Time Trial or Road Race?

[Ian H]

Basic question: Do you belong to a club?

 

[Will1985]

Basic question: Do you belong to a club?

in my clubs hill climb

It's mentioned more than once.

 

[Ian H]

I beg your pardon, but I would have thought that a decent club would have coaching and advice readily available for someone wanting to start competitive cycling.

 

[Sam Kennedy]

Well I've already contacted someone in my club who has sent me links to different tacx workout plans, and a lot of people in the club race. I started a thread on my clubs forum but that was before I decided I wanted to race and the thread died.

I'll get in contact with the club leader/owner/starter and see what he recommends.

 

[montage]

How would I know if I would be better suited to Time Trials or Road Races?

I guess I could try both, but I don't want to wait until June to find out I trained for the wrong thing

Train both.
Unless you are at a very high level there is little point specializing just yet. The way to find out is to do them....anyway, the training should compliment each other at your level (I am asuming you have limited experience in either, correct me if I am mistaken...if I am then I apologise). TT training will assist in breakaways whilst racing, and race training will help raise your general fitness, making you faster at TTs. When you hit 22 min TTs and/or are doing well in Cat 2 racing then you will be able to see which is more suited to you.

If starting off, I would train for TTs are this will give you a better base to work off, then throw in some sprint training/short interval racing to prepare for cat 4 races - most cat 4 races I've seen end in a sprint, either with a large breakaway or the main bunch. Hill training will also make for good training - but if you have a good sprint then just being able to suck a wheel on the hills will suffice during races.

 

[montage]

if you really want an answer, TT or road race, then there are a few things that can help you decide. In previous sports, you been better at long efforts, or one of the faster kids sprinting etc?
How tall are you, how much you weigh?

Thinking about it, training more for TTs would make you better at races than training for races would at TTs. Look at how Bradley Wiggins raced his TdF, very much a TT portfolio. Sure he could answer the accellerations, but it was his ability to cling on with the big guns and suffer that got him his 4th place.

 

[bonj2]

Depends on the coach and the pretty adequate racer. There are some that believe that you don't need any more leg strength than your granny to ride a bike and by implication that muscle hypertrophy does not occur during training, and there is no need to train your upper body or do any off the bike training.

All this is in direct contrast to what the offiicial british cycling website says and the top riders do. Anything the top riders say they do is supposed to be to mislead their rivals so that they train incorrectly. You really couldn't make it up. For them it's all about aerobic fitness don't you know.

it's all about lactic threshold.
your likes of lance armstrong et al havent' got much bigger legs than your average joe on the street, so their power can't be that much greater. But they can sustain maximum power (or near maximum) for longer.

 

[Sam Kennedy]

Just because someone has smaller legs doesn't mean they are weaker than other people with larger legs.

I know someone who isn't too big, but lifts bigger weights than some bouncers, who mainly train just for bigger muscles.

 

[bonj2]

Just because someone has smaller legs doesn't mean they are weaker than other people with larger legs.

I know someone who isn't too big, but lifts bigger weights than some bouncers, who mainly train just for bigger muscles.

for the same size muscle, some may be denser (more 'toned') than others.
but it doesn't account for that much.

another thing you've got to remember about bouncers is they often normally only have to LOOK hard. most of them wear fake pecs.


another thing that varies is ratio of fast twitch to slow twitch fibres, although i don't know enough about it to know what the advantages of each are. I know sprinters have much higher ratio of fast twitch to normal people, probably to a lesser extent also time triallists, but not sure about road racing.

 

[Campfire]

Ummm, sounds very technical this for starters! We just got plenty of club runs in, I trained with the lads who would leave me if I couldn't keep up, then out training 25m two or three times a week, then raced! Mind you it was in the 60s!

I did try a few road races but they do play dirty sometimes and it's so easy to get hit by someone or to hit someone else's wheel, race over. Also possible injury, whereas in TTs unless you do something silly, or road is bad condition or you come off at a turn, you have much more control. For starters anyway.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do. I think it was interesting someone remarking you shouldn't train every day, I think that's absolutely right. Otherwise you've nothing to work your way out of.

 

[jimboalee]

for the same size muscle, some may be denser (more 'toned') than others.
but it doesn't account for that much.

another thing you've got to remember about bouncers is they often normally only have to LOOK hard. most of them wear fake pecs.


another thing that varies is ratio of fast twitch to slow twitch fibres, although i don't know enough about it to know what the advantages of each are. I know sprinters have much higher ratio of fast twitch to normal people, probably to a lesser extent also time triallists, but not sure about road racing.

Honestly, have you never heared of a Kevlar 'anti knife' jacket?

 

[jimboalee]

Honestly, have you never heared of a Kevlar 'anti knife' jacket?

I wish they were available when I was younger. I've got a nice little souvenir below my ribcage.

 

[Bill Gates]

it's all about lactic threshold.
your likes of lance armstrong et al havent' got much bigger legs than your average joe on the street, so their power can't be that much greater. But they can sustain maximum power (or near maximum) for longer.

No it isn't. There's tons more stuff that's too numerous to list here.

.................and leg strength in this context is muscle endurance.......and a large muscle isn't necessarily stronger than a smaller one..........and their (Lance Armstrong et al) absolute power is much much more than the average joe in the street.

Apart from I agree that their sustainable power is greater than your average joe, but then that's hardly earth shattering.

 

[jimboalee]

Two schools of thought here.

Size or Density????

Ask your Dad.

Trivia.
Would it be a surprise to know weight-for-weight, a chimpanzee is over four times stronger than a human. Yup. Why is this considering our DNA is so similar?

Incidentally, the other primates are equal or stronger than a chimpanzee, so why is the human so WEAK?

 

[lukesdad]

To get back to the op the main difference between the 2 disiciplines as I see it and may have a bearing on what you decide are;
TT 100% race of truth as some call it.
RR More brain power, and the ability to race with sudden injections of pace.