Category: Uncategorized

We all want to prevent punctures. The dull thudding sound, sluggish steering and sensation you’re riding through treacle is all too familiar to anyone who has ridden a bike for a prolonged period of time. You have a flat tyre, which will need attention if you’re to continue your journey. If you’re lucky this will be on a warm summer’s morning and you’ll have a puncture repair kit with you, armed with the knowledge on how to repair it. If you’re unlucky it’ll be dark, cold and a long way from civilisation with no obvious way to fix it. Even worse, this could be during an event.

This experience can be traumatising for some, I’ve even hear multiple people tell me “I used to love riding to work, then I got a puncture, and my bike lives in the shed now”. While we can never 100% guarantee you’ll be puncture free, unless you run solid tyres, there are some simple steps you can take to prevent punctures. Saving you money on tubes and a lot of time in the process.

Buy Better Tyres

This is the biggest single thing you can do to prevent punctures, buy a tyre with better puncture protection. Some tyres can be purchased which a gel inside of them (such as slime tyres), but they are so heavy and slow you’ll want to steer clear of them for serious cycling, so you should instead be looking at tyres with a protective bead.

Most brands will have a nigh on bulletproof tyre (such as the Continental gatorskin) and a super minimalist tyre with no very little or no puncture protection (such as the Continental Grand Prix Supersonic), and many shades of grey between. Many novice cyclists will want to go for the most puncture protection they can their their hands on, which is completely understandable, but it does come at a cost.

The cost comes in weight and rolling resistance. Weight is quite obvious, a 32mm Gator Hardshell weighs in at 445g, so 890g for the pair. Meanwhile the aforementioned Supersonic weighs in at 140g, or 280g for the pair, that’s a whopping 610g difference, or the equivalent of carrying an extra water bottle on your bike. While this won’t have a huge effect on your times, you’d definitely notice the difference if you rode the two back to back.

The second price you pay is rolling resistance, this is how much resistance is created as the tyre rolls down the road. Sticking with our two examples, you lose 19.5w through the Gator Hardshell and only 10.2W through the Supersonic. If someone offered you 10 extra watts to your FTP, you’d probably bite their arm off, so this loss is not to be sniffed at.

Finally, we have grip. Many tyres boasting high levels of puncture protection will be made with a hard rubber compound to make it harder for sharp objects to penetrate the rubber, before it even gets to the protective band under the tyre. This comes at the cost of grip, and you’ll have less confidence going into wet corners as a result. I’ve ridden with people who call Gatorskins as “skaterskins” based on their lack of grip in the wet.

If you are a new cyclist looking to compete in your first event and the thought of puncturing during the race keeps you up at night, then the gatroskins will be fine. You won’t be leaning into the corners fast enough to worry about grip, and an extra minute or two onto your finishing time isn’t going to be a concern, so this might be the right tyre for you.

If you are a high level cyclist looking for every possible gain, and will take your risks with the puncture gods for the possibility of a new PB, then the supersonic is probably the tyre for you.

However, the vast majority of us sit between these to categories. We want to avoid punctures, but not at the expense of performance. Over the course of a 180KM Ironman bike leg the chances are you’ll ride over something which will try to penetrate the tyre at some point, so don’t let the promise of low rolling resistance tempt you away from the pragmatic need for puncture protection. This is one of the few areas I recommend it’s worth spending a premium. Data on rolling resistance for individual tyres can be found at: https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/road-bike-reviews

Most bikes roll off the shop floor with very poor tyres on them, so I always recommend someone buys new tyres when they purchase a bike to avoid that inevitable puncture and frustrated trip back to the bike shop.

Replace your tyres when they wear

Like most parts on a bicycle, a tyre will wear and need replacing after a time. The rubber will be slowly worn away after hundreds of thousands of revolutions, and the compound itself will start to harden, creating small cracks which pieces of flint or glass can find their way into. Many tyre manufacturers have a wear indicator on their tyres, so make sure you replace them before they reach the limit. If not for puncture protection purchases, to stop the tyre failing dramatically on you at speed, which could result in injury,

Pull debris out of your tyres

Many sharp objects will find their way into the rubber, only to be stopped by the protective bead. This isn’t the end of their journey though, as there they will sit for the foreseeable future until you pull them out. Left unattended they may make their way through the protective bead slowly over many weeks, months or even years until they reach your inner tube and spoil your Sunday.

To keep on top of this, I recommend you deflate your tyre and check it over very carefully by eye, pinching it wherever you see a hole in the tyre to check if anything is wedged in there. If there is remove it gently with a small flathead screwdriver and fix the hole with a dab of superglue to prevent anything else making its way in there.

Avoid riding in the gutter

When starting cycling it can be tempting to push yourself as close to the kerb/verge as possible to stay out of the way of cars. I recommend against this for a number of reasons, partly because it makes you more likely to ride through pieces of broken glass, wing mirror or thorns which can cause punctures. As anyone who has ridden through Clapham early on a Sunday morning can attest, a lot of obstructions can find their way into the gutter so a wide berth should be given where possible.

I’m not advocating riding in the middle of the lane, but don’t be afraid to move a bit further out. It also prevents you getting squeezed by motorists, and gives you room to swerve if something appears in front of you.

Keep an eye out for hedge trimmings

In Britain we are lucky to have many of our roads lined with hedgerows, which local councils and farmers will maintain to ensure they don’t cause problems for traffic. This is normally achieved by driving a tractor with a special attachment along the road, leaving the trimmings on the road. This is necessary work to keep the road safe for all traffic, but the chances of thorns finding their way into the road are very high.

If you see lots of greenery on the ground next to a rather pristine hedge, it’s worth riding further out into the lane in an effort to avoid thorns where possible. Sometimes this isn’t possible, but it’s a sensible precaution to take where possible.

Be careful in wet conditions

While I don’t want to put people off riding in the wet as I think it’s an important part of a rider’s development, the likelihood of a puncture is increased. This is not only because the water can act as a form of lubricant helping a sharp object penetrate your tyre, but heavy rain also washes sharp objects onto the road in the first place.

There isn’t a huge amount you can do here except make extra sure you’re prepared to fix a puncture, and maybe take an extra spare tube.

Run Tubeless

Tubeless tyres do a great job at preventing punctures. They work without a tube (as the name suggests), instead simply using pressure to hold the tyre to the rim, with a thin layer of sealant inside.

This helps prevent punctures as if the tyre is nicked, the hole will fill with sealant (normally spraying some around for a couple of seconds in the process) allowing you to continue your ride as if nothing had happened. This is the perfect solution for many, so why don’t more people run them?

They require special wheels. While most manufacturers now provide a ‘tubeless ready’ wheel of sorts, if you bought your bike before 2018 the odds are it isn’t tubeless ready. You’ll also need special tubeless tyres. If you have a perfectly good setup and don’t have issues repairing punctures, it’s probably not worth the investment.

Tubeless is fiddly, no-one can deny that. You will need a special kind of pump which stores up air to blast into the cavity at high pressure and help the tyre sit on the rim. While an experienced mechanic can get them setup pretty quickly, the rest of us can spend a lot of time and curse words, on getting a tubeless tyre installed. You have to remove the tyre, scrape off the sealant and apply fresh stuff intermittently as well, so it’s not a fit and forget solution.

If the hole is too big to be sealed, you can find yourself in real trouble. If the hole punched through your tyre is too wide for the sealant to form a new seal, air and sealant will continue to pour out until there is nothing left inside the tyre and you’re left helpless at the side of the road. If you have an inner tube and the kit required you can install the tube as a get out of jail card. It’s worth pointing out that clincher tyres can fail on you in a big way mid ride as well, it’s just less likely.

Top up Your Tyre Pressure

When you hit a pothole your tyre is compressed dramatically. If you are running a low tyre pressure, this can result in your tube being trapped between the rim and the road. Thus will normally result in the rim puncturing the tube itself, giving you two large, parallel cuts in your tyre, known as a snakebite (or pinch) puncture. If your tyre has a good amount of pressure inside it, the chances of the rim making contact with the road (or the bottom of the pothole to be more precise) are drastically reduced.

This means topping the pressure in your tyres up at least once a week, to a pressure which works for you. Deciding on the correct tyre pressure for you is worthy of a lengthy article in itself, but it’s a tradeoff between an overly harsh ride from a high pressure, and the risk of snakebite punctures from a low pressure.

Remove the Source of the Puncture When Changing Tubes

If you suffer a puncture, it can be very easy to make the swap, hop back on your bike, then in a matter of minutes find yourself with another flat tyre. There is a tiny chance you’ve been catastrophically unlucky, but it’s more likely that you forgot to remove the cause of the original puncture. If a thorn has made its way through your tyre and pierced the tube, but you fail to remove the thorn, it’s only going to do the same thing to the next tube you put in.

To prevent this, when you remove the tyre, take the time to find the sharp implement. If you can’t see it by eye, you can try very gently running your finger over the inside of the tyre to see if you can find it. Every now and then we have phantom punctures where there is no evidence of the sharp object, but more often than not it will still be stuck in the tyre.

Ensure your Rim Tape is Sitting Properly

The rim tape is what sits underneath your inner tube, and protects the tube from being pinched by the spoke holes, which sit on the rim itself. If the rim tape isn’t sitting as it should be, this can expose the inner tube to the sharp ends of the spoke hole, which will inevitably result in a puncture sooner or later.

Conclusion

While I would dearly love to be able to provide you with a way to guarantee a puncture free cycling experience, it’s just not realistic. If you follow the above tips then with a bit of luck this should dramatically reduce the chance of you picking up punctures. If you suffer with repeated punctures, it may be worth taking the wheel to your local bike mechanic and ask them to check for any abnormalities, but more often than not, it’s simply the cycling gods taking exception to you.

• Road Tyres 101
• Should I Run Disc Brakes?
• Choosing A Road Bike
• How To Finish an Ironman
• The Benefits of Coaching

Triathletes need a lot of equipment to participate in their races, and the costs can get out of hand quickly. There’s always something else they could, or feel they should have, but gift ideas for triathletes can be tricky as there is so much to choose from. What would they appreciate, and what would end up stuffed at the back of their kit drawer? We’ll take you through the options available for various budgets, starting with items not to fall into the trap of buying.

I have included images of products here to help non triathletes identify the products in question. These are not endorsements, simply the brands and products most readily available and most likely to be found in stores.

Items to avoid

This isn’t to say you can’t but they these items at all, but you’d need to communicate carefully with your partner before purchasing

Replica Cycling Jerseys

You’d be forgiven for thinking that someone who spends a lot of time on their bike would appreciate a replica yellow jersey or the strip of his favourite cycling team, but this is generally a no no to be seen wearing. Unless you ride for the team or are currently leading the Tour de France, it makes you look like a bit odd, so it may be resigned to the wardrobe indefinitely. Think of it as the equivalent of someone who turns up to a local 5 a side game with friends in full Manchester United kit.

If you want to treat them to a jersey, pay attention to the brand and sizing of the jerseys they wear most often.

Shoes

This includes both running shoes and cycling shoes. The fit of a pair of shoes is paramount, with different shoes fitting different feet. If they have a wide foot, narrow foot, need more space in the toe box, have issues with their Achilles or require a certain level of support/cushioning, these all have to be taken into consideration. The running shoes you found online may look nice and snazzy, but the last thing you’d want is for them to pick up an injury because of the shoes you bought them. It’s unlikely they’d hold it against you, but you’d probably feel guilty.

Even purchasing a like for like replacement for a worn shoe may be problematic, as models can change slightly from year to year.

Helmets

An aerodynamic helmet is at an appealing price point for many to get as a ‘big’ present for their partner, often coming in around the £100-£200 mark. However, different helmets fit different heads, and when we’re looking at a piece of protective equipment, we want to make sure it’s doing its job.

I know from experience my head is a narrow shape, so certain brands of helmet work very well for me. Other helmets on the other hand sit on my head like a pudding bowl and move around a lot, compromising the protection in the event of a crash. This is nothing against any specific manufacturers, it’s just that they can’t all make helmets which fit everyone’s head.

Cycling Safety Products

This is a controversial one, but bear with me here. You obviously care about the safety of the athlete you’re buying for, but the majority of cycle safety equipment isn’t very good, and is aimed more at cycling commuters who ride short distances than athletes who will be in the saddle for several hours. Whether it’s a mirror attachment for their helmet, an oversized daylglo yellow jacket, high visibility helmet cover or a set of indicators for their bike, they’re unlikely to want to wear these while out training unless they have expressed an interest in these products before. I have a very high quality high visibility cycling jacket (worth £180), four very powerful lights I run on my bike and numerous reflective details on my my person to make sure nobody misses me when riding in the dark. I take my visibility seriously, but many of these products are low quality and won’t last very long.

Bikes

If you have the budget, you could be forgiven for thinking a bike would be a great gift idea for a triathlete. However, choosing a bike is a very personal and very complicated process as you can see in my article here. If you would like to treat the triathlete in your life to a new bike, work closely with them on making the decision, don’t just wrap one up, stick it under the Christmas tree and hope for the best.

Wetsuits

The fit of a wetsuit is even more personal than that of a bike, so as above, make sure you work closely with the athlete before you take the plunge here. You don’t want them to struggle to breathe due to a high neckline, or get pulled out of the water because their suit has filled with water.

Cycling Themed Oddities

In the past I have received gifts based simply on the fact it has a bike on it, is bike themed, or is supposed to be used by cyclists. In some cases these have been amusing, interesting or useful, but in most cases they go straight to the back of the cupboard. An especially memorable example was being gifted a tin of “cycling mints”, which were just a small tin of mints, with a sticker of a bicycle on the top. I don’t even like mints.

Stocking Fillers

Next up are cheap, small items it’s hard to go wrong with. This is a mixture of one size fits all or easily sized clothing, expendable items and more that every triathlete will appreciate. These are a good shout if you don’t know the athlete that well or you want to supplement larger gifts.

Socks

Who doesn’t love socks? As these sizing here is much easier than other items, you can buy thee with confidence. Running socks, cycling socks and even compression socks come in a variety of fun designs and colours. As these will be on high rotation, an athlete can never have enough.

Cycling Cap

Perfect for the winter months, this keeps the rain off your head and retains the heat at the same time. One size fits all so you can’t go wrong here.

Cycling Lubricant

The chain on a bicycle requires regular lubrication to ensure optimal running and to extend the life of the components. Triathletes can get through this pretty quickly, especially in bad weather, so make a note of the brand they use and buy them a top up. There’s a small chance they could wax their chain instead of using lubricant, so this might be worth investigating first. I recommend wet lube in all but the driest of conditions.

Bike Cleaner and Degreaser

These are standard expendables which every triathlete will be using to keep their bike in good working order. If they don’t need it now, they will in the coming months. The gift set pictured would go down very well with most cyclists, as even the brushes will wear over time.

Inner tubes

Assuming the athlete in your life uses inner tubes (and not tubeless or tubular tyres), a few extras are always welcome, though hardly the most exciting gift so make sure you already these with something else. Avoid latex inner tubes unless they have expressed a preference in the past.

Black Witch

It’s impossible to use a wetsuit without accidentally nicking it with your nails at some point. This damage is largely superficial, but there’s always the chance it could be made worse with time and cause real damage to the suit. A spot of this will repair the damage, but it’s unlikely a triathlete will ever use more than one tube in a lifetime, so make sure they don’t have any before you buy.

Cheaper Presents

These are generally presents between the £20 and £50 mark. These should definitely put a smile on their face

Multi Tool

These are compact tools cyclists take with them to fix mechanicals out on the open road. You can get them for cheap, but a more expensive, lightweight multi tool with added functionality (such as the one above) is a great gift.

Goggles

Goggles are very personal, so make a note of the pair they currently use, and look to replace them with a like for like pair. All goggles have a limited lifespan due to the lenses fogging up over time, so there’s never a bad time to replace them.

Triathlon Books

Buying someone a book on training, the history of triathlon or the biography of a prominent athlete is a great way to help them engage with the sport. Many triathletes are more kit focused, so may not consider spending money here.

Stock Training Plan

If your athlete is currently making things up as they go alone, they will probably appreciate a structured training plan to follow. We have a small (but growing) collection you can view here, you can also head to the TrainingPeaks webstore to find a plan to suit them and their needs. Plans for shorter events are generally cheaper than those for longer events.

Torque Wrench

This is an expensive bike tool that is used to ensure athletes don’t damage their bike when performing maintenance. They set the torque setting to the number denoted on the component they’re tightening, and tighten until the wrench won’t let them tighten any more. This can save athletes hundreds of pounds in damaged parts from over tightening.

Pool Toys

This is a broad category including pull buoys, fins, hand paddles, ankle bands, snorkels and more. Ideally you don’t want to duplicate items they already own, so have a look in their swim bag to check what they already own, as long as you don’t think they’ll mind.

Running Shorts

Athletes will accumulate a large collection of race T-shirts over the years, so they won’t be wanting for anything to cover their upper body, but they’ll probably only have a couple of pairs of running shorts on rotation.

Swimming Costume

Whether it’s a full costume, jammers or a pair of speedos, all of our swimwear is damaged over time by the chlorine in the pools we swim in. There are lots of fun designs out there and sizing is fairly easy, so these make a good gift. Make sure these are performance items however, rather than loose fitting or revealing, designed for days lounging at the pool rather than hard swimming.

Mid Range Gifts

If it’s you want to spend a bit more, these gifts should really stand out and show how much you care. These are between £50 and £200

Stryd Footpod

For the data driven triathlete this is a great investment to help them improve their running. An understanding of mathematics and time available to invest in learning how it works are required for them to get the most out of it, but it’s a great investment in them and their training rather than simply buying lighter or more aerodynamic kit.

Phazon Triathlon Consultation

For £75 we can look at the triathlete in your life’s training history, help them create a long term plan for their training and make recommendations on the best way to help them achieve their goals. If they’re new to the sport and don’t have much of a training history we can instead use the time to answer questions, recommend kit to suit their needs and otherwise assist them with their triathlon journey.

Running Vest

For longer runs it’s important to stay hydrated, and the best option for most runners is a vest with soft flasks attached which allows you to run without having to hold bottles. There’s also pockets for your keys, snacks and a waterproof so it’s a good all rounder.

Waterproof Jacket

Cycling jerseys and shorts are pretty personal, but waterproof jackets for cycling and/or running are normally relatively expensive and easier to size, as they don’t have to be skintight. The more you pay, the longer it will keep the rain off for and the more breathable it will be. Cheaper jackets are known as “boil in a bag” for a reason. Jackets for running and cycling aren’t generally interchangeable, and their everyday waterproof will be too bulky.

Bike Lights

When cycling in the daytime it helps to have a couple of small lights blinking to ensure drivers spot cyclists, but at night these become an essential. I recommend a small set of blinking lights to grab the attention of drivers, and two larger steady lights to allow drivers to gauge the speed of the rider. If they’re planning to do riding on unlit roads a big, powerful light is important to allow them to see the road (or trail) in front of them. A decent set of lights isn’t cheap, so would make a nice gift.

Coached Session

Many coaches like myself offer one off coached sessions to help athletes improve their technique, skills or help push them harder than before. This could be in the pool, on a running track or even held virtually in some cases.

Premium Gifts

If it’s a big birthday or you simply have the disposable income, you could consider the following gifts that tend to come in over £200.

Sports Watch

Garmin, Polar, Suunto and Wahoo all produce high quality sports watches which are used to record your workouts and provide meaningful insights. Their range is normally updated every year or two, so if they don’t have the latest model it could be a nice upgrade for them. Expect to pay north of £300 for their latest top of the range model.

Turbo Trainer

These are all but essential for the serious athlete, allowing them to ride their bike all year round in a time efficient manner. Prices start around the £600 for a direct drive smart trainer, which I highly recommend. Alternatively, if they have the space, a dedicated indoor bike could be an option, thought these tend to come in at closer to £2000 and there can be some fiddling around involved to get it to match the setup of your race bike.

Race Wheels

The wheels that come on bikes are heavy but generally quite durable. You can get lighter, more aerodynamic models which improve speed on race day quite considerably, for a price. These are a very complicated subject, so I recommend you communicate closely with the athlete before purchasing. Expect to pay north of £800 for a half decent set.

Custom Training Plan

We provide training plans based on an athlete’s strengths, time available, target event and equipment available to get them into the best shape possible. For £15 a week we can build a personalised plan delivered via TrainingPeaks to help get them to the finish line. Overall price depends on the length of the plan, you can find details here

Bike Fit

Buying a state of the art bike is all well and good, but if you can’t ride it comfortably you’re not going to enjoy it. A good bike fit helps you ride faster in more comfort, and is worth its weight in gold. Make sure you go to a dedicated bike fitter, and expect to spend at least £150 for a full fit. If someone spent 20 minutes setting a bike up when it was purchased this is better than nothing but does not constitute a proper bike fit.

Conclusion

Shopping for triathletes can be difficult, but if in doubt I highly recommend you talk to them about your planned purchases. You may not get to see the surprise and joy on their face when they open their gift, but you will avoid any awkward moments or the disappointment that comes from seeing the gift you went over budget on collecting dust in the garage.

New bike day (or NBD) is one of the greatest feelings a cyclist can experience. You have saved up your hard earned pennies to splash out on a new two wheeled piece of joy. The frame is in mint condition, the handling is smooth, and the gears are responsive. You immediately imagine yourself achieving great feats, confident that PBs are on their way.

But, are they? How much faster will a new bike genuinely make you? Or does it just feel faster? Was the purchase really necessary? We’ll start by breaking down the advantages of a new bike, and what they can offer you.

Lighter

This is easily the biggest reason for most people purchasing a new bike, they want something lighter. If you are currently riding a cheap hybrid you’re replacing with a £1500 road bike you’ll notice a huge difference in weight. However, if you’re upgrading from a £500 road bike to a £1500 one, the weight gains may not be as great as you may think. You might save a kilogram or two, but that’s not enough to make any significant gains on the hills. This is known as diminishing returns, once you are at a certain level of quality you have to spend an awful lot of money to see any improvements beyond that point. 

So yes, a lighter frame might shave a few seconds off your favourite climb, but you could easily make the same improvements through training.

Aerodynamics

Road aero frames have become very popular in the last five years, primarily as a result of amateurs watching professional riders winning prestigious sprints on gorgeous aerofoil frames. The idea is that they make you faster as they cut through the air easier, reducing resistance encountered. Unfortunately they also slow you down on hills due to increased weight due to additional frame material. This is why you’ll see professional riders swap aero frames for the traditional rounded tubing on hilly stages. The majority of aerodynamic drag is created by the rider, with the frame only accounting for around 10%.

If you rarely go above 30KPH on the flats without riding behind someone (rendering the aerodynamic advantage redundant), then a more aerodynamic frame will do very little to make you faster.

Improved Groupset

You may be tempted to upgrade to a new bike by the latest and greatest groupset. You’ve rightly noticed that a new groupset can cost the best part of a new bike, so why not go all in?. This is thrifty logic in itself, but we also have to reflect back on the title of this post. How much faster will it makes us? The differences between mid range and top end groupsets is marginal for the most part (under 100g in weight savings), and the smoother shifting promised by the marketing will be barely noticeable. Electronic shifting can provide benefits, but not significant enough to warrant a new bike.

This may be especially appealing to those who find their current groupset is being a bit of a nightmare. You may have lost the ability to shift into the smallest gear, the gear changes rattle, and it sounds like you’re riding a bag of nails around. Buying a new bike is an obvious way around this, the current bike has clearly just had its day right? Well, most of your shifting problems could be fixed by turning the barrel adjustor on your rear mech a quarter turn to the left. Even if it’s more complicated, paying a mechanic £15 to index your gears will probably solve most of your problems. 

As far as time saved goes, upgraded groupsets offer truly marginal gains for a hefty price tag. 

Stiffer frame

Good quality carbon fibre bike frames are very stiff and responsive. When you put the power down they leap forwards with you, screaming to go faster. Compared to an old steel frame which will flex and feel more pedestrian, this definitely feels racier. This is most beneficial when putting down sudden bursts of power such as those encountered in a race scenario. This can include launching a surprise attack or lunge for the line in a sprint. Realistically, the vast majority of cyclists will never take part in an event where this is important.

It will feel nicer, but few riders will see a tangible difference in performance from a stiffer frame. 

Riding the Latest Bike

You may be an individual who wants the latest and greatest of everything available to you. You’ve convinced yourself that you need the same bike your favourite professionals are riding, that it must be faster than last year’s. The truth is that most years the only difference is the paint job, and potentially the groupset if it’s been updated in the last 12 months. Every five years or so a manufacturer will overhaul most models in its range, but even these “all new” versions can be very similar with only a few minor tweaks to geometry or the carbon layup.

Manufacturers need to keep their range fresh and interesting to entice new customers into their range, but if you’re an existing customer with a recent model, there is very little to be gained by upgrading.

Smoother riding, better braking, just feels nicer

When you roll a new bike off of the shop floor it will have been inspected by a professional mechanic. The tyres will be pumped up, the brakes will be tight, the chain will be lubricated and the bearings box fresh. As you ride these parts will start to wear if you don’t perform basic maintenance on them. The simplest way to get this “new bike” feeling is by booking it in for a service with a mechanic who will tighten everything up for you, replacing worn parts (at an additional cost) and making simple tweaks to help it ride better. 

Putting your bike in for a service can replicate that new bike feeling for a fraction of the cost.

Conclusion

So, am I advocating hanging onto the same bike forever? Not at all, although we all know someone who has been riding the same frame for twenty years so it’s certainly possible. Personally, the only time I look at buying a new bike is when all of the components have come to the end of their life at roughly the same time and the frame is old/damaged enough that it doesn’t warrant spending several hundreds pounds on fixing.

However, there is more to buying new bikes than just getting faster. You may be looking for a different kind of bike entirely (TT bike, mountain bike, cyclocross, downhill e.t.c.), may want a cheaper bike for winter, one to keep in a second home, one that you use for racing, one with disc brakes or one that just fits you better. Maybe you just love the look of a bike you’ve seen or simply don’t like your current bike. These are all valid reasons for buying a new one, but the main point I wanted to convey was that spending large amounts of money on a new bike won’t necessarily make you that much faster.

 Things that will probably make you faster than a new bike include:

A turbo trainer for structured training

A training plan/coach

Improving your diet

Keeping your bike well maintained

Better tyres

A new bike will probably make you faster while it’s still in perfect working order and you’re motivated to ride it hard. Realistically however, it may only be a matter of months before you find yourself in the same position you’re in now, so think twice before you feel the need to blow the budget on a new bike.

If after reading you still see a new road bike if in your future, make sure you choose the right one by following our guide here

• Choosing A Road Bike
• From First Middle Distance to Sub 13 Iron Distance in 2 Months
• Should You Buy A Second Hand Bike?
• Should I Run Disc Brakes?
• Introduction to Turbo Training

The fitter you are, the faster you are, right? Well, it’s not quite as clear cut as that in the real world. Fitness has an enormous effect on as athlete’s ability to swim, bike and run as fast as possible, but it’s by no means the only factor.

Let’s take the term fitness for a start, it’s a phrase I really don’t like because of how vague it is; someone could be able to bench press twice their body weight, summit Mount Everest, free climb up the Dawn Wall or walk the length of the River Thames. All impressive achievements in their own right, but how would an individual who achieves any of these impressive feats fare in a triathlon? Better than your average member of the public you’d wager, but the chances are they’d be soundly beaten by those who are physically weaker, with a lower resting heart rate and a lower V02 max but who are more experienced in the sport. 

How do we measure fitness? There is no right answer or wrong answer here, lots of individuals will have a different idea of what fitness means, however as triathletes we’re interested in the bottom line, our race results . Yes improvements to our FTP and threshold heart rate are all stepping stones to success, and for some individuals these numbers are more important than race results, however I believe these individuals are few and far between. Those who measure everything objectively can often struggle on race day and find themselves disappointed when their predictions and meticulous calculations fall short, and they’re never short of an excuse to explain a poor performance (but then again, how many triathletes aren’t?!). You can be very fast and very fit, that’s what we’re all aiming for, but it’s also possible to be the highest FTP of the field, yet find yourself struggling to make the top ten.

An athlete is fast when they have the confidence, the skills and the experience to complete the race in the fastest possible time, with the resilience to keep pushing when their body is telling them to stop. The winner of the race is the one who crosses the line first, not the one with the highest power numbers, the lowest level of cardiac drift or the most expensive bike. Let’s break it down and have a look at the traits of successful triathletes in each of the disciplines.

Swimming

In the water, the fast athlete goes off like a rocket at the start, finding fast feet or setting the pace themselves. They then settle into their race pace, sighting often to stay on track. They feel comfortable drafting, and come out of the water towards the front of affairs. They’re not overly concerned about optimal stroke length or stroke rate in the melee of a triathlon swim, they’re more worried about swimming fast and coming out of the water with the fast guys. They swim in the open water at least once a week, and work on their technique all year round, with plenty of hard swims thrown in as well.

Transition 1

The experienced triathlete knows there’s a lot of time to be made up in transition. You may shrug your shoulders at the thought of saving 20 seconds over a long event, but imagine how happy you’d be with taking 20 seconds off of your 5K PB? Fast athletes can easily save time by practicing wetsuit removal after every training swim, memorising where their bike is, leaving it in an appropriate gear, with their items left on the bike in the order they’ll need to attach them. They have also practiced their mounting technique, comfortable with whatever method they have chosen rather than simply hoping for the best.

Cycling

Too many triathletes are addicted to their turbo trainer, but while time spent riding indoors will make you fitter, it doesn’t teach you how to take a the corner in the wet, carry momentum through a rolling section, fix simple mechanicals, ride up hills, brake effectively or stay on your aero bars on anything except a perfectly flat, smooth tarmac. ERG mode is especially bad for creating cyclists who can only ride at one cadence in a very narrow operating window. Fast cyclists know their bike and how it works intricately, they can carry speed through the corners and drop down the descents, making up time on fitter, less skilled cyclists hand over fist. They’re also able to spend longer in an efficient TT position without developing neck or back pain, because they’ve put in thousands of miles on their race bike, instead of treating it like it’s made of sugar glass. Rather than only taking it out on the sunniest of days, they’ve learned how to ride it in the wet and giving it a thorough clean after every ride to prolong the life of the parts. When on race day the heavens open, a strong headwind develops or strong gusts try to throw them off their bike, they keep their head down and keep making progress rather than excuses. Nobody cares about your W/KG if you’re sat on the side of the road staring at your flat tyre like someone has just asked you to fix the space shuttle. Fast cyclists do their quality training rides on the turbo, but in anything except the foulest weather they hit the road for their easy/long rides to build their confidence and road craft.

Transition 2

After the bike it’s tempting to take a few moments to yourself to recuperate and mentally recharge before the run. If you’re racing an Ironman, you’re new to the sport or you had some issues on the bike you need to address this is fine, but if you’re going for a good time you need to go into T2 with a detailed plan of how you will switch from bike to run. Fast athletes can picture the exact route they’ll take to their bike racking, where their shoes will be waiting with elastic laces ready for them to fly onto the run course with.

Running

When those who focus endlessly on numbers and micro analysing their training are passed on the bike, their internal dialogue will nearly always be “They’ve gone out too fast, I’ll catch them on the run”. This may well be true in many cases, but even if they are faster on the run than someone who rode it like they stole it, the fact they arrived in transition 2 ten minutes later somewhat offsets this. Most athletes will have a target they’re aiming for on the run, and pacing is paramount, but the skill to a fast run is knowing when to push. Staying below a certain BPM is a good idea if it’s your first attempt at the distance or the conditions are unusual, but if you’re into the last third of the run and your body is screaming at you to move faster, you should probably listen to it. Proper pacing is incredibly important for the bike to ensure you have good run legs, but you want to make sure you pace your run to perfection so you cross the line having left it all on the course. Fast runners don’t even look at their watch during shorter events, they know how to push their bodies to their absolute limits, and listen to their breathing and legs rather than their heart rate.

 

Race winners are the athletes who practice their nutrition in training, scout the course by riding or driving it, ride their bike in full race spec, practice speedy transitions in their brick sessions, push themselves to the max in fitness tests, and are not afraid of new thresholds or tough workouts. Rather than finding excuses they step up to the challenge and have an intrinsic motivation which keeps them going even when they feel the world is conspiring against them.

Despite what you may think by reading this far, I’m a relatively data heavy coach who spends hours pouring over data files and prescribing workouts to influence power curves, embracing new technologies such as running power. However, recently it has become clear to me just how important coaching the human is rather than simply the body, and how disappearing down a rabbit hole of physiology for the pursuit of 1% improvements can result in us missing the big picture. 

It’s your hobby and you can train for it however you like, but I highly recommend you spend a few years simply enjoying the sport and learning more about your body before you begin getting the textbooks out, or even better hire a coach who can help you navigate the maze of endurance coaching. 

TrainingPeaks is a fantastic tool for planning and analysing our training, but we need good quality data to make informed decisions. If we have bad data we end up making bad decisions which can lead to burnout or even failing to finish your race! So, how do we keep our data clean? There are three areas I consider to be very important, we’ll take a look at each on a case by case basis, looking at common pitfalls and how we can avoid them.

• Consistent data
• Enough data
• Accurate Thresholds

Consistent Data

We need to make sure that the data from one workout is comparable to the workout before it, and the ride after it. The biggest area this can be a problem is with cycling power, specifically when athletes change power meters between activities or fail to recalibrate their devices.

If you are only training indoors and using the power meter built into your trainer, you need to make sure you are re-calibrating the power meter (known as completing a spindown in most cases) every time you transport it, or every four weeks out of habit. As trainers are moved around and knocked about, they can lose their accuracy so the trainer needs to recalibrate itself to ensure the data stays accurate. I once failed to recalibrate my turbo trainer for several months, got myself up to an FTP of 4 W/KG, then re-calibrated my trainer, found workouts impossible, and discovered I was only at 3.6 W/KG! If you are planning to use your power pedals on race day, you should use your power pedals for every ride so you’re training at the same numbers you’ll be racing at, otherwise you run the risk of your intensity factor target on race day being based on turbo numbers, not power pedal numbers, resulting in you blowing up as a result. If you are using a bike based power meter (which I highly recommend) you still need to perform a zero offset (or recalibration as some brands call it) weekly, or whenever you move the power meter from one bike to another. Another issue can be the right pedal running out of battery or experiencing connectivity issues with the left pedal, so keep an eye on that.

 

Running power meters do not require regular calibration, however the numbers are based on your weight, so any changes to your weight will require you to reset your thresholds. As such I only recommend updating your weight if you have lost/gained weight that has been fairly static for a couple of months, or at the start of the season before your baseline testing.

Heart rate can occasionally be very low if the your chest strap takes time to make a good connection, or if your optical monitor struggles to get an accurate reading for whatever reason, such as a loose watch strap or heavy sweating. If you find yourself with a consistently low heart rate reading during a workout, make sure your monitor isn’t upside down!

GPS accuracy varies a lot, especially in urban areas or thick woodland, where you can end up with very high or low numbers. I once had an athlete run a 10K around the City of London, where the GPS trace accidentally made its way to the top of a skyscraper, leading TrainingPeaks to mistakenly believe she’d gained 150M of elevation in 10 seconds, sending the TSS score rocketing.

 

Finally we have elevation, if your GPS or altimeter is putting out bad data it can have you down as running thousands of metres above sea level, resulting in grossly exaggerated TSS scores.

If you find yourself with dropouts or spots of bad data, TrainingPeaks allows you to rectify this on the graph view within a workout. Simply click and drag your cursor over the problematic area, then click on the appropriate button in the top right of the graph for different data field: W for watts, KPH for speed and BPM for heart rate. From here you can select “fix”, which will allow TrainingPeaks to create a preview of the data smoothed out, with the option to apply or discard the changes. In some cases, such as with horrifically inflated elevation data, it can be better to delete the data field entirely, or switch the TSS calculation to hrTSS. If you start playing around with the data but make a mistake you can’t undo, you can simply download the workout from the “files” section in the top right hand corner of the workout view, and re-upload the original file. You’ll lose any comments or other changes you made to the workout, but the original file will always be in tact.

Sometimes bad data slips under the radar, looking at the PMC for big spikes can be helpful, as can browsing your peak performances on the TrainingPeaks mobile app and looking for numbers which you know are unrealistic. If a huge wattage or jump in pace isn’t accompanied by an increase in heart rate, you can be pretty sure it’s bad data.

Enough Data

The performance manager chart found in your dashboard is a coach and athlete’s best friend, it allows us to see how fit an athlete it, how fatigued they are, and how ready they are to perform. The numbers here will only be accurate if we have enough data from your training history to give us accurate insights into your training history. A world champion could create a TrainingPeaks account, but without any information on their training history TrainingPeaks will assume they are a novice, and suggest that they are incredibly fatigued after a couple of what would be a couple of very easy workouts for them.

If you are already an established athlete, you will need to sync your TrainingPeaks account to your fitness tracker/software of choice. Depending on the service you link to, it may or may not import all of your previous activities into TrainingPeaks (As an example, Garmin will, Zwift will not), and while manually uploading all of your data will seem like a gargantuan task, it is important you upload at least the last 42 days, as this is the constant that Critical Training Load (CTL) is based on. If you or your coach plan to use WKO, you will need all of your workouts from the last 90 days.

If you are a new athlete who doesn’t have any data to upload, then you will need to take the numbers with a pinch of salt for the first 42 days until TrainingPeaks has enough data to give you accurate figures. I’ve seen many posts on the TrainingPeaks Pain Cave Facebook Group group from individuals concerned that their form is -50 and wondering whether they are overtraining. More often than not they simply don’t have enough quality data uploaded so TrainingPeaks has no point of reference.

Accurate Thresholds

All calculations on TrainingPeaks are based on thresholds. If your thresholds are incorrect your TSS scores will be incorrect and everything else gets knocked out of place, from your PMC metrics to your workout metric, even the targets of your workouts themselves.

While I’m not going to go into testing protocols here, it’s important that you undertake fitness tests within the first 42 days for each sport you’re planning to log on TrainingPeaks. I spend the first month with each athlete focusing on fitness testing, staggering them so they’re not in close proximity, but ensuring we have good, relevant data to work with.

There are two problems athletes struggle with when setting thresholds, the first is basing their threshold off of their lifetime PB (in extreme cases, their best 10K time from 20 years ago), or not updating their thresholds regularly enough. By using a threshold that is too high you will struggle to complete workouts, by using a threshold that is too low you are doing yourself a disservice and not training hard enough, getting overly inflated TSS scored in the process.

I recommend you test each discipline every 6-8 weeks (perhaps more regularly if you’re a single sport athlete) for improvements. If you put in a slightly lower number during the test but your workouts otherwise feel good, you could put the result down to a bad day and leave the number where it is, but if you put in a noticeably lower number (+/- 10 watts or seconds per kilometre) you need to take it on the chin, lower the threshold, and review your training strategy. Do not become a victim of the vanity FTP.

To conclude, here are the main takeaway points:

• Ensure you use the same power meter for all workouts, and perform a zero offset regularly
• Ensure TrainingPeaks has all of your data from the last 42 days before you start using the PMC to plan your training
• Keep an eye out for big drops, spikes or gaps in data, and do your best to fix them using the tools in TrainingPeaks
• Be honest with yourself about your thresholds, and re-test regularly

It can be time consuming to look through your data and make sure everything is up to date. If this seems like too much work, or you don’t know what to do with your data once you have it in order, take a look at our online coaching.