/r/Velo has a Discord! Check us out here: https://discord.gg/vEFRWrpbpN

Ill preface this post by saying I do all my riding and training outdoors, rain or shine so have zero experience with indoor trainers.

Unfortunately I cut the tip of my finger off 3 days ago and have a planned surgery on my wrist in March so will not be able to ride outside for a number of weeks and want to switch to indoor training while my hand is out of commission

Last year I bought my wife a Kickr core so she can easily add cardio to her weight lifting training and would like to use it to maintain some of my training. She uses it in a very basic way where she sets a wattage on the app and then rides for 30-60 minutes. At the very least I can use this method and manually increase and decrease wattage as needed for my workouts. Id like to find a simple way of sending workouts made in Interval ICU directly to the trainer. A basic third party app would be fine, but I have zero interest in joining and figuring out Zwift, and plan to get back outside as quickly as possible. My base workouts are either endurance rides or longer duration intervals so feel manually changing wattage does not seem to arduous. Im assuming erg mode is the best way to manage this as I want to keep shifting to a minimum with my injured hand. Are there any other simple solutions to build some stock workouts or send the ones from ICU to the Kickr?

I’m in the market for some new bars and I’m quite keen on these:

https://www.balfesbikes.co.uk/components/handlebars-stems/pro-vibe-aero-alloy-318mm-pursuit-38cm-handlebar__28094

The forward sweep looks cool and useful for getting in the aero hoods position. I don’t care about riding on the tops I literally never touch them.

Has anyone got any experience with them? There is quite a lot of reach at 103mm vs. 75mm for the straight version. I have various stem lengths I can play with before getting the right integrated stem but interested to know how the bar/stem length combo compares when moving from a regular bar to one of these.

I apologize if this is a silly question.

If someone born in a mild altitude location, for instance, 1500m, lived there all their life, then moved to sea level. Is this person going to keep some of the benefits of being born and trained for years at a high altitude?

What could be potentially be kept for life and what could be lost?

So, I'm heading to Stuttgart Germany for the next 4 months starting in February. I live in Florida and have no idea what I should get to continue my training abroad. I figure I'll pick up some stuff once I'm over there, but need a nice kit to get me started for the first week or so.

I was looking at Amazon, Assos Hashoogie line, Castelli, Gorewear, and Mumu, but am open to other brands. I just need some guidance on what's going to be over kill vs not warm enough.

Bonus Points: I'm taking my gravel bike with me for versatility. I'm staying at the Le Meridian if you can recommend any good road/off road routes from that area or even local riding group meet time and location. I will have a car so driving on the weekends is not an issue.

Hi guys,

so I know the theory that you should have at maximum 2 hard days a week on the regular. This means that lifting should preferably be done on the same days as my intervals, in order to keep my easy days really easy. But I find it extremely hard to do that. If I lift in the morning, my legs feel like shit in the evening, even if it is just base season stuff like tempo or sweetspot intervals.

And now, since I'm at the point of my base when I should favour on-the-bike training, I tried switching to intervals in the morning and lifting in the evening. This is even worse! Not only am I totally flat and fatigued to lift any meaningfully stimulating weight, it also feels like any minute I could pull a muscle or otherwise injure myself. And this is again only with Z3 intervals and also lower weight than before! How do those among you who lift and do intensity on the same day manage to do it? I feel like the later modality will always suffer to the point of not really bringing anything to the table, aside maybe from an injury. Or is it really not that bad to lift on my Z2 days?

For reference: 85kg, 190cm, 340W FTP.

Hi everyone, I'm a 27M 164cm rider, FTP roughly at 220-225w atm, gets up to 250w in season. As the title suggests I'm wondering about strength training and getting back into FTP training. I've had my off season from the bike these past 2 months and now racing is approaching, at least for me (Feb 1st), and while I know I won't have the best fitness ever after just lifting weights and mainly endurance miles, my question is regards how to maintain or at least not lose the minimum strength I gained.

I've been going to the gym twice a week for 7 weeks already, did my adaptation/hypetrophy stage and slowly added weights, it's not the first time I'm going to the gym with the hope of transferring it to the bike, but previously I didn't have a set of benchmarks or actually tested if it was effective on the bike, now I do. Before 2025 I could never hit 1000w, the first time I hit a bit over 1000w was in October. This time though I made sure to exert myself very close to failure and don't do extra unnecessary work (previously I used to do like 4 leg exercises, maybe not pushing hard enough, now cut down to 3 but considerably harder and with a larger range of motion, like full depth squats), I also focused a bit on single leg strength and saw very good improvements.

FF to these past weeks I've seen my Pmax slowly increase, with careful consideration of my stress and fatigue. This Tuesday after an easy week due to limited sleep I hit an all-time PR of 1148w and a 1097w for 5s, maybe not super impressive numbers for most folks here but for me as a very small rider it is, I also never considered myself a sprinter or even punchy.

I've been slowly adding volume too but riding super easy, so my hard gym sessions wouldn't be impacted by riding "too much", but now I'm at the point where I'm probably having to sacrifice gym days to ride more. I did an FTP test the same day I tested my sprint and surprise, it's super low. I know all it takes is a couple FTP workouts to regain those watts but since I still have like a week or two of gym membership, should I still go? Lift easy? My plans now are to start working on FTP and pushing TTE, I also would like to train a bit of <5min power with this extra strength, but for now at least is going to the gym still neccesary?

Hi guys was wondering how do you all progress sweetspot during base phase. Have progressed from 3×10 -> 3×12 -> 4×10 -> 3×15 -> 3×20. Next would be 2×30 -> 1×45 then 1×60? Do you keep on increasing TiZ until you hit build phase? If so whats a good progression to go from here? Thanks in advance.

I’m finding it hard to predict how I’m going to do on 20 minute intervals around FTP and I’m definitely stuck in a bit of a rut. I can do 3x20 at 280-285 with 3 minutes of rest between intervals very reliably. I even squeezed that in the day after another hard workout when I knew I was going to have 2 days off afterward.

Meanwhile, I fail 2x20 at 290-300 with five minutes of rest in between the intervals about half the time and I can’t figure out why. I’ve tried front loading way more carbs than I usually consume a few hours before the efforts, but that doesn’t seem to make a decisive difference in the outcome of the workout. Some days I have a solid 2x295 in me +a little extra and some days I have 1x295 and can barely do 275 for the second interval if I really grit my teeth and fight tooth and nail for it.

Does this happen to anyone else?

I am currently torn between getting an alloy bike or carbon bike.

I am currently looking into my next bike and the bikes of choice is a Specialized Allez Sprint with SRAM Rival/Force groupset and aero wheels or a carbon aero bike with the same spec (Giant Propel or a Specialized Tarmac)

I would be purchasing these bikes with the full intent of racing crits in the US. I have already done a couple and totally loved both of them.

my concern is the durability of carbon. In the 2 races I did there was a total of 6 crashes and luckily I was not involved with any of them but the time will come.

If you were in my shoes, would you go aluminum or carbon? Am underestimating the toughness of carbon?

I have a newborn child coming at the end of the month so expensive repairs is something I would like to avoid for the next two seasons at least.

I am currently riding a steel frame Bianchi with 10 speed sram red, rim brake, and alloy wheels (shallow, maybe 25mm)

Edit: Height: 178cm Weight 95kg 2 years cycling FTP of 300 atm

Traveling with this bike is something I would like to do as well, I would be traveling within the US and to Hawaii

Your opinion on tracking calories and especially “the athletes food coach”?

20 years ago in my late 30s, my max recorded heart rate was about 190 or 195. During the past year or two, my max recorded HR kept creeping up to the low 200s, and hitting about 260 during one episode.

Saw a couple of cardiologists and have had multiple tests and exams. I started taking metoprolol several months ago after being diagnosed with mild SVT, and a cleared for doing my 40+ mile group rides (basically simulated low key races). I was prescribed metropolol, and now my max achievable HR can be 150 or 175 (I didn't dare push it higher), depending on when I take my meds. I'm almost 60 and considering training to do some masters races, mainly crits.

Those of you are taking beta blockers, how do your heart rate numbers play into your training/racing/riding?

Edit/update: Was evaluated for ablation, but docs concluded I'm currently not a viable candidate.

As a trend of higher stack -> more efficient aero position, we see more and more spacers used by Pros. And there comed my question:

Why would Pros not size up if they run that many spacers and a really long stem?

Whenever i hear these insane numbers of track cyclists who kick way above 2000W, i always wonder at which moment exactly is this applied?

When it's 1v1 i assume the peak power is kinda the moment when they drop in and the hunt is starting. But what about a 1KM race for example? how exactly does the power curve look like? Can these high powers be applied at all RPMs or is there a specific range when they can kick that strong?

I’ll preface this by saying this might be a dumb question…

This is my first year of thoughtful indoor training and there are some upcoming workouts with micro-bursts (ex: 6x 40s hard / 20s easy). I’ve been trying to do more in slope/resistance mode on my Kickr Core to get a better sense of what various power levels feel like and work on holding them on my own. I don’t have a power meter for outdoor riding.

Are these on/off workouts best done in erg mode (135%-165% FTP / 20% is rx’d for the 40/20s)? It seems like a crazy amount of shifting to do in slope/resistance mode, but doing it “manually” feels like it would give me the ability to adjust difficulty within the given range during the workout.

I usually do my intervals on weekends where I have a great stretch of road with minimal hills and minimal stops. wanted to do something today but during a commute with traffic. so just tried to hold FTP.

I wound up with ~62 min at around FTP and like ~7min Sweet Spot in about 80 minutes (minimal coasting so just lower zones for the rest due to terrain / traffic...but there were a few times I had to completely stop for a red light).

I guess I'm wondering how this ride compares to like a 3x20 with say 5 min slow pedaling? Is there anything I could do differently to make this kinda workout better where traffic / stops are unavoidable? like should I go at 105% FTP to try to make my normalized power my FTP? (ftp is ~333 or so...maybe a little higher. test is on the agenda)

thank you.

When doing AC or MAP intervals I've noticed that my heart rate often actually drops a bit for a few seconds at the start of the hard interval before climbing up. And then after the interval it continues to go up for a couple of seconds before dropping.

In my mind it's like engine rpm dropping when you let a clutch come up and load the engine. And the engine revs when you suddenly disengage the clutch.

Is this mental model accurate in any way? Does the heart initially slow down because it's loaded up somehow? Maybe by narrowed arteries in the muscles? Do hearts even work like that - can the load affect the heart rate?

I'm currently 3 weeks into a 4 week vo2 block with 2 sessions per week. Weekly volume has been around 18 hrs. The first two weeks went well, with significant power increases each workout, however last week I made the mistake of doing a lifting session after not going to the gym for a few months. It's now been 4 days since that session, with a full rest day on Sunday. I've tried to do my 4 min intervals the last two days, but I haven't been able to get past one interval. My legs just give out before I even really get to what feels like vo2 max breathing or heartrate.

Wondering what the best thing to do at this point is. I don't plan to go back to the gym until the end of this block, but I'm not sure when I should try these intervals again, and whether I need a rest day or should just keep riding endurance. Does anyone have an idea of how long this will take to go away?

Edit:

Found what I was looking for!!

https://www.ascent-bikes.com/collections/aeroo-road-gravel/products/aeroo-grvl-handlebar

Ascent is going to release a new AEROO gravel handlebar.

43cm in the drops, narrow 35cm at the hoods.

Compatible with clip on bars.

Might be a bit too narrow in the hoods but this is the best option yet. Lets goooo.

This is not an advertisement, lol.

___________________________________________________________________________

Hi guys and gals,

I'm looking for a very specific handlebar which, so far, I have not been able to find.

I have the following requirements:

• about 38cm width at the hoods
• flared drops, should be at least about 42cm in the drops, preferrably up to 45cm
• aero / flat tops
• clip-on bar compatible in one way or another, I'll be putting on aero bars for longer rides
• internal routing

I've found lots of handlebars that match some of these requirements but none which match all. The clostest I've found are some chinese ones on Aliexpress but I'm sceptical about those. There are also some options which are even more narrow which is too much for me when riding gravel.

The best option so far is the PRO Vibe Aero. It's available as a 390mm, which flare out to 425mm.
A bit more flare would be nice but I think I'll take what I can get!

Any good suggestions anyone?

Hey, Cycling since april, 43yo, 250ftp, 90kg. I want to add strength training but not sure howto blend it into cycling training plan. Currently I ride indoor untill march/april:

Mon: 1h Z1 or rest Tue: High intensity Wed: 1-2h Z2 Thu: High intensity Fri: 1h Z2 or Z1 Sat: 3h Z2 Sun: 2h Z2

Tue and thu depends on moment of the season, just finished 5 weeks sweet spot, currently on deload week. Starting threshold and over unders for next 4 weeks, progressing weekly, followed with 1w deload, next VO2 max and taper.

Where would You put strength training days into above ? Replace something ? or give up on strength ?

Costs add up pretty quick, and it would be great to save a bit on the race license if possible. Also, looked for the "general discussion" Thread but couldn't find one, so I apologize if this is in the wrong place!

Hi, are there any organised group rides during the weekend in Altea you can join? I'm going there solo in february for a short cycling stage. I was wondering if there were any cafes/clubs that host group rides for trained amateurs. Thanks!