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Structure=Positive Effect!

Hello again. Well that’s January out the way. Judging by the Facebook and Twitter comments most of us cyclists are pretty fed up with the weather interrupting our early season base mileage progress. There have been pockets of good cycling conditions and if you were lucky enough to have been off work on these days then your training will not have suffered too badly. I’ve managed a couple of longish rides in the New Forest and supplemented that with a good selection of track and turbo sessions.

I’ve found that making these sessions more structured is having a very positive effect. On the track our coach is keen to stress the impact and focus of each drill and exercise we are doing, whilst on the turbo, I’ve been using a coach based program that does much the same. I’m finding that this means that I can make a large majority of my training sessions really count. Previously I think I’ve wasted many sessions by not having a target. With time being my largest constraint to training it’s important to make every session valuable.

The pro riders meanwhile have no such hassles. A large majority of them were racing in Qatar last week. The last couple of winners of this very flat six day race have been sprinters so it was really refreshing to see a two man break stay away on the second road stage and gain enough time to not be caught for the rest of the race. I’m not sure what odds you could have got on Wouter Mol from 2nd string outfit Vacansoleil taking the overall victory, but I sure they were a lot longer than it being Tom Boonen or Tyler Farar.


Team Sky’s explosion onto the scene continued with a very well executed team time trial that saw them win by 8 seconds over their nearest rivals. Going into the event Dave Millar had felt the need to express his opinion on the “Team Sky attracting riders” issue. I’m not sure why the Garmin-Transitions rider felt that his opinion should be heard, but I think that it just serve to stir up unnecessary bad feeling between the teams. I hope that British cycling doesn’t descend into this public bitchiness between riders. I’m sure that it happens a lot in the countries where cycling heritage runs deeper than ours, but we need to avoid it. We see enough of it in our more mainstream sports and it’s not pretty. Just get on with the riding please boys!

Back at home and I’m really excited to see the new Verenti frames. The three carbon framed Rhigos models look fantastic. The red carbon lugs on the SRAM red equipped Rhigos 3 is the top of the range and I’m really looking forward to swinging my leg over one in the near future. The fact that this new brand is aimed predominantly at the sportive market is truly indicative of the way cycling is going in this country.

This week I’ve taken some time to look at my sportive schedule for this year. I could ride a sportive every weekend, although Mrs Carter would probably have something to say about that, some weekends I could ride two. I’m going to target 6 sportives to really concentrate on, spread throughout the year from March to October and do others to hone specific areas of performance. The Wiggle Super Series looks really exciting. Many of the rides will take in some stunning countryside so participants enjoy a really good day out whilst fulfilling some important personal challenges too.

Maybe I’ll see a few of you out there?

Until next time, ride safe!

Rich