PULSE RATE!

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T

TVC

Guest
Everything thay jay clock said!

I found you a suitable club yesterday, all you need is the confidence to go along, they really will be pleased to see you. It might seem offputting to see very fit guys on expensive machines knocking off 10 mile time trials in under 25 minutes, but they all started from the same place as you with their first road bike, and it wont be that many years before you're the bloke with tree trunks for legs bowling along at 30mph.

Confidence and drive is all you need, and once you're in the club you'll wonder what you were scared about.

Do it!
 
J

Joe24

More serious cyclist than Bonj
Location
Nottingham
jay clock said:
I am glad to hear you want to make it big, but I will be controversial: I do not think you will.

The number one thing most top achievers have in getting to their goals is the mental part. ALL I have read is "it's hard to find a cycle club in the SE of England" and laughably that it is hard to find somewhere to ride 30 miles in Kent/SE of England. "Oh, and the road surface is a bit bad. Oh and I cannot navigate" If you cannot overcome these you will not be the next Lance.

I have a 12 yr old nephew who plays for the Academy team of one of the UK's top football teams. He trains 2 hours a day and in spite of being smaller and perhaps not quite as good as some of the other boys his mental attitude means he has been kept on when others have been dropped.

Stop finding reasons for why you will fail and find reasons for why you will succeed. And keep us posted
Click to expand...

Damn right. I did actually want to say something like that and be abit realistic, but i wouldnt of been able to put it right without making the person feel crap.
A bike shop can tell you what the local clubs are.
Go exploring on your bike, find new places to go, have a loop, tne have loops that go off this loop, then loops that go off that loop..........
You will then have a great mind of roads, where to go, different ways around things and a good knowledge of the local area.
When i went out to a new place, i would go on the internet, find the road i knew, and find a route out and back. Id write it down just incase i forgot, but i didnt really need it. Always had fun, and you do get a good feeling when you have done it.
 
montage

montage

God Almighty
Location
Bethlehem
Also enter ALL time trials you can make, get yourself a racing lisence and begin racing! (i still need one of these but at £70 they aren't cheap!).

Need to get a decent race/TT calander for hampshire aswell lol
 
OP
OP
C

CyclingSAM

New Member
Ive done 44 miles with no food/drink/stop before :biggrin:

Was a charity cycle in the southeast, the main race was 32 miles, but i cycled there, witch is 2 miles so 34 miles, when it finished i cycled to my nans, witch is another 2 miles, 36, cycled back to mine from my nans witch is 4 miles, so 40 miles, cycled to a friends house another 2 miles, later on, asked him if he wanted to go out for a cycle again he said no, so i cycled home again witch is 2 miles, thats 44.

Just that after, i felt tired! This was in november ive gotton alot more fitter then.

This was on a mountain bike then.

I would like to test my speed first so i must get a bike computer and test my max speed and see if i can keep on beating it.
 
OP
OP
C

CyclingSAM

New Member
CyclingSAM said:
Ive done 44 miles with no food/drink/stop before :biggrin:

Was a charity cycle in the southeast, the main race was 32 miles, but i cycled there, witch is 2 miles so 34 miles, when it finished i cycled to my nans, witch is another 2 miles, 36, cycled back to mine from my nans witch is 4 miles, so 40 miles, cycled to a friends house another 2 miles, later on, asked him if he wanted to go out for a cycle again he said no, so i cycled home again witch is 2 miles, thats 44.

Just that after, i felt tired! This was in november ive gotton alot more fitter then.

This was on a mountain bike then.

I would like to test my speed first so i must get a bike computer and test my max speed and see if i can keep on beating it.
Click to expand...

Bump - Is this good?
 
walker

walker

New Member
Location
Bromley, Kent
Going back to the original question. Your heart rate is ok, but it could/should be better to be fitter. the lower the heart rate the less your heart has to work to pump blood around the body. You need to work on your cardio a bit more (get out and ride more) to get it down. Lance Armstrong is noted as bing the fittest man in hte world for having a resting heart rate of around 28BPM. Once you get in more training you should be aiming for a RHR Of around 45BPM.

As for getting in the TdF. your best aim is to get training and racing now, although your probably not going to get in the British Academy, I would just work on race wins.

As far as I remember there are clubs around Thanet, maybe more towards Gravesend that are quite good. Just get out and ride with any club will give you experience of riding in a pack, without that racing is going to be a long way off.
 
garrilla

garrilla

Senior Member
Location
Liverpool
Sam,

I'm 43 and bit overweight and drank about 1.25l of coffee today. I'm sat at my office desk, I put my heart rate monitor on to give you an idea. It's avg about 70. Last time I checked my total rest heart rate - just after waking and before any activity or the first cup of caffine- it was about 50. I drink one cup of coffee it raises 10!

20 miles a week is not much, you should target that at least a day with something longer at the weekend. As everybody here has said join a club for the fun of it, to find knowledgable people - eh you might even learn how to index your gears! You will need to find a buddy that wants to go far and get there fast - a club is probably the best place to start.

I have 3 big pieces of advice for you:

1) listen to you're parents, they're right - if you're not going to college then get a job, your bike from Halford's is a long way off what you need for decent AMATEUR racing which you will need to do first to win things in order to get scooted by a race team.

2) go to the library and find books - books on the tour (see what it entails - distances, times, climbs, etc), autobiographies of racers (feel the pain, admire the will), learning cyclecraft (road use, mechanical and so on) and anything else you can find. This will either inspire you or put you off.

3) Follow your dream, but know and accept that you must work 100s of times harder than you have envisaged so far. As was said in earlier posts, saying "I can't" won't get you anywhere. Your new catchphrase should be "I Did"

Please let us know when you win your first junior race.
 
M

monnet

Guru
No drink
No women
Bed by 9pm
Sleep with your legs raised
Don't stand when you can sit, don't sit when you can lie
Train twice on Xmas day and New Year's day because your rivals will only train once
Sacrifice everything for cycling

Well it worked for Sean Kelly - I don't think he worried too much about his heart rate either.

Like everyone else has said ride lots, all weathers and get used to suffering - really suffering. Bonking 40 miles from home on a cold, wet November morning on the winter training ride is usually when you realise whether you've got the required grit to make it.
 
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