Bicycle Speed Training

Bicycle speed training can help you do better in a time trial, when you race against the clock; a road race; a criterium or short race on a circuit; or a stage race, such as the Tour de France. Speed training may prove crucial for that mad final push toward the tape, exercise physiologist Edmund R. Burke writes in “Serious Cycling.” To have the reserve energy to break away from the pack after 50 to 125 miles that have tested your endurance and determination, you’ll need proper speed training.

Time Frame

Make sprints part of your program at least once a week only after you have a year of experience, including completing a few races and 1,000 to 1,200 miles of training, advises Burke, who trained Olympic cyclists and was a professor of biology at the University of Colorado. Focus 95 percent to 97 percent of your overall training on better endurance and 3 percent to 5 percent on speed work, which places tremendous demands on the body.

Features

Work on sprints that feature progressively lower gears, warming up first and then doing two sprints of 200 to 250 meters, one sprint of about 300 meters, and one or two sprints of 200 to 250 meters, advises “Serious Cycling,” considered the bible of speed training. Complete declining time sprints of 60 seconds, 50 seconds, 40, 30 and 20. Allow your heart rate to return to normal between sprints.

Considerations

Work on “ins and outs,” rising out of the saddle in low gear for 10 pedal revolutions, then sitting down and sprinting for another 10 revolutions. Repeat three times, ideally working downhill or with the wind at your back. This sharpens your ability to conduct multiple sprints, as riders jump ahead in the final kilometers of a race.

Function

The goal of speed training for a time trial or the cycling portion of a triathlon is to increase your lactate threshold, or the point during cycling at which lactic acid begins to accumulate rapidly in the muscles, indicating fatigue, writes Matt Fitzgerald in Bicycling magazine. Burke notes that training at the lactate threshold allows the bicycle athlete to compete at a pace that is at a higher percentage of her maximal capacity.

Expert Insight

Vary the duration, intensity and terrain of your rides, including long flat rides, moderate-pace rolling rides, interval hill and descents, mixed terrain, indoor trainer and off-road mountain biking, advise Colin Barr and Steve Katai in “The Complete Idiot's Guide to Triathlon Training.” Ride behind a motorcycle going 28 to 33 mph, Burke recommends, and practice passing around the driver, ideally an experienced cycling trainer.