Many of us cyclists in the Northern Hemisphere are currently transitioning into training indoors. While we would love to spend two hours at least 4 days a week on an indoor trainer, being stuck indoors just isn’t the going to cut it for most of us wanting to maintain our cycling base miles and improve.
While just riding our bike all winter indoors can help us cope with the busy holidays, mood, and seasonal changes, there are exceptions to attaining new skills to boost riding performance. For those times when you just can’t ride your bike, but you want to get better, consider these drills, exercises and tactics:
Learn To Ride Clipless
If you are not able to ride outdoors but could ride indoors for a few minutes, try working on pedaling with one leg and alternating back and forth to figure out clipping in quickly and smoothly. Experienced riders can do this with very minimal disruption in their pedal stroke and mastering this skill makes traffic lights and any off-road corners you want to throw a foot out for balance or to avoid falling much more natural.
An even better drill is to try riding flat pedals around the neighborhood with the kids, in spin class or while commuting to boost your riding ability, without actually training. Many adults do not learn to ride with flat pedals and they miss the critical skills that flats help teach us.
To learn more about cycling shoes and how to clip in, you can check out my guide to clipping in and the basics of cycling shoes.
Learn To Control Breathing
We all breathe (obviously) but to breathe under exertion is something that often becomes tough to control. On rides I often see some of my ride partners having a hard time controlling their breath, especially on an uphill and then have to stop to “catch a breath”. Even basic cardio fitness is key to cycling but if you want to get better at climbing, this is a skill to improve. Focusing on breathing deeply and relaxing your shoulders as you rest and also while you do strength/core and ride your bike at all levels of exertion helps you deal with the high levels of exertion that you will need to be used to on the bike.
To work on this, you can try yoga flow classes or you can get on hands and knees and lift your left arm and right leg (a bird-dog), now alternate back and forth 10 times while controlling your breath. Rest and then try this in a full plank position.
Learn To Properly Shift
Many riders are not great at shifting, so they break chains, grind gears and get stuck in the wrong gear frequently. To boost shifting ability, put your bike in a work-stand or trainer and practice shifting with your right hand as you pedal the bike with your left hand. Play around and notice how the derailleur (the gear shifter) moves up or down depending on the button you push.
Play with how hard you need to push and how you can help the chain up and down by pedaling gradually. Once you figure it out, do it with your eyes closed and even get a friend to say ‘easier’ or ‘harder’ and see if you can shift on-demand. Practicing on an indoor trainer would be your next step to integrate pedaling and some resistance to work against. This final step helps you refine your ability to back off momentarily to allow the chain to switch to the next gear.
Learn To Fix Your Bike
Bike maintenance can be a frustrating thing to learn. However, there are many things that are not too complicated, do not take much time to learn and do not require much precision or special tools. These are the tasks you want to learn and start performing regularly to increase your mechanical skill and save yourself some money in the process!
Here are some basic bike maintenance skills to help you get started.
Work On Strength Training
Cyclists new to strength training should start slowly. You don’t have to lift or squat much in the beginning. I start with a very small amount of training time to make sure it gets done. Usually, this is a 10-minute routine that kicks things off then I add more as I progress. If you do it for a month, start adding more routines and don’t be surprised if you get addicted to the feeling of getting stronger.
Check out my post on exercises for stronger cycling legs
Read And Listen
Many coaches recommend reading about cycling, performance, mindset and adventure as a way to boost performance without riding. I always find books and podcasts help me learn more and boost my motivation. Books like “Saddle, Sore,” can help you stay comfortable on the bike and deal with any ‘uncomfortable’ questions you might not want to talk to friends about. There are also skills books like “Bicycling’s Complete Book Of Road Cycling Skills“, training manuals like the “The Cyclist’s Training Bible,”and nutrition books to help you learn new eating habits to reset for the new season from experts like Lori Nedescu.
I also have lists of women’s cycling books and women’s cycling podcasts to help get you started in preparing for the next season.
I strongly believe that the off season gives us so much room for changes, improving, and optimizing our skills and lifestyle. If you need a little more motivation and planning to help get you started, you can also read this weeks post on How To Plan An Active Off Season.