The previous Friday’s tips to improve your training; Power and Sprint, were methods that will help to make you faster and give you more speed.
If you are intending to ride time trials or triathlons (which I’m addicted to) where you could be riding on your own, then there is a perfect system to improve your solo-riding speed.
Solo-Riding Speed Tips:
Find a length of road that is flat and a little more than a mile in length. Mark out a quarter of a mile, a half of a mile and mile distances. Then follow this routine. If you find you are tired or you pulse getting too high, then stop and go home and have a rest.
- Four times quarter-mile intervals
- Two times half-mile intervals
- One times mile intervals
- Two times half-mile intervals
- Four times quarter-mile intervals
This can be made harder by upping the intervals so that eventually you could (if possible) be doing 4 of each interval. If you can manage all this then you need to look at your speed and heart rate. Are they high enough?
Maybe you are not training hard enough and need to put more into it. After a session of these intervals, you should not be feeling fresh!
This is a very hard training session and not to be taken lightly. If you feel you are not up to it or you are not riding any faster than you would normally be, then stop.
This regime will help to raise your speed for any distance of time trial. If you want to race at 25 mph or faster, then you have to train at that speed or faster.
There is no point training at 20 mph and then expect to be able to race five mph faster. Train at race speed (or better faster) over short distances, then your body will be able to race at a higher speed over longer distances when it is required.
The training behind a scooter or motorbike is one of the best ways to raise your speed, as we have discussed before with this form of training, you have to be very careful where you do this.
Riding behind a motorbike improves your speed, your bike handling technique, and you’re drafting abilities.
Image: Bradley Gordon