Anything But The Tour

Since I’m about two days behind on Tour coverage, I don’t want to talk about that just now. Even if I was up to speed on the Tour, I don’t think any of you actually listen to anything I have to say regarding the professional scene anyway, so with that, here’s the other update.

Despite any of my previous rhetoric, I stepped up and joined a racing team. Team NYVelocity.

Yes, yes, very exciting news, I know. Actually, it’s not all that exciting at all . . . well, I’m lying. To be brutally honest, I was a bit excited when one of the team owners emailed me to the extend of, “Just got some new team kits in so come on down and grab one before they’re gone.”

So now I wear a team kit 99% of the time whenever I throw a leg over my bike. This is what it looks like.



Not bad, right? I do appreciate the color scheme with the white and blues. Nothing glaringly overt such as the orange of Euskatel-Euskadi (even though I have admitted in the past to admiring those orange jerseys).

And this is the first time I’ve ever worn bib shorts. Picco swears by them and I have to say they’re not all that bad.

Further, now that I’ve joined the team--which is a Category 4 & 5 developmental team, by the way--I have a training program I have to follow. It’s been somewhat counter-intuitive as the time I’m spending on the bike has increased significantly but at a considerably lower pace. Whereas I used to spend between 2-3 hours on the bike during the week (excluding weekends) at an average heart rate around 160 with some intervals tossed in, I’m not spending between 6-7 hours on the bike per week but riding at what they call an endurance pace where I’m supposed to keep my heart rate between 129 and 141. Compared to 160, a heart rate of 135 is all but a walk in the park.

How did they draw together the training program? After joining the team, I was subjected to a lactate threshold test at Cadence Cycling & Multisport Center. Essentially, they set up my bike on a trainer, had me warm-up for 10 minutes, explained I needed to keep my cadence at 100 or higher, and then set the resistance at 150 watts. After two minutes of that, they pricked my finger for a drop of blood, measured my level of lactic acid, asked my Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) on a scale of 1 through 10 (with 10 being the hardest), and then increased resistance to 170 watts two minutes later.

So every four minutes, resistance increased by 20 watts and they drew a drop of blood to determine the amount of lactic acid in my blood. I lasted until either 270 watts or 290 watts when my RPE hit 8 or 9 and that was it, the test ended.

That’s how my training zones were developed which I then printed and taped to my stem. Like I said, very exciting.