Crank Cycling

At the end of every season you should take a break from focused training. I’m not saying you shouldn’t ride your bike…not at all! But you should stop looking at your heart rate monitor, your power data and even your personal training duration for a few weeks. This helps to relax the mind, rejuvenate and reboot yourself. We don’t often think about it, but disciplined training is mentally taxing; it’s just plain tiring. Sometimes at the end of a good season the body will feel like it is ready to keep going but the mind still needs a break.

After this ‘cooling off’ period I usually add very loosely-structured training with small goals to my riders’ training diaries. These goals are usually pretty simple: do a 4-hour ride 3 times a month, accumulate 3 to 5 hours of tempo per week or maybe do a club ride just for fun once a week. These workouts and weekly goals are low stress, low commitment and allow your brain to slowly get used to the mental workload that is coming when training season arrives.

Riders should find that rides during this time of the year are meant to be fun, motivating and inspiring. This is also the time when you should review how your riding and racing season went during the past year. New-found inspiration and motivation will help you see the future and all its possibilities. You should try to assess whether or not you’ve met the goals you set for yourself this past year and whether you want to try and improve on your gains. Maybe you want to attack those shortfalls that you may notice in this review. Maybe you’ll want to set entirely different goals for the coming year. It’s all possible, and it’s up to you!

Setting goals is paramount. If you’ve never set goals in past seasons you should try doing it this coming year. If my athletes are planning on competing in the upcoming racing season, I have them try to set at least three goals to strive for. After all, if you know what goals you want to achieve you can then measure how close you’ve come to attaining your desired results and make adjustments in successive years.

Setting goals is one of my favorite parts of riding and racing because I have the opportunity to entertain all the possible things I can try to accomplish, and that’s just fun! But remember: goals should be challenging and attainable. After you set some goals you should make sure to keep a record of the training you do, being sure to add comments about how you felt during and after your training sessions. You should also make sure to set milestone markers to measure whether you are moving in the right direction in order to attain your goals.

In my next blog post I’ll talk about setting accomplishable goals for your next season.

See you on the road,
Coach Jesse Eisner

Did you have goals this past season? Did you achieve them? If you need help setting goals for next season and you need direction in how to achieve those goals, let the coaches at Crank Cycling know. We can help!

What is VAM? Cyclists, even riders that don’t necessarily consider themselves climbers, almost always love a good hill. The other things that cyclists love are gear and data. As power meters and GPS units have become cheaper and more ubiquitous, a typical cyclist has more data available to them than ever. This article will discuss one particular metric that can be measured using a GPS: VAM VAM was a term first popularized by Italian cycling trainer Michele Ferrari. VAM is the Italian acronym for “ velocità ascensionale media” which basically translates as “average ascent speed” . Just think of VAM as vertical meters climbed per hour. VAM is typically measured in meters per hour ( M/H), but you could theoretically use feet per hour as well. What makes this metric so useful is the fact that when climbing, most of the power the cyclist applies to the pedals goes to pushing the cyclist upwards, rather than forwards. So VAM can be used as a proxy for power to weight, as well as to compare performance on say an 8% grade, to that of a 10% grade. If an athlete is climbing at a VAM of 100 (M/H), it will take the athlete 1 hour to get to the top of an 8%, 10% , or even a 15% climb of 1000M . The VAM metric can therefore be used to compare different climbs to each other. You can tell if a performance is a good one or a bad one based on the VAM you achieved on the climb In the absence of a power meter, VAM can be an excellent way to gauge an effort, or even a great tool to build a workout. For example: If a rider has a powermeter, I might have him do a 20 minute time trial, and then take 95% of his average power as his threshold power. If the riders doesn’t have a powermeter, I can have him do a 20 minute hill, and record the VAM. If he does a VAM of 1000, I can assume that at threshold power, he climbs at 95% of 1000, or 950 M/H! So if I want this athlete to do 4 X 10 minute intervals at threshold power but he doesn’t have a power meter, I can tell him to do 4 X10 minute hill shooting for an average VAM of 950! There are plenty of online tools out there such as Garmin Connect and Strava that allow you to upload your rides, and look at your VAM along with other metrics., and most GPS computers will allow you to view your VAM as you ride. So there you go: VAM is a great tool to compare climbs of with similar vertical ascent, and can also be used as an inexpensive alternative to a powermeter.

It is coming. It sneaks up on us every year. That first race. We told ourselves that we were going to be ready. We drew up a plan, bought a new training journal, and made a list of goals.

Unfortunately, the off season is filled with holidays, friends, family, and fatty foods. None of these things are truly bad. However they can put a hamper on our best laid plans.

With our friends and family requesting our presence, and commitments filling our time, training can be nearly impossible. This is a time when your own creativity can help you meet your goals.

The majority of cycling disciplines (at their core) rely on our aerobic engine. Training that engine should be a priority during the off season.

Below are some training tricks that can help you. Before you start, you will need to know your upcoming events and the longest duration (time, not distance) you will be competing. Find a date in the future that you will hit that longest duration (date of race) and work backwards, subtracting time trained at your aerobic capacity to the current date. For example, if I am planning to do a 3 hour road race in June, I will plan to ride 3 hours at maximum aerobic capacity in April and subtract 10 minutes every week till I get to the current date.

Block out your training: Find the times that will work best for your personal training. Sometimes that means you will miss your Saturday club ride. At certain times of the year I get up at 4:30 am to be on the the road by 5:15 am. This affords me two hours of uninterrupted training.

Do Doubles: Some days squeezing an hour in before work and adding 45 minutes on the trainer after the kids are in bed is the way to go.

Build a camp: If you have multiple days off and you need to work on climbing, get up early (being up early is good for meeting other obligations, too) and drive to an appropriate cycling terrain on consecutive days. If you build multiple camps over a period of two to three months, you will see your fitness grow by leaps and bounds.

Since the majority of cycling disciplines (at their core) rely on our aerobic engine, there are a multitude of alternative aerobic activities that can help us build our aerobic foundation. Go for a run, it’s easy to get out the door quickly and be back before anyone notices your gone. Does your work have a gym or offer membership somewhere? Take a spin class or kettle bell class before work or at lunch.

Maximize your training time: If you are set on meeting specific goals, don’t go do the epic ride with your buddies and stay away from the super slow ride that does not give you any training benefit.

If all else fails you can race into fitness. Make sure to adjust your goals, planning to do better the second half of the season. Don’t stress, cycling calenders usually have a long season with multiple disciplines and lots of racing options.

Crank Cycling can build you a training plan and even offers cycling camps. Let us know how we can help you reach your goals

See you on the road,
Coach Jesse

A key component to having a good race is having a tried and tested routine that you stick to. You will have some pressure and stress while trying to accomplish your goals. So it is important to feel comfortable leading into the day of your race. You already must be a disciplined individual to prepare physically and mentally for your race. Taking that discipline and utilizing it for your race day prep is important.

Pick a routine that you know works. Try to sleep the amount of time you normally when training. If your race is on a Sunday don’t add tons of extra chores around the house Saturday. You and your coach have done efforts that should mimic your event. Pick foods that you have eaten before these hard efforts and that you know sit well in your stomach. All testing of new foods should be done during training, months before your event. Give yourself extra time during preparation. Plan for everything to take longer and expect that you will need that extra time.

Because competition is stressful physically and mentally it is important to not add any extra stress. Make sure you are comfortable. Plan your meals ahead of time. What will you eat the day before and the day of (pre and post event). Choose the clothing you will wear to your event, during your event, and after your event. Make sure your equipment is the way you want it. Do you always use red TT bars at a time trial. Make sure they are on your bike not your workbench.

Just like discipline in training discipline in preparation is very important. Practice your preparation. You will most likely have similar events leading up to your peak event. Try new things months in advance. Repeat what works, and right it down to review later. Repetition is key to dialing in your routine. Finally if its not broke don’t fix it.

It is always important to remember life is not perfect. Things can go wrong. We all have had mechanical at inopportune moments or forgotten a helmet. If your are having a challenges here are a couple things you can do. Take a deep breath, ask for help. If it can’t be helped let out your frustration out and than let it go. It is very important as an athlete to have multiple goals. Pick two or three races you want to do well at. Then choose multiple metrics to measure your success. There is almost always a success in your performance.

If you want to take your training to the next level, let the coaches at Crank Cycling know. We can help you meet whatever training goals you have!
See you on the road,
Coach Jesse Eisner

So it is the end of your season and it has been a long one. You just finished the Everest Challenge which has 30,000 feet of climbing. Or maybe you just did a five day UCI stage race in the Caribbean. For some of the riders I coach, this is the way their season ended. When your season has ended with such lofty goals, you can be left with a lack of drive to continue training.

Some riders force themselves through periods where they lack motivation. This can, and usually does, lead to overreaching and eventually burnout or over training.

It is important to give ourselves time to relax from the rigors of training and racing even if you have come off a stellar season, accomplished your goals, and have a new level of fitness. It is important to remember that even if you are not physically overreaching or over trained, that you may be mentally tired. Our minds need just as much care as our bodies when it comes to recovery.

There are always alternative training methods to maintain and rebuild a high level of fitness. These alternatives can give us a break from a rigorous training schedule and still be fun. One method that some cyclists use is Cyclo-cross. Cyclo-Cross is like mountain biking and running mixed into the same workout on road style bicycles. Cylco-cross race courses are run on road, grass, and single track trails with minimal technical sections, but have areas where the rider must dismount and carry his or her bike while hurdling barriers.

Mountain biking is also another good alternative of riding. At the end of a long season, our training and competing can become only a means to an end. Sometimes this leads us to forget about the fun aspects of riding bicycles. Most of us started riding bicycles because it was fun and our competitive natures pushed us to compete on our bikes. Mountain biking leads us back to trails, keeps our brains engaged picking good lines on technical sections of these trails, and usually leads us to mud; and everyone knows that getting muddy is fun.

If you want to be as functional as possible in your off season, lifting weights is also a good thing to take up at the end of your season. Weight lifting is something you should talk with your coach or trainer about as you can very easily injure yourself lifting. Lifting weights should also incorporate the same movements that your cycling discipline does.

When starting to rebuild your overall fitness and transitioning into the off season, it is important to break up the rhythm of your training to include cross training and conditioning in a fun environment. Allowing your body to rest and recover from anaerobic efforts is important. Allowing your mind to rest from pushing yourself to accomplish your workouts is also very important. Training comes in building cycles. All building cycles whether weekly, monthly, or yearly should include rest periods.

Our long term goals as athletes should include rest, recovery, and relaxation at the end of a long season and taking that time will renew our inner drive. I am writing this blog post from Monterey, California, where I just took a few days off to relax, read books, and ride a mountain bike on beautiful Fort Ord, and believe me, I got muddy.

If you want to take your training to the next level, let the coaches at Crank Cycling know. We can help you meet whatever training goals you have!
See you on the road,
Coach Jesse Eisner

It is essential to know your strengths and weaknesses before adding specificity to your training plan. There are two common approaches, 1) further develop your strengths, and 2) focus on your weaknesses. Riders training to their strengths dedicate time and energy where their skills and abilities already lie; others, focus on their weaknesses in order to develop a well-rounded set of abilities. The Crank Cycling Climbing Camp can help both types of riders.
The Crank Cycling Spring Climbing Camp is where a dedicated rider can harness the power of specificity in order to achieve new levels of performance. After determining a focus area and attaining a base-level of cycling fitness, adding training specificity complementing and stretching your abilities is the next step. If you are a climber, more climbing and specific gradients that mimic upcoming events, including appropriate duration and intensity, is essential. Planning on competing in a century race with a 3-mile climb? If so, then you will want to reflect that exact effort in your training. Do you have upcoming touring century rides? The first goal for specific training is to start with duration barely exceeding your existing limits. To maximize your training, the goal is to incrementally extend that duration until reaching the desired effort level for a given event. Accurately answering the following questions will effectively shape your training program:
1) Does the event have repeated efforts such as a circuit race?
2) Is the event a point-to-point event with continuously rolling terrain?
3) Are there repeated climbs?

After these efforts are added into your training plan you can take specificity a step further
by adding continuous blocks of the chosen discipline to stimulate further adaptation—a training camp is a perfect opportunity for this. Training camps can be as simple as a long weekend with multiple days of riding, or as intricate as choosing multiple specific climbs over 3 to 5 days while maintaining specific power or heart rate output.
Crank Cycling just completed a spring climbing camp in some of the most challenging and beautiful terrain in Southern California. For three days riders enjoyed a FULLY-SUPPORTED experience including a follow-vehicle, food, drinks, spare clothing, mechanical support, expert coaching, and evaluation. Riders climbed over 21,000 feet, sped down winding descents, and pushed themselves to new levels—all developing their riding skills and pushing their physical limits.

“It felt like I was on a 3 day vacation, except I was never more than an hour away from home. I got to push my body over some of the most beautiful climbs San Diego has to offer, while feeling very “pro” the entire time. There is nothing more relaxing than knowing you have a support vehicle near you at all times. A raise of your hand gets you anything you need, water , food, a jacket, a wheel change, sometimes just a word of support, or the directions to your next turn. I will be the first to sign up to Crank Cycling’s next climbing camp!” ~Jose Cepeda~

Summer Climbing camp

Jose and Coach Jesse

Coached athlete Justin Farrar

If you want to take your training to the next level, let the coaches at Crank Cycling know. We can help meet whatever training goals you have!

See you on the road,
Coach Jesse Eisner

In the summer of 1996, I took an introduction to velodrome racing class. I had been riding my bike quite a lot that year and the year prior. Learning how to ride and race on the San Diego Velodrome just seemed like the next natural thing to do with my cycling. A velodrome is an oval track with banked turns. Velodromes can be made out of wood, asphalt, or concrete. They are built indoors and outdoors. There are only 25 velodromes currently in the United States as opposed to Japans 67 velodromes. Recently velodromes are being called hipster Nascar, as the rise of fixed-gear bike riding is currently cool. In my opinion, all things leading to more people on HPVs (human powered vehicles) is good.

Since 1995 I have ridden a bicycle. This is my 16th season racing my bicycle. I still can’t get enough of the adrenaline rush of going fast. My motto is going through corners at 30 mph is good, and going through corners at 35 mph is better. My current job is coaching cyclists. I coach all kinds of cyclists: athletic enthusiasts, adventure racers, century riders, masters racers, and a professional. This coaching started when I was asked to be an assistant coach at the San Diego Velodrome in 2008. This is my fourth season as a coach at the velodrome, so it seems I have come full circle. I learned to race on the velodrome in 1996 and now teach people to race on it.

If you want to come and learn how to ride and race on the San Diego Velodrome, click on the link below or let me know. Our six-week classes start in early March and end in late September.  The next class begins on June 22nd.

This link i below is for the 6 week Developmental class at the San Diego Velodrome. This class is appropriate for riders of all levels, from true beginners to experienced trackies. Sean and Jesse will split the class participants up into two groups. The beginner or Level 1 group, and the advanced or level 2 group. The level 1 group will learn the basics of track riding, while the level 2 group will learn more advanced training and racing techniques. The cost is $120 + a $3 online registration fee. The cost of the class includes a rental bike if you need one. Class is from 7-9 PM on Wednesday evenings. Please arrive a little early, especially before the first week of class. You will receive an email a few days before the first class with a reminder and more information.

San Diego Velodrome Adult Class  Registration and Information

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Cheers,
Cycling Coach Jesse Eisner
619-962-3176
www.eisnercoaching.com
www.crankcycling.com

In order to hone your cycling skills it is important to practice them in a controlled environment. This means you should practice riding fast, cornering, and riding in groups. Creating a controlled environment is the hardest part of practicing these skills. To do so you need a safe place to ride and at least one experienced rider who has mastered all of the skills being practiced. Crank Cycling Coaches can help you do this.

Do you want to cruise through the field of riders and find the sweet spot in the peloton? Do you want to slide into the draft and reap the benefits of others’ hard work? Would you like to glide through corners at high speeds, not hitting your brakes and not having to over-analyze the word Apex on google search for hours? Do you want to make it over, through, and around obstacles and hazards without worry?

Would you like to keep up on the local club ride without being afraid of riders coming too close to you, or the constant thought of being dropped and not able to catch up at the regroup spot?

All of these things can be accomplished and your mind can be set at ease with some classroom instruction and on-the-bike practice. Come to Crank Cycling’s bike-handling and group riding skills clinic on April 16th, presented by Crank Cycling Coach Jesse Eisner. Jesse is a USA Cycling Certified coach and veteran racer with 2 decades worth of riding and racing experience.

See you out on the road,
Coach Jesse

Link to sign up

http://clients.mindbodyonline.com/ws.asp?studioid=7102&stype=-102

What are you capable of doing? Most athletes do not know what the top of their peak performance can be. One of the hardest parts of training is objectively viewing your own performance and determining whether your efforts are adding to a progressive or regressive state. We, as finite beings, are for the most part incapable of training to our personal best without some outside perspective. Productive training consists of disciplined efforts performed on a razors edge, trying to push beyond our current limitations to achieve what may seem impossible from the outset. We most often find what we are capable of doing by pushing beyond our current limitations to the point of failure. Failure is not a bad thing. Failure shows what our weaknesses are and points us in a direction in the pursuit of improving our performance.In a recent conversation with one of my clients, he shared that he thought he might be doing too much and was probably not capable of attaining some of our midterm goals. We discussed the workouts he had completed and his overall recovery.

Here are some important questions you can ask yourself to make sure you are not over training: Am I able to do and complete my workouts correctly? Am I recovering on my rest days? Am I staying healthy (not getting sick)?   This is where a power meter can be quite useful.   If an athletes is feeling good, but the power keeps improving, we know that the athlete is not over trained.

So objectivity will help us to determine our training progression. Pushing beyond our seeming limitations reveals our true limitations, and failure is just a learning tool.

All of these elements can be more easily attained when consulting with a coach. Crank Cycling coaches will help you to do all of these things. Give us a call! Let’s sit down and discuss how we can help you to assess your capabilities.

See you on the road,
Coach Jesse

In some of the hottest weeks of the summer bicycle racers from all across America congregate in Milwaukee Wisconsin for 14 days of racing. This 2 weeks of racing is called superweek. The fields are big and the racing is fast and technical. If you want to pay your dues or earn your racing stripes you go and race superweek. One of the riders I manage on the Ranchos Development Elite Team has gone over to race for one of those two weeks. Below is an interview I did with him about half way through his race week.

Cheers
Coach Jesse