Training Properly clearly isn’t everyone’s bag, baby. Heart rate, power, cadence; it’s all bollocks if you are being told to hold back, or are put into a place where you don’t want/aren’t supposed to be. If it hurts, and you’re flying, it’s working. If it hurts, and you’re crawling, it’s not working. No amount of handlebar-mounted gadgetry can convince us of what we already know; no matter how hard we may think we are going, we are probably going nowhere near hard enough. So, armed with years of field testing and a plethora of poor performance to draw upon, the team at V-Lab have developed the ultimate training tool for the discerning proponent of Rule #74.
Enter the V-Meter.
No confusing read-out. No buttons to push. No debate as to what you need to do. Just look down, ruminate briefly on the message conveyed to your oxygen-starved brain and lactate-laden legs, and V the fuck outa there. What’s the gradient of the climb? V. How fast are you going? V. What’s your heart rate doing? Your V-max? You will instantly and unequivocally know the answer.
Accordingly, the V-Meter is intended as a single-use device; after your first ride using the V-Meter, all the important and relevant numbers will be ingrained on your psyche, and the V-Meter should be removed from your bike and placed in the nearest refuse receptacle. Not only will you be freed from the burden of irrelevant numerology, so too will your steed be clean, sleek and 74 compliant.
*V-Meter not an actual product. Results may be fictional. Rule 5 sold seperately. If pain persists, good. Send V dollars to V-Lab for full program.
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@heath
Spot on. Might I add that it's desirable to be sitting up past this group, perhaps unwrapping some suitable snack? A malt loaf, steak sandwich, some form of cured meat - but definitely not an isotonic sports gel!
Also ...looking back?
I was once overtaken by a guy who must have been about 55, riding like the wind one hand on the bars, smoking a cigarette. And I was less than 2 months from peaking - or so i thought.
@George, @heath
Yeah, spot fucking on. I do the same thing; although I just wind up the guns without getting out of the saddle. I just usually drop into the phantom aero bars and wind it up, then sit up and look very casually deliberate while either riding no-handed, adjusting my kit, or on the tops with my fingers extended soas to be in my most relaxed position possible, clipping along at something like 55kph like it's my Sunday afternoon ride.
It wasn't this guy, was it?
@frank
Good fun, to be sure, but you gotta make sure who's in the group ahead, at least around my neck of the woods, or you're likely to find yourself being run down like a hapless bunny rabbit by a pack of hungry wolves.... and no amount of Rule V can save you.
I find this tactic to be especially fun (and satisfying) around the YJA crowd.
BTW, Merry Christmas ya mooks!
My Rule 74 epiphany came last summer on a Tuesday evening.
I arrived a few minutes late to a local meeting spot for a group ride at 6pm. They had already departed right on the hour.
Fortunately, cycling groups in Seattle are like skateboard gangs for adults. If you hang out in the right parking lot at the right time, you'll meet some of your friends or just find a new one with whom you can cruise the neighborhood.
He was in his late 50's and rode a carbon Bianchi. In full-on Casually Deliberate mode, he chatted about rides in France while I huffed and puffed up a slight grade. While I strained up the 10-12% grade Lighthouse hill, he held the bars with one hand and chatted on the mobile phone with another cyclist.
We met up with the other friend and jetted down a 5-lane thoroughfare at light speed. All this time I was wearing dark sunglasses, unprepared for the gradually earlier sunset. Fortunately, we were soon blasting through the fully lit downtown streets, in the center lane on a one-way, cars screeching by on either side. I was sure I was going to blow a tire or snap a chain and go flying out into the street.
After 50km we parted ways and I navigated back home alone in the dark. I suddenly noticed that my GPS battery had died sometime earlier in the evening. But instead of regret, I suddenly felt emancipated. This night couldn't be summarized with one number or ten, with a string of waypoints or a set of altitudes.
I still remember the thrill of being able to keep the pace and the fright of not knowing if I would make it out alive. I ride better equipment now and obey a few more of The Rules, but none of that mattered on that night.
I haven't fully broken the habit of riding with a meter. I like to know how far I've traveled after a ride. But I don't need to know my speed or altitude along the way. I ripped the cadence sensor off my bike many months ago.
While I'm on the bike, I see only one number: the temperature in degrees C.
@frank
Did I send you that photo or do we both keep a sweet Cipo file? It's fucking great.
Geoff + others - a mechanic friend of mine has a thermometer that is set right into the top cap of his fork (above where the stem clamps). Pretty cool and I'll ask him where he got it next time I see him. Not sure if anyone else has seen one.
Yeah, clean bars and stem do look sweet as. I hate having even a tiny computer on my bars and I like to hold the stem when I'm moving the bike outside to clean it or wherever.
So, for those of you going data free - do you keep track of your miles in any way? I don't care about averages or cadence, but time in the saddle and miles might be nice.
Then again, I ride a lot solo and do some group rides, so I really don't need to monitor my form, minus applying The V often enough to be two months from peaking.
I confess, I am a heretic. Or apostate. Or something. I like riding with my HRM. If I don't, I have a terrible tendency to overcook myself on the first hill by staying too long too far in the red. I know I shouldn't need an HRM to tell me when I'm doing that. But I find it helps. My bad.
@ frank: that is a brilliant strategy! Nothing like pulling that off 'tranquillo' style.
@ ron: I am a 'no numbers' guy. I do take into account my 'kilometers', not milage, weekly. I reset the odo weekly, even during race season and that is it. Bumped up this year and will do the same again. I have no idea what my lactate threshold is and it doesn't matter an ounce, because if it was 190, Rule V requires me rouling out at 195 during efforts. If my LT was 200, Rule V calls for a little more.
So far this works for me, some 20 years later now.
@Ron
I believe that bikes should be held only by the saddle when they are being "walked". There should probably be a rule on this.
@Ron
I keep track of nothing but time. For me, it's just a joy to be out.
I was in a great 4-man paceline on the local park crit course on Sunday evening. The guy at the front was doing some specific kind of training, so he didn't ask for anyone to pull through--just happy to pull everyone else. The rest of us sat on, going at a really nice clip. #2 guy pulled off about three laps around. Then #3 guy on a really cool Colnago fixie with brake levers gapped a bit and flicked an elbow for me to pull through. So I sat on the wheel of #1. He was still happy to pull. I was happy to cruise at a pace I couldn't keep if I were pulling. We did a couple more laps, then #1 was done.
I have no idea how far I rode. I rode from my driveway at 4pm, and I pulled in about 5:45pm, just about dark. And I had a blast. Not a care.
I love riding with a watch and nothing else.