By Charlie Newcombe, Chasek Indoor Trainer Routes

In the previous article I mentioned many people’s reactions when I asked what their day to day commitments are in response to them asking for a training program. It is obvious that many of us are just social cyclists, who actually simply enjoy the freedom and exercise we get from riding.

However, we are also naturally competitive and after watching any of the major international classics such as the Tour de France, we all want to become Armstrong wannabe’s.

Specialised training programs are essential if anyone wants to achieve a goal in their desired sport. The big guns would never achieve what they do if they had the choice to only train when they felt like it.

However, we as social cyclists also have to contend with permission from the boss or the children or because the lawn needs mowing. Time is NOT on our side, so to think that a specialised training program that has cost a couple of hundred or even thousand in whatever currency is going to make us unbeatable is simply a dream.

Apart from the athlete needing the specified time to train, it is as important for the “coach” to be there to continuously monitor the training program. If your program asks for 2 hours a day with a variety of specialised types of training every other day, then you cannot make this up by training twice as hard and twice as long on the weekend, after needing to skip 3 days in the week because of business meetings.

So how does the average social cyclist get stronger and fitter? The typical response has always been simply to ride as much as you possibly can, whenever you possibly can. There are some simple rules to follow. Include as many climbs as you can in your fairly casual rides, so that you are forced to raise your heart rate, as well as make the physical effort on your muscles, just keep from falling over if you go too slowly. Without the need for a specialised program, climbing training is then taken care of without thinking about it.

Including some distance riding over a weekend is all we need to improve and maintain stamina levels, which you need for the typical 100km organised social event.

A group ride always includes it’s own challenges, where we tend to want to prove our ability against other group members. This type of challenge could quite easily be seen as social interval training.

Any cyclist who rides a couple of times a week, will have learned the skill of sitting a wheel for wind protection, whether this be for survival (just to get to the end), or when a group pace line has been organised to maintain a certain speed.

The Chasek DVD’s were designed in a way to enable you to easily maintain a level of fitness, so that the weekend rides do not become a do or die event.

These real life routes, with their many various gradients, will allow you to train all of the standard cycling skills like, climbing, good leg speed and pace riding as in a time trial as well as distance riding.

In the same way that we all have our chosen routes which we like to do on the road, so as to achieve certain levels of fitness, it would be a good idea to get to know the different Chasek DVD’s, so that a casual indoor ride can actually become a planned specific workout

Of course some routes are more suited to specific disciplines. Over the next few articles we will take a look at couple of these routes and explain how to do a little more than just follow the film from the beginning to the end.

Coming next in Part III - Closer look at how to use training aids.