- There are so many fast cyclists coming through
in triathlon these days,
and quite frankly, I'm fed up with it!
I want to find out how they're doing it,
how they're going so fast.
So I'm going to try and track a few of them down.
Whoa, whoa!
Hang on!
There's a fast one coming in!
Whoa!
That was seriously fast.
I'm going to have to chase this guy down.
(police siren)
(rock music)
Hey!
Hey, pull over!
Got ya!
Alright, I think I burst a few blood vessels there,
but I've chased him down, I've got one of the main culprits,
Matthew Bottrill.
Do you know what speed you were doing there?
- I'm sorry, I'm sorry!
- Well Matt, I think it's fair to say
you've coached a fair few of the speedy bikes
on the triathlon circuit lately.
- Yeah, absolutely, you know,
Tim Don, Ironman world record,
Rachel Joyce, Susie Cheetham, Will Clarke, and Lucy Charles.
- Yeah, and me of course!
- Yeah, and you.
- Not anymore, though.
- Yeah, thankfully.
- What was that, sorry?
Well anyway, I guess there's a good reason for that,
because your 10-mile PB is pretty fast.
- Yeah, 17:40!
- Phew!
And you've been the 10-mile, 25-mile,
50-mile, and 100-mile UK champ,
and set a few records along the way.
But one thing I have learned from you,
this is not just all about strong legs, right?
- No, not at all, you know, it's looking at
every element that's gonna make you go fast.
You know, the position on the bike, the training,
you're just breaking everything down,
trying to find all those one percents.
- Right, well I think it's time we delved into this,
and looked at how to go faster on the bike.
(electronic music)
Right, first off, we're gonna talk about
optimising speed, power, and aerodynamics.
- Yeah, and I mean, a lot of people
get quite carried away with power
and thinking that's the fuel, and I mean it is important,
I know you're pretty hot on aerodynamics.
- Yeah, absolutely, you know, if it was all about power,
then we would literally be just all riding
on road bikes like this, you know,
generating the most amount of power.
- [Matt] Yeah, And I guess it's actually it's about
going from A to B as fast as possible.
- Absolutely!
You know, you've got to be aerodynamic.
You know, the body is 80% of your drag
while you're riding, or while you're racing,
so you know, the better aero position you can get in,
as well as optimising power efficiency,
then you are going to, you know,
you're gonna shave some serious time.
- I did actually remember you telling me once, that,
I think it was 2014 you had a lot of power in a race,
but you actually weren't faster,
and you had previously beat the opposition.
- Yeah, kind of a lot in 2014,
this is where I learned a lot about aerodynamics,
you know, I lost 20 watts in power,
but gained 40 watts in aerodynamics.
Which was like, massive.
- [Mark] Yeah.
- [Matt] You know, and it transformed my cycling.
- [Mark] Yeah.
So what're we going to look at today, firstly?
- So, the first thing that we're going to look at
is head position.
- Okay, well let's head out then!
- Let's go!
(electronic music)
- So for the head, Mark, obviously,
the body is 80 percent of the drag,
but a lot of people they, you know,
they focus on this aero position,
just sitting in the bars,
but what we want to be able to do is
drop the head and push it forward.
I always call it the tortoise.
- [Mark] (laughs)
- [Matt] It's basically, you've got this big shell
when you've got your helmet on.
But in order for the tortoise to eat the food,
it has to push its head forward.
- Okay.
- So, the idea is, you drop the chin,
and then you push the head forward.
And then this will give you the narrowing on the shoulders.
- [Mark] Yes, okay, and it's just nice and relaxed.
- [Matt] Yeah, absolutely, you don't want to fight it,
like really tense, like you're literally going to hold it
for a few seconds.
But, you want to be doing drills and do training
to enable you to hold that position.
- Don't just show up on race day-
- No, absolutely.
- No.
- You've got to train the body to adapt.
Looking good!
(electronic music)
- So, next up, Mark, for aerodynamics,
we're going to be looking at shoulder position.
It's probably the biggest area
that most triathletes are neglecting.
Where, if you look at a pure time trial,
you'll see this really narrow shoulder position.
- Yeah.
- So, for you to be able to do that,
then what we want to be able to do is,
we're going to pull on the end of the poles,
and then you're going to push into your pads.
And this will give you the narrowing of the shoulders.
- [Mark] Yeah, I've got you.
- Again, we don't want to be like
really gripping your arms so you can't hold that position,
see, you felt into it?
- [Mark] Yeah, and I guess again, practise makes perfect.
- [Matt] Yeah, absolutely.
And then with the head, then we can,
it's almost like when you're swimming in the pool,
you know like you've got your eyes at like 45 degrees.
- Yeah.
- [Matt] It's exactly the same feeling,
you can see up the road.
(electronic music)
- So, finally on aerodynamics, Mark,
we're going to have to talk clothing.
You have to remember that the body is 80% of the drag,
you know, you look at cycling teams now,
they're spending hundreds of thousands of pounds
on development into, you know, trying to get faster.
And the biggest area they look at is
kind of their skin-suits.
This is now translating into what people,
you know, world-class level, are wearing on our tri-suits.
You know, you look at somebody like Tim Don,
the suit he's wearing with, you know,
a lot of silicon strips, you know,
all this stuff is like developing more and more.
- [Mark] So it's not just about getting
the nicest looking tri-suit.
- [Matt] No, you know-
- [Mark] Damn it!
- [Matt] If you want to go fast, you know,
you can probably see from like a standard suit
to one that has been developed in the wind tunnel,
it's probably like a 25, 30 watt saving.
- Wow.
- It's huge, you know, it's hard to believe,
but, like I've said, because the body is so large,
that you can make some serious gains.
- Yes, so if you are looking to go faster,
look at the materials and design of the suit,
not just how it looks.
- Absolutely.
(electronic music)
- So next up, Mark, we're going
to have to talk about pacing.
You know, it's like when I first came into the sport,
and started coaching people,
everyone was speaking about this,
I'm on pace, 70.3 pace-
- [Mark] Just holding a set power for a whole race.
- Yeah, absolutely, you know this even way of pacing.
But, it doesn't, you know, if you want to ride a bike fast,
it doesn't work like that.
You need to know what you're going to do
in the headwind, tailwind,
- A hill.
- Yeah, a hill, going downhill,
there's so much more involved in it than that.
- Okay, so what're we going to look at first?
- First off, we're going to look at hills.
(electronic music)
So, when it comes to climbing, Mark,
what we don't want to be doing,
is making like massive surges,
having great big spikes in your power.
- I guess that's quite damaging, right?
- Yeah, absolutely.
You know, you start going like
50, 60, 70 watts above, you know, your FTP,
or making a massive effort,
then you're gonna burn a big match,
and that's going to bite you later on in the race.
- [Mark] Yeah.
- [Matt] So I would always kind of go
on the rule of thumb for like, Olympics, 70.3,
Ironman, you want to be within like,
say around 40 watts, above like your threshold pace.
- [Mark] Yeah, and then, it's the idea
that we get over the crest of that hill,
we're just laying the power down.
- [Matt] Yeah, absolutely.
The biggest mistake that a lot of athletes make,
you know, they'll come to the top of the hill,
they'll be fighting the bike like this,
and they'll get to the top, and it's like yes, I've made it!
- (laughs) They're so tired, they have to ease up.
- Yeah, absolutely, but, you know,
you're gonna lose a lot of speed.
But the idea is, that we come to the crest,
and we lay that power back down.
- Okay.
(electronic music)
- [Matt] So, next we're going to touch on pacing downhill.
The biggest mistake that a lot of athletes are making here,
they're almost like revving out of gears, you know,
they're spinning out.
- I guess that's quite tiring as well.
- Absolutely, you know, you're burning a lot of energy,
where the idea is, that we absolutely
want to stay on top of that gear.
- Okay.
- And we can almost, like, have small breaks here.
- Right, so, should we still
hold a nice aerodynamic position?
Getting that free speed, but we're freewheeling for a second
and then we spin really hard.
- Yeah, absolutely, you know,
and you're just keeping that momentum going that way,
rather than, you know, you're just spinning out,
your head's up.
We just want to grab a little break and then go in again.
So you just try that.
(electronic music)
So, next on pacing, Mark,
we want to be focusing on the headwind.
The idea behind the headwind reception is,
that power is the most important part.
- Okay, so we're not just riding out
the set power we were hoping to for the whole race.
We're actually changing the power slightly.
- Yeah, absolutely.
Always, the rule of thumb is 10 to 15 watts
above that race pace, we want to be in a good position,
but the power's the most important part.
- And I guess, if we're doing 10 to 15 watts higher,
we're maintaining our speed a little bit better
into the headwind?
- Absolutely.
(electronic music)
So, pacing downhill is the key part of going fast.
You know, you'll see a lot of cyclists, triathletes,
who are almost like, spinning out of gears,
you know, it's really high cadence.
- [Mark] I guess that's quite tiring, and quite damaging.
- Yeah, you get a better lot of energy riding this way.
So, you can all, to ride downhill fast,
you can have like little micro-breaks
- So, freewheel for a second.
- Yeah, get on top of the gear, and then go again.
And you're really going to build that speed up,
and then the idea is, you conserve energy,
and then when you hit those flats,
you can really get that pace back up.
(electronic music)
So, the next item we're going to touch on is gearing Mark,
and kind of how to use that cadence in a race situation.
A lot of athletes, they're either over-gearing,
or you know, they're spinning too high.
- Right, actually in triathlon too
we have a lot of over-gearers, so that 60, 70 RPM,
very very high, high gear, low cadence.
- Yeah, and I think that stems
from a lot of what people are replicating in training.
But, in order for you to get faster, you know,
you need a variety of cadences.
- [Mark] So you do that in your training
and you practise it, but then what are a lot of the top
time trialists and cyclists doing cadence-wise
when they're racing?
- I'd say, you know, a real good pump of power through here
is kind of that 85 to 90.
- Right.
- You know.
- And then it's on race day, you're on the course,
we hit a climb; should we be preempting those climbs
and the terrain and the course ahead?
- No, you always need to be 200 yards up the road
because the last thing that you ever want to do is,
you know, you hit a hill and you're in light.
You know, your biggest gear, and you're fighting the bike.
You're almost going to come to a standstill.
(electronic music)
The final item on gearing is gear selection.
- Actually, on this, I have noticed
you've got a 58-tooth bike ring,
I thought I was doing well with 55-tooth,
but you've outdone me!
- Yeah, and kind of a lot of people
are scared by big chainrings, but it's kind of, you know,
like you riding 55 11,
compared to me riding 58 14,
actually I'm going to be in the smaller gear,
- [Mark] Right.
- But I'm gonna ride with better chain line efficiency.
- Cause it's straighter, whereas
I'm almost like cross-chaining,
- Yeah, absolutely.
And the idea being that, you know,
when we're looking at finding all these marginal gains,
that's gonna be a bigger marginal gain that I'm gonna find.
- [Mark] Right.
And then also, I guess we think about different terrains,
different courses that we're gonna be racing on,
so we might opt for different gearing there as well.
- Yeah, and that's why you're always, you know,
it's like the the events that you're selecting,
you need to look at all these fine details
to give you, you know, that advantage over everybody else.
- Because I'm guessing you probably
wouldn't go doing a hilly course on a 58-tooth.
- No, but then I'd probably select
like a bigger sprocket on the back, and a smaller, you know,
like a 44 or a 42 on the front.
- Okay.
Alright, well if you'd like to ride faster,
this man clearly knows a thing or two,
so thanks for joining us, Matt!
- You're more than welcome, Mark, you've been great.
- Well hey, I'm sure quite a few of you
is going to be trying to nail that tortoise position
and getting very aerodynamic.
If you want to make sure that you don't miss any more videos
from GTN, you can click on the globe and subscribe!
- And if you want to hear more about FTP,
then click on the link below!
- And we also today talked a little bit about cadence,
so, we actually did an investigation into how cadence
can affect your run off the bike.
And to see that, just click down here!
For more infomation >> Closing ceremony for The Wall That Heals - Duration: 2:49. 
For more infomation >> Dance for a Cause - Duration: 2:57. 
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét