what we do in races.
I think because it's such a demanding sport,
and the riders,
the stage alone is so demanding,
I think when we came into the sport
the approach was, well you don't want to do
any more than you have to do,
but actually we've found,
if done at the right intensity,
and with the right fueling plan around it,
that investing a little bit of time
in warming up, if and when it's required,
it actually helped the riders to recover
and start the next day in better shape.
- So that's the perspective of the coaches,
but what about the riders?
How will they use home trainers?
Hi Luke, on a bit of a light warm down now,
but I'm interested in what sessions you actually use,
especially given your race programme,
because you've got, you do the Northern Classics,
but then you move ahead on to the
Tour de France as well, generally.
- Yeah, I think for me it's more of a tool for,
and I guess it's similar to most people,
it's more of a bad weather tool.
If I have the option to go on the road,
I'll always take it but, you know for me, often,
leading up to the Classics is often
predominantly where you get the bad weather,
so it's, with a system the way you can set it up
you can really put a lot of torque
and do some really low cadence stuff
which is kinda like climbing a cobble climb,
when you're really grinding up it,
so it's really good for the torques type work.
And that's predominantly what I use it for,
in the off season and the winter.
- [Matt] Since you're on your own in that zone,
what do you like to listen to?
What gets you pumping?
- Yeah, everyone's pretty different
what they listen to, everyone's got
their own little thing.
But for me I think it's just a
good bit of old school rap really.
- Oh really?
- I say old school, not old old,
like, I'm not that old, so.
I mean, to you , old school rap is a different thing.
- Yeah, slightly different.
- You probably call it new. - Mine's Grandmaster Flash,
and you're like Dr. Dre for example.
- I'm Dr. Dre, 50 cent, Eminem,
you probably still call that modern, wouldn't you?
- It is relatively modern for me though, yeah.
- Big question for you Ian.
Do you think training with accurate power
has improved your race day performance?
- Ah, most definitely.
Yeah, you know I remember when I had
my first home trainer and it was
just the tyre on the little wheel
and you try to train, and you try to get power
but you just wind up tyre slipping,
you wear your tyre out and you don't really get
and accurate or consistent training session.
- [Matt] Describe to me then,
I mean we've all done some pretty brutal training sessions,
can you remember the hardest training session
that Tim has ever given you?
And what the soundtrack to that session was.
Was it silence, your beating heart?
Or were there some beats involved?
- I think the most challenging
Turbo session I've ever done was
probably 2014.
We were actually out here in Mallorca,
and we'd done a three hour ride,
and it was like three degrees and raining,
we're all like, Wiggins is like,
we're going back, this is ridiculous.
So we came back, came in the hotel
and they'd already set up our bikes
up on the Turbo.
And I was like, I'm not sure if
we're going to do this right away.
First I'm going to need a shower and warm up.
So I went and showered.
I think we did a session,
it was like an hour and a half
with three 15 minute blocks of threshold.
Which after we'd already been outside
I think it was the last day at camp,
so we were mentally kind of already checked out,
but we got through the work out.
I think it was Wiggins, myself
and maybe Ben Swift in the room.
- So some good company.
- And I didn't have headphones,
I just wanted to get it done.
You know, I was just looking at the power
do the workout, and get off
and go home for Christmas.
That was the worst, well just the mentally
most difficult session I've ever done.
- So you, as well as being a
Track World Champion and
a time trial specialist as well,
and I've noticed that you do,
rather than use rollers to warm up for the track
you use a home trainer, so I mean,
that's quite interesting from a track rider.
They normally sort of go with the least resistance?
- I mean, when I first started
with GB on the track three or four years ago,
it was always roller, would always just do rollers,
and then we switched to Turbos just to
get that more resistance in.
And certainly they looked at the warm ups a lot,
and you can get a lot of cadence on the rollers,
but that's about it.
But, especially for a Team Pursuit, you know,
the start of a time trial,
you need your big power straight away,
and the only way we could do that
is by getting some resistance in the warm up.
- [Matt] So whereabouts do you like to situate yours?
Do you like to be with the family,
or do you like to be alone and kind of focused?
- Well, I've just moved to a new place actually,
got a nice Terrace in the sun now,
so hopefully be out there.
But where I was in Manchester,
we had a sort of designated bike Turbo room,
so it was you know, like just a little
grim room, just Turbo here, Turbo there,
and you went in and, yeah, just got it done.
But yeah, I'm looking forward to it now,
big terrace looking over the sea.
- So, it's very clear that
the home trainer plays a vital part
in every aspect of training and competition.
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