Mental Toughness

“Mental toughness” is a term often associated with cycling (for a lot of us it comes from the whole sufferin’ thing.) Mental toughness is a necessity. You usually have to dig deep to find it, it’s unique to the individual and it’s difficult to explain. I find it to be the most elusive concept in cycling.   

First Race (First Crash)

The focus of my racing season is the New Jersey Bicycle Association’s (NJBA)  Category 4 Women’s Cup Series.   The series includes Criteriums, or “crits,” Road Races and Time Trials to provide a broad range of experience to new racers like myself. This is a good way to find your strengths and determine what you like and don’t like about racing.

The Peloton & The Podium: Pro Cycling Update for 4/11/11

What can you say about Paris-Roubaix? It was exciting, intense and just plain brutal watching the world’s best cyclists suffer through 258kms/160mi defined by 27 sections of cobble. The wild ride ended with two laps around the Roubaix Velodrome where someone claimed the highly coveted cobble stone trophy weighing twice as much as the bike he rode in on.

That someone was dark horse Johan Van Summeran of the US based Garmin-Cevelo team. The Belgian domestique emerged as this year’s winner by hammering through the final kms of the grueling race known as “Hell of the North” to  clear the finish :19 seconds ahead of favorite Fabian Cancellara (Leopard-Trek). Maarten Tjallingii (Rabobank) followed Cancellara with a 3^rd place finish and  Gregory Rast (Team RadioShack) finishing at a close 4^th.

The Peloton & The Podium: Pro Cycling Update for 4/8/11

Another hot day in the Basque Country as Stage 5 of the Vuelta al Pais Vasco ended with a victory for Spain’s Francesco Gavazzi (Lampre-ISD) followed respectively by Jurgen Van De Walle (Omega Pharama Lotto) and John Gadret (Ag2r La Mondiale). Oscar Freire (Rabobank) was actually the first to cross the line, but disqualified after race officials ruled that teammate Luis Leon Sanchez gave him a push in the final km. Freire was dumped down in the rankings to #48. (And you thought pro cycling would be boring without Lance).  If you look close enough in this video you may be able to see the push by Sanchez. It's beyond me why Universal wouldn't attempt to post a video that clearly shows the move. http://www.universalsports.com/video/assetid=6370a9fd-bc5e-4749-b366-e25c0b1e77fc.html

The Peloton & The Podium: Pro Cycling Update

Sammy Sanchez (Euskaltel) picked up a win today in a mountainous Stage 4 of The Tour of the Basque Country, with Adreas Kloden (Radio Shack) and Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana) following on the podium. Sanchez attacked during the final km of a very tough stage which included seven graded climbs. GC remains the same as yesterday (see below), and USA's Chris Horner holds on to 4th place. Overall, this is a close one that is expected to be decided on Saturday with the Tour's Time Trial finish.

Fear & Loathing in the Small Chain Ring: Turning Back to Sprint Forward

This past Saturday was probably one of my worst days on the bike in a long time. I struggled to keep pace with the team even outside of the peak jams.  This was not the GOOD SUFFERING. This was just suffering. I felt fatigued and labored in my breathing. Thirty miles into the ride when it appeared they may go longer than the usual 50 miles, I just dropped myself and headed back. I spent the rest of the day beating myself up and trying to understand why my body and mind were not on the same wavelength.


Then I looked at my cadence (number of pedal revolutions p/minute) and noticed that both the average and max for the ride were the highest they’ve been since I put a meter on the Ruby.  I have been very conscious lately about trying to build a higher cadence and I realized the fatigue and lack of efficiency were my body’s response to this change in riding. And well, just an overall bad ride – really bad.

Driven: Episode 2: Glory - Fabian Cancellara, LEOPARD TREK, and the Spri...

New blog post coming soon. In the meantime enjoy the wisdom of Spartacus! Hot, hot, hot!!