I’m planning to ride stage 1 of the Tour off Britain on Saturday 4th September, the day before the actual race and am looking for some advice on a suitable training plan to follow. I’ve seen that you’ve suggested multiple back to back plans for some people and I’m after some advice on this please based upon my last 4DP test results if possible. The route is ~115 miles and around 10,000 feet of climbing.
@Daniel_Rosenfeld Maybe check out Hilly Grand Fondo. If you search that plan in the forum you will find a lot of comments about the plan and what other riders are using it for and also some comments from the coaches about the plan.
I’ve used the Mountainous GF plan to great effect for a 160km with over 2,000m elevation knocking 90 minutes off my time from the year before. I also used it to train for a 200km with over 3,000m of climbing but added my commute onto that a few days a week as a cooldown. Also very effective. Race was DNF tho due to illness.
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Hey Daniel, just day 1 ?
Depending on your current training and the outcome you are looking for on the day (completion or time) you have a few options. Obviously it is going to be a big day so as you get closer to the event you want to make sure you have more volume in your plan so progressing from an intermediate to an advanced block to make sure of that.
Also, all purpose into something more hill focussed is always a popular option.
If you want to bounce your ideas off a coach in more detail, we are always happy to help there too:
I have ridden most of the stage. There is no monster hill that needs fill you with trepidation, but not much of it is flat, you need to be good over the 5-10 min climbs and keep repeating . Hopefully tackle them without losing too much rhythm. Some of the low cadence muscular endurance workouts may be helpful if your gearing is anything like mine.The volcano plan, with a few sessions done back to back may be worth considering. 6 miles of the ride will be downhill so there is plenty of micro recovery available. Personally, and it may not suit you , endurance was not as much an issue as the way you tackle the hills
To model a hill climb you need some advanced tools.
You need to model the hill gradient and the headwind, and then input the speed you wish to ascend or the power you can generate.
You can model the values you need with this tool:
https://www.gribble.org/cycling/power_v_speed.html
Assuming the gradient and headwind are fixed, you can choose the speed you wish to ascend and then calculate the power you need to generate, or the reverse.
Ideally you would then use a workout tool (such as Xert has) to model the hill gradient and the power target. I suppose you could look for a Suf workout that came close to you needs.
Thanks Alan.
I grew up in Cornwall but I wasn’t a cyclist back then, and my family still live there, so just trying to get an idea of the route from what’s been shared so far so I know what kind of training would be best.
That would be very valuable if there were just a few hills. Cornwall is built on a series of estuaries and so you are constantly dropping down into one, then up the other side. When I rode there I tried counting them thinking I was ticking them off from an unknown number, but I stopped counting after 50 climbs
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Daniel, you already have lots of good advice about training. You may be very different, but next time I ride Cornwall I would try riding 2 or more Suff workouts back to back, big gear tempo 4*8, Bat, angels, goat. I think those workouts would give me the duration of effort at around the intensity to be ridden. Doing 2 back to back I would probably drop the 2nd to 90-95% .Choose 3 days a week where I did the double rides, with an easy peasy day in-between
You may well find that somebody has already modelled the actual route profile on one of the sim platforms like Rouvy or BKool. I often use those for simulating specific climbs and courses. They are usually very realistic with a good smart trainer.
The hilly GF plan is the obvious choice leading up to your event. But what you choose to do before that depends on where your fitness currently lies. All-Purpose Road maybe if you already have a good level of fitness.
Here is the Rouvy route for Cornwall: