Finding ways to improve your cycling speed is the main name of the game for most serious cyclists. Unfortunately, it takes a bit more than just jumping on your bike for another training ride. To accomplish the goal of getting faster, you’ll need to incorporate a few basic principles into your overall training routine – and then make it a habit. Here’s what you need to be doing to make it happen.
Consistency
Going on one ride a week with friends isn’t going to cut it if you want to improve your speed. You need to be getting out and about on your bike more frequently, even the short rides count. Everything adds up, so get out there and get some training done.
Training Partner
Why not get a training partner who’s faster than you? This way you’ll be forced to keep up, and you’ll get to see what they do differently to you. You could do interval workouts, recovery rides or even swap nutrition choices – pay attention to what your partner is doing, it could very well help you.
Join a Group Ride
Group rides will do two things for your cycling Conwy that training alone won’t: improve your bike handling and let you ride at a higher speed. By forcing yourself to deal with other twitchy riders, you’ll make small movements to correct your line in order to avoid an accident.
Eventually, this will help you gain comfort and have more confidence and control on the bike, which are essential skills if you’re thinking about racing. And, of course, a good draft from a big group of cyclists will never hurt your average speed. So even if you hate it at first, join a group ride once per week at a minimum.
Ride Through the Winter
During the long winter months, you’ll lose your fitness and pack on the pounds quicker than you might think. To maintain what you’ve gained during the warmer months and set yourself up to get even faster in the following year, you’ll have to train during the winter. This means setting up an indoor trainer, aerobic cross-training and hitting the weight room at the gym. It will all make you a faster cyclist and keep you from having to drop a lot of weight when the cycling season begins again.
Uphill Training
Every single cyclist suffers riding uphill. The key, though, is to suffer for the shortest amount of time possible, which means conquering the crest as fast as humanly possible. Seek out the biggest climbs in your area, do hill repeats and learn how to pace yourself so you don’t bonk halfway up.
But just as important — and an aspect that a lot of cyclists ignore — is to practice the descents. Learn to control your speed, and know how to enter and exit corners; this will make you safer and provide you with the necessary confidence to tap those brakes a little less, which can result in big time savings. After all, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to shave a minute off your ascent if you’re only going to concede even more time on the way down.
