Don’t try this at home
Discovering the secrets of the world’s best is a proven sale for recreational riders. But as you’ll find out, many strategies should perhaps be the preserve of the pros only
01 TRY TAKING KETONES?
● Ketones continue to flirt with road cycling thanks to the likes of Jumbo-Visma reportedly using them at the Tour de France. Then again, any team who’s signed up to the Movement for Credible Cycling (MPCC), which includes Lotto-Soudal, Team DSM and EF Education Easy-Post, is prohibited from using them due to their side-effects, including vomiting and stomach distress, and uncertainty over any longterm effects. But what are they? They’re chemicals produced naturally by your body when it’s run out of carbs for fuel and switches to breaking down fat. They’re not banned by WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) so you, the recreational cyclist, can doff a cupful to your heart’s content – though you might not want to as their taste is, shall we say, ‘unique’. But would you want to anyway? The answer’s equivocal.
“The rationale is the same as when I researched medium-chain triglycerides,” explains Professor Asker Jeukendrup, who works with Jumbo-Visma. “The MCTs are partly converted to ketone bodies, especially beta hydroxybutyrate, and this is a good substrate for the muscle. We demonstrated that MCTs were rapidly used and could be a good alternative fuel. However, it’s pointless even thinking about additional fuels if you don’t have a perfect fuelling plan in the first place. All the rest is just icing on a cake.”
Do you have a sound nutrition plan? Even if you do, you might not enjoy the results you’re after, with studies suggesting ketones could be better for recovery than anything else and only if you’re in an extreme fatigued state, like a Tour de France rider often is. In fact, we’ve recently tried ketones and suggest their main benefit is blunting appetite, which is supported by a 2018 study out of Oxford University that showed increased blood-ketone levels suppressed appetite through lower plasma ghrelin (the hunger-signalling hormone) levels. You’ll have to dig deep, though: three servings of high-quality G R KetonePerformance cost $85. Maybe stick with that healthy diet for now.
02 CUT ALL COMFORT?
● When it comes to how you sit on a bike, there’s no mysterious variation between you and Chris Froome. “Instead, it’s upfront where we look to differentiate. This usually means the reach and drop to the bars,” explains bike-fitting expert John Dennis of Momentum Sports Injury Clinic in Newcastle.
“Often, I’m looking at the professionals’ riding torso angles – measured from the hip up to the shoulder – and this is as low as 36° up to around 42°. This may require running a saddle-to-handlebar drop of around 11 to 14cm on their road bikes,” he says.
“However, for your average weekend rider, this may be closer to 45° and probably a saddle-to-bar drop of around 7-10cm,” Dennis adds. “For those whose goal is riding even more comfortable miles, back and torso angles in the higher 40s running around 4-6 cm of drop may well be more appropriate. Higher and shorter isn’t always more comfortable, though, so it’s important to establish what works best for the individual.”
Ideally that’d mean a professional bike fit. Whether that fit would direct you to splash out on the current trend of a narrower cockpit remains to be seen. “It’s popular for pros and competitive amateurs to run narrower bars than would have been used in the past. We’d measure the widest part of the shoulders, which gives us a starting point for bar width. It could mean a 40cm bar on a smaller bike up to a 44cm bar on larger frames. But there are riders now riding 36cm bars to chase the streamlined advantages of a narrower frontal profile. We wouldn’t recommend this to the vast majority of riders in terms of sacrificing comfort and sustainability for aerodynamics, though.”
“OF TEN, I’M LOOKING AT THE PROFESSIONALS’ RIDING TORSO ANGLES – MEASURED FROM THE HIP UP TO THE SHOULDER – AND THIS IS AS LOW AS 36° UP TO AROUND 42°”
John Dennis Bike-fitting expert
03 FAST IN THE OFF-SEASON?
● Fasted and glycogen-depleted sessions are a staple of the WorldTour teams’ off-season menu, the idea being that going into a ride nutritionally undercooked forces the body to burn fat for fuel. This has a two-pronged benefit. The first is that the body will spare precious glycogen stores for higher-intensity efforts. The second is that riders will become leaner, which will pay off in the mountains. It certainly stimulates the latter, with EF Education Easy-Post’s manager Jonathan Vaughters attributing fasted training to why Team Sky riders would turn up to February’s Emirates races in seemingly peak physical condition. For the elites, it pays off. For amateur cyclists, heed the caveats.
“Some studies, especially with men, say that it’s okay to train fasted but I don’t know why you’d put that extra stress on your body,” says sports nutritionist Emily Kier. “How fat adapted do you need to be? You have energy products, and it’s not like you’re doing the Marathon des Sables [run] where you carry your own food and will be hungry for six days.”
There’s also evidence that training too long and too hard in a sugar-shorn state lowers immunity and cranks up the chances of upper-respiratory infections and the like, especially during winter with its cold, dry air. If you do want to give it a go, keep intensity low to moderate and start at an hour. Don’t do more than once a week and refuel heartily afterwards.
“ SOME STUDIES SAY THAT IT’S OK AY TO TRAIN FASTED. I DON’T KNOW WHY YOU’D PUT THAT EXTRA STRESS ON YOUR BODY”
Emily Kier Sports nutritionist
04 TRAIN YOUR GUT TO COPE WITH CARBS?
● One of the key components behind reaching your race goals is ensuring you consume sufficient sugar on the bike to hit your peak without gastro repercussions. But how much? Traditionally it was thought 60g (approx two gels) glucose an hour was optimum. Then in 2004, it seemed that 90g an hour was possible by ingesting a 2:1 ratio of glucose to fructose. They used different transporter proteins to pass into your bloodstream ods so boosted energy delivery. Now these carb barriers have been broken down again.
“When [Eluid] Kipchoge broke the two-hour marathon barrier, he reportedly consumed more than 100g carbs an hour,” reveals Abby Coleman, senior sports scientist at Precision Fuel & Hydration. He’d have used Maurten, which has made waves with its hydrogel that it claims is gentler on the tummy. “Cyclist John Borstelmann eats a lot, too,” Coleman adds. He does indeed. Borstelmann finished eighth in California’s Belgian Waffle Ride in April and consumed 101g carbs an hour from energy bars, gels, drinks and chews.
Will 100g carbs an hour work for you? Doubtful. You see, your gut is like your muscles, heart and lungs in that it can be trained. Fail to train your gut and you could easily feel – or be – sick if consuming more than 60g an hour.
So try increasing carb content by, say, 10g an hour each week for a month, drink more and try training immediately after a meal to help increase carb absorption.
“ FAILTO TRAIN YOUR GUT AND YOU COULD EASILY FEEL – OR BE – SICK IF CONSUMING MORE THAN 60G AN HOUR”
Abbey Coleman Sports scientist
05 BUY A PRICEY SKINSUIT?
● When Team BikeExchange’s Simon Yates won the Stage 2 time-trial at this year’s Giro d’Italia, many commented on how he’d turned a historical weakness into one of his strengths. This, material scientists would argue, is heavily down to the £3,000-plus skinsuit he wore that’d been designed and created by Silverstone-based Vorteq Sports. So, that’s it then – time to remortgage the house and slip into the most expensive apparel around and you’ll smash your PB? Maybe not.
“The suit you wear should be different depending on your velocity,” says aero supremo Dan Bigham, who’s now performance engineer at Ineos Grenadiers. “When I worked with Huub, skinsuit fabric and seam placement was based on developing low-speed performance in the 35-45km/h range. However, we changed both when working on suits that were aimed at athletes who would regularly ride at 55km/h.”
This horses for aerodynamic courses came under the streamlined spotlight in a 2011 study headed up by Lisa Underwood entitled, ‘Fabric testing for cycling skinsuits’. Here’s an extract that delves into the science, but is just about reader-friendly…
“The choice of material and seam placement depends on the speed of the athlete. At cycling speeds less than 71km/h, the smoothest material with a seam at 60° had the lowest drag coefficient. These results indicate that the seam tripped the boundary layer from laminar to turbulent flow before the point of separation, and that at these speeds a smooth material with a trip is more beneficial at inducing turbulence than a rough material.
“However, at speeds greater than 71km/h, the roughest material with a seam at 150° had the lowest drag coefficient. This suggests that at higher speeds a rougher material is needed to trip the boundary layer from laminar to turbulent flow. The drag coefficient values from this study are similar to those determined by others, and these results can be used to design an aerodynamic skinsuit, which has been shown to result in success in high performance sports at elite levels.” That seam angle started at 0°, which was front and central, and worked its way back in 30° increments to 180°, which was rear central.
So all good in theory but, unless you have the resources of Yates and his team (and can push those pedals at their speed), you should probably start with finding a form-fitting outfit (any flapping noise is drag) that doesn’t cost the earth, and work on increasing your speed the old-fashioned way – through building up your power.
06 RELOCATE TO THE MOUNTAINS?
● Altitude training has evolved from training camps to living at altitude. Primož Roglič, for instance, spends much of the year at Tignes in the French Alps and nearly 70 WorldTour riders, including UAE Team Emirates’ George Bennett, live in Andorra. And you can see why, with studies revealing that regular training at altitude increases VO2 max by anything from 3-8%; increases myoglobin, the muscle protein; cuts lactic acid build-up; and generates higher levels of EPO (the hormone erythropoietin), which produces more red blood cells, so a greater oxygen-carrying capacity to working muscles.
“It’s why places like Sierra Nevada and Tenerife are seeing a greater influx of amateur riders,” says Stephen Barrett, performance scientist at AG2R Citroen Team. “These places allow professional riders to have a long, focused period of training but I wouldn’t necessarily advise them for recreational riders. I think it’s more important for them to have good weather for a good block of training, so I’d recommend hitting the south of Spain rather than trekking up to the top of a mountain and expecting to be flying when you come back down.”
Beyond the climate, recreational riders can’t afford the time to really maximise the benefits of altitude training. You’re looking at a minimum of 10 days to stimulate the adaptations noted; in that time, you’d have trained at a lower intensity because of the rarefied air. That means reduced strain on your muscular system so, in theory, you might fail to boost red blood cells and not train as hard.
That’s not a definite altitude no, no. But you’d need the capacity to top up those altitude gains. There are various masks available that purport to mirror altitude but they’re not scientifically validated. If you’re in London, however, you do have The Altitude Centre. Here, it’s as if you’re at around 2,700m altitude and is where many competitive recreational riders train once or twice a week, especially if they have a mountainous event on the horizon. It costs £300 for a 15-session pass, which works out at £20 per hit.