It stands to reason that if you follow a proven, methodical training plan, you should see results. Those results should be measurable objectively and felt subjectively. Since opening Global Ride Training Center, I’ve been following steady Heart Zones® and Cycling Fusion Power training routines. Results translated to doing the Giretto in 2009 (4 back to back stages of the Giro – over 400 miles and a ton of climbing in the alps) with 85% of that training indoors. Not just my results, but results abounded all around me in my students and team members – this stuff works!

Sixteen weeks, countless hours on the bike, more Yoga & Pilates than I thought I’d ever see, and all the 40+ VO2 tests later, the results are finally in. The Winter Training program based on Cycling Fusion Training principles, at Global Ride has produced results that have exceeded even the most ambitious expectations set. These results were not relegated to just the first season participants either. From our newbies to our experienced racers, the numbers prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that This Stuff Really Works!

This is Erika Smith.  She understands that if you can measure something, you can improve it.  She  built a device to prove it.  Doesn’t she look wonderfully geeky?

So finally after about 7 years of road riding I can stop avoiding the phrase “I’ve never crashed on my road bike”. Saying that would be the kiss of death, and a sure fire way to “fix” that statement. I managed to make my road crash look more like a MTB crash (check out the mud on my left side). I’m tossing this one into the category of Too Much Testosterone. Yeah, it was my fault and entirely avoidable.

These are the words that rung in my head just before we headed out the door, helmet & gloves on, bikes ready to roll. My 19 year old daughter had a simple goal a few months ago – to lose weight and get in shape (sound familiar?). She had done a good job on her own, but hit the proverbial “wall”… little to no additional progress. I knew that if she was going to take it to the next level, she needed to have her sights set a bit higher. I suggested she train for the upcoming local (non-sanctioned) Strongland road race in September. She agreed, and with a 9-5 school schedule, agreed to do 3 days of indoor cycling and 1 day out (indoor training produced more heart rate benefits in a shorter time frame).

To all my Spinning® buddies and fanatics out there, don’t get too excited. I have nothing but kudos and good things to say about Spinning®, and have huge love for what Johnny G did to bring indoor cycling “to the masses”. Frankly, if it wasn’t for his work in the 80s, we would probably still be fighting to build the “perfect trainer” while a stationary bike is simply the perfect solution for both the class environment and introducing folks to cycling for the first time. If we can just stop our “us / them” thinking for a minute, we would see that whatever your style of cycling indoors, or whatever your bike manufacturer, it is all good for both the fitness and cycling industries respectively. Let’s be bigger than ourselves and help a rising tide raise ALL ships.

I have to confess, I did not go to the 2009 Heart Zones™ Master Trainer conference to partake in the blatant doping and mad consumption of performance enhancers that went on there. I just went to secure my Master Trainer certification and make sure I’m well equipped to train others how to teach the Heart Zones™ system for training indoor cycling. WOW, was I in for a surprise.

OK, I admit it, I’m an obsessive jock. All my earliest memories involve some sort of sport. It was baseball, football, wrestling and diving when I was a kid. My jockular puruits turned to tennis and golf when I hit college (even the football team’s water boy was bigger than me at Penn State). Outside of being “vertically challenged”, I guess the individual sports appealed to the control freak in me. Consequently, I have always been accustomed to training and improving in one sport or another. Cycling and especially racing bikes (MTB and road) however, has challenged me more than all the others. Only wrestling comes close to the cardio vascular requirements of cycling, and only tennis even remotely approaches the stress the legs must endure.

Well, OK… maybe not just like Lance. Nina and I (father/daughter) are indeed ahead of schedule! Chris Charmichael wrote about how Lance was ahead of schedule as he prepared for his first tour event of the season, and well, I at least want to be just like Lance. This Sunday was just our 2nd ride outside since the fall, and we had planned on only 30 miles with some climbing, since last week we did 20 with no climbing. After the first half of the ride, we both felt so good we decided to do the extra 15 miles and “step it up” a bit. Since we put 90% of the climbing at the very end of the ride, we were feeling the fatigue over the last 10 miles.