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A Season of Single Speed |
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Written by Dave Barr
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Friday, 19 June 2009 |
A Season of Single Speed…Ridin’ Racin’ Trainin’
 Although I’ve dabbled with single speed MTB riding for the past few years, this year I decided to give up gears altogether on my MTB and go SS full time (gears are for road bikes…right?). I have only one mountain bike now - Carver Ti 96er set up as single speed and I’ve been using it for the New England Root 66 race series. So far I don’t miss the gears. And I’m learning some new things along the way…
Ridin’
Now I won’t dwell too much on the tired, over-played question “why do you want to ride a single speed?” The simple answer for me is that I find my technical riding performance increases enormously when I don’t have gears to choose and fiddle with. And since long climbs are not all that common here in New England, SS riding is pretty practical. Single speed riding forces you to focus on the smooth, momentum conserving aspects of your riding technique, because you really pay the price if you lose momentum unnecessarily. It also requires that you develop explosive power to deal with the short, steep, technical hill climbs that frequent the rolling terrain around here. I thought riding SS should also help me in preparing for the cyclocross season where power, smooth cornering and maintaining momentum are huge factors to success.
Racin’
Here in New England we have several SS racers that are really “freakishly” talented. Fortunately for me, many of these guys have decided to leave my Cat1 SS class and race the Open/Pro category (including our own Team Bikeman.com member Paul Simoes). Amazingly, these guys are placing really well against the geared pro riders. (Another reason that I think this terrain out here must suit the SS pretty well.)
Meanwhile, I’ve entered 4 races so far and have had decent results (for me). I’ve learned some things are different though. Racing on a SS doesn’t allow you to “pace” the way you might on a geared bike. Geared riders will try to keep a nice even cadence and shift as the terrain dictates. Not so…on the SS! You might be spinning wildly one minute at 120 rpm, mashing at 45 rpm the next…then balancing in a near track stand at the crest of a steep climb. Heaven forbid! You may even have to get off and run-like-hell several times during a race. Then there are those euphoric moments when you are turning the pedals with the perfect cadence and flying effortlessly through a twisty single-track section of the course. The upper body must be super-strong to provide all the torque, balance and “body English” that go into keeping traction and your feet in-the-clips going through tricky technical terrain. Picking the right size cog is another art/science in itself. What you pick at the starting line is what you gotta live with baby!! And if you pick wrong, it can cost you several minutes and a whole lotta sufferin’ in the course of a 2 hr cross country race.
Trainin’
So what does this mean for training? I’ve yet to find much advice in the way of books or websites that give any details on training methods specific to racing SS MTB. I’d love to hear what some of the single speed “freaks” racing in the Pro class do, but I have made some changes to my approach.
Many cross country racers do a lot of training on the road bike. I’ve also done this in the past (and I even like to road race.) But this year I’m not road racing or even racing with gears, so why train like a roadie! I’ve decided that to get stronger and faster on the SS, you really have to ride the damn SS! (plain-and-simple). You can’t mimic the effort I described above on a road bike. The combined development of balance, power, and finesse required to get faster on the SS are only realized by riding the SS itself!
I noticed in the first races that the frequent steep out-of-the-saddle climbs were really kicking my butt. I wasn’t recovering from them quick enough and would end up riding everything sloppy toward the end of the race. My upper body and core would also feel badly fatigued at the end of a race. My remedy so far…is to mix in some weekly climb-out-of-the-saddle suffer sessions (very painful) with some endurance MTB time trial rides (to focus on riding smooth and fast). I also go to the gym a couple times a week to develop more leg, core and upper body strength using a bunch of multi-joint free weight lifting routines. In just a few weeks I am noticing my out of saddle climbing and recovery is improving dramatically. It seems like my MTB TT times are going down too – so hopefully I can translate the work to some faster race times. And by the way…I’m no professional trainer…I could be “all wet” on this training plan…I’d appreciate any comments or ideas from other SS racers out there.
Dave
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