With crunching reality 2010 is upon us and clearly Skadi, the Norse goddess of Winter is no great lover of tandem attempts as she’s made damn sure the country has received the very best arctic weather direct from Scandinavia. There comes a point when you just have to shrug your shoulders and accept that you are just not going to get out training on the roads much..if at all.

Thank goodness then that I am now fully aware of just how precious those training camps coming up in February and March are going to be to the success of Team Wiggle Tandem. They say that every mile on a bike during winter is like depositing a pound in the bank and all I can say is that after my recent ramp test with Marc Laithwaite at The Endurance Coach Ltd in St. Helens the balance sheet is looking a little light.

Dripping sweat and with heaving lungs I packed at just under 380 watts sustained for 2 minutes as my debt of carbon dioxide climbed above my intake of oxygen. Is it enough? I don’t know is the honest answer to that but it would be true to say that another 2 months will see a significant increase in power to weight ratio as kilos come off and miles pile on but what was far more interesting than my current condition was the insights into my metabolism the test highlighted.

Historically I had always trained early morning on just a dual shot of strong coffee and no food for either breakfast or on the ride. I have also always been a big gear masher. Both of these things seem not to be in favour in modern cycling but the fact that even during warm up I was burning almost exclusively carbs and no fats seems to confirm that the espresso preparation technique was probably right, I just turn excess carbs to fat and then don’t burn it off unless I force my body to do so.

Jez and I are also switching over from heart rate zone training to training based on power metres which for those of you who have never used is rather like riding a turbo on the road. If you set a target wattage you stick to it and there are none of those micro-recovery freewheeling moments on the road and that too should see a healthy effect on both weight and strength.

Next up is the launch in London at the end of the month followed immediately by our first dedicated week on the new Dolan Super Tandem. In London at least I’m sure we’ll let our hair down..well I will..even if Richard and Jez can’t!

Dave

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 at 11:43 am and is filed under Dave Harmon, Team Wiggle, Team Wiggle Tandem. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.