Hard outdoor bike efforts vs saftey? My internal debate...
After a pretty nasty crash back in August, I finally got back outside on my bike this past week. The weather warmed in the Northeast and some of my cycling friends came calling, so I figured this was as good a time as any to get back on the horse so to speak and pull the bike off the trainer. In the first 5 miles I hit a fairly steep downhill decent and tucked into aero on my tri bike - a hill I've taken dozens of times before. I immediately had a flashback of being launched over the handlebars, which got me back upright and left me riding fairly conservative for the remainder of the ride.
Fast forward a couple of days. I heard of a couple of very severe bike accidents, local to me, over the weekend, and my mind started spinning. Like most of us, I have always put in good, hard efforts when in training mode while I'm riding on the road. Although its difficult to find long stretches of similar terrain in my neck of the woods, I try my best to mirror my trainer sessions with hard, continuous efforts. Looking back now, I feel that this has put me at risk on some occasions. Head down on the power meter staring at my watts and trying to hit a goal has honestly made me a bit cavalier and in some cases reckless out there. I've had many "close calls", some at the fault of motorists, and some by my over-eagerness, without incident. That is, until my D-Day last August. There were no other cyclists or vehicles in the area when I launched my self out of the saddle at 25mph, and to this day, I still do not know exactly what happened. What I do know, is I'm a bit freaked out, and left rethinking my game plan for training this season.
My question to the group is, How do you give a good, hard effort on the road in open road conditions, while not overdoing it and remaining safe? I understand that my simple question may illicit very simple responses from the team, but I'm really curious to receive responses. If I'm being over-cautious or just need to get over ^this^, it's ok to tell me too. Although I always thought I was being safe on the roads before, I'm rethinking the whole thing and considering spending more time on the trainer and less on the roads. I do understand the upside and downside of that approach. It is just an internal debate that I'm dealing with and am open to all solutions.
Thank you and be safe!!
Comments
Totally normal to be cautious after the accident last summer.
I would say, that when it comes right down to it......Safety First, Second and Third.
As far as hard efforts outside, I try to stay in the general ball park of the planned workout since it just becomes hard sometimes to get say 15 or 20 minutes of terrain where a more even output would be possible. Fortunately for me I have a park near me with about 16-17 miles of out & back that is totally flat and has limited traffic (as long as I get there early enough). When available and it fits in my schedule that is what I have been able to get away with to keep the bandwidth of a workout a bit tighter.
I rode outside this weekend and it didn't take long to remember how much some drivers are paying no attention at all....and teenage drivers who have their heads down looking at something other than the road have me terrified.
Good Luck and stay safe.
Like Ed, I do all the serious Z4 and above work on the trainer. It takes all of the outside safety issues out of the equation and let's me focus on getting to the dark place and getting through it.
As you approach race date, you will need to get a sufficient amount of miles in the saddle outside. You use some slightly different muscles to balance the bike outside, you have to practice paying attention more, you also have to practice managing fatigue while outside and simultaneously staying in the game on all fronts, and there is really no substitute for long rides in the saddle outside holding race goal watts.
Good luck in 2016 BM!
SS
FTP and VO2 work I do either on the trainer, or in controlled conditions, outdoors, meaning I try to remove all issues of stopping, turning, encountering cars, other people, to the greatest extent possible. Here are some of the ways I do that:
Places it's a good idea to stay away from:
Having said that, my most serious accident was on a deserted road on a closed military base. There was one lone pickup going 5 mph behind the final two runners in a 13.1 k race being held. I had my nose in my Power Meter, and didn't realise I was going faster than him. Played crash test dummy with the tail gate. Moral: you must always be careful.
I;ve also heard of people hurting themselves on trainers, rollers, etc. So the only solution is to live in a bubble, or try to always be anticipating what might go wrong.
Addendum: After my serious crash 5 years ago, the first outdoor ride (5 months later) I took was on the same route where the accident occurred. I did this on purpose; I wanted to deal immediately with any lingering issues which might be playing in my head. I was with several other folks; we stopped at the site where I went down, and I paid my respects for a few moments. I haven;t had any PTSD about riding, except concern which lingers from my mtn biking days about going downhill too fast. My bones are getting too porous to break any.
I think 10+ years of bike commuting to work gave me a lot of real world experience about how to stay safe in traffic, and also to understand that interval training on a bike should NOT be done if there is any risk of encountering motorists turning in front of you when you are going 20+ mph, especially in the aero bars. No matter how aware you are, there just may not be enough time to make a safe correction. Find a road without any side streets, or a long hill to slow you down, and/or is simply closed to cars. Lacking that, it's not a sign of weakness to be on the trainer; it's a sign of wisdom.
Brad, safety is paramount. Back when I lived stateside I essentially mirrored Al's comments. I was willing to add 30' of driving to mitigate the risk of encountering motorist. Otherwise, the majority of FTP work and VO2max work was all indoors; I executed my long rides outside in the safest environment I could find.
I am blessed with 133KM of paved/isolated-no-cars-allowed/not-a-crack-pristine pavement to cycle on at the Al Qudra track in Dubai. Recently the government passed a law which states cyclists may not travel on roads with a speed limit in excess of 60 KPH. The dissident from cyclists bitching about not being able to cycle on the roads was loud to say the least. They feel the Al Qudra track is too boring. Hard to believe that some sacrifice safety for the sake of breaking routine!
I am also lucky that we have a 42kM strip that goes around the city in the river which has no cars on it that was built in case of a falling brigde (yes they are risks of falling bridges in Montreal!!) that place is awesome, road is perfect. I often do my 3 hours rides there, its really not far from home.
for the longer ride, its impossible to ride around in the city, you gotta plan getting out.
Be safe!!
Taking all ^that^ into consideration along with all of your very good insights, I think the smart way for me to go is to do my intervals on the trainer or hill repeats (as Ed and Al mention). I do not have any closed loops available to the best of my knowledge. I will plan to do my longer rides at < or = z3 efforts outdoors to maintain my sanity and build my outdoor endurance (as Shaughn points out). I've always pulled my bike off the trainer in the Spring and refused to put it back on and ride indoors until post season in past years....No more. I'll keep my injured tt bike on the trainer full time since that's really all it can be used for anyway. This way I can easily move back in forth according to my training needs. I may even do an hour of work on the trainer and then hop on my bike and do the less intense part of the workout outside when the rides soon become longer.
As for my residual fears from my accident, I am hoping time and confidence will heal this as I add more time in the saddle outdoors. As Al had done, I also visited the crash site to work through things. I was hoping I'd see something that would tip me off as to what had happened. Unfortunately, I didn't find any evidence. I plan to return there on my bike at some point, very carefully.
Thanks again for weighing in on my post. As always, this team is chock full of knowledge! -Brad
I also have been reading these horrific stories and worry. I do all my hard intervals on the trainer and am planning on doing even more on the trainer than previously done in past years. A number of pros have shown us that it is a great way to train, and that you get much better ROI than on the road. I have a TR file set up that is a repetitive 5mins easy spin/25mins@70% (and can of course dial it up or down) set up fans, water bottles & netflix on the TV, good to go for hours...
of course there is nothing like riding with your friends, and that is good. I have also read of a number of pros that do the majority of their road riding on road bikes and not TT bikes for the reasons of better handling, etc...
All good food for thought.
If you don't have a "safe" stretch of road outside, do what you have to do to get your "work works" done.