For the last in our series on motivation, we’ll turn indoors. This Tour Chief has been practicing with an indoor bicycle class at the  local gym.  There are two cycling choices here, and maybe you’ve got something similar where you live. The first choice is to ride on an exercise bike lined up next to the elliptical machines and stair climbers; you pick your own workout and get to watch TV. If you’re lucky like me, you might be able to join an indoor cycling class.

Let’s start with the obvious: Indoor cycling is not the same thing as riding a bicycle outdoors. The room here is small and lit with blacklights, and the music is maybe just a little loud. Instructions are shouted by the class leader, and it’s OK if you don’t understand what they are- just follow your neighbor. A dozen or so folks come to class and chug away on the fancy spin bikes for 30 to 45 minutes, and everyone ends up drenched in sweat and ready for a rest.

After about 8 weeks of spinning, I sat down with class instructor Tom Nicholson for a chat. By day he’s an engineer and project manager at Nissan, and in off hours he’s a fitness buff and instructor. His classes include indoor cycle, boot camp, circuit, and Insanity. That’s not all- he coaches distance runners and triathlon participants.

So the obvious first question: What motivates people to come to indoor cycle class? “There’s a couple of things” said Tom. “One is the weather, especially in the winter.”

We all can relate to that, but Tom had more to say. “Indoor cycling is helpful because we use some different muscles indoors (vs. outdoors), and I notice it on the first ride outdoors in the spring. Another factor is the fitness aspect. Indoors everyone stays together so there’s a group dynamic, and maybe some competition. I like the group dynamics, and I think people like it too. They’re not alone and they can motivate each other.”

“When you’re on an outdoor ride by yourself it’s all internal motivation,” Tom continued, “you’re fighting the little voice inside that says ‘let’s quit now’. But the thing with group classes, there is external motivation. You can motivate someone else who might be suffering, pull them along, and that in turn might boost your output. That’s a big part about classes and riding in groups, providing this support.”

So here we have Tom leading the class; he’s riding and paying attention to the participants, and giving instructions and keeping the music going.  I watch him, and I watch my fellow riders. Everyone is huffing and puffing.

The indoor bikes have digital controls which allow each rider to dial in to the correct output level (FTP level) for their own body based on age, weight, sex, and the occasional operator adjustment. The result is that the bike will have a color display of your output: white equals resting, blue is easy riding, green a bit harder, yellow is 80 to 100% of your threshold, and red is some kind of extreme anaerobic torture that I can only maintain for short bursts before collapsing onto the handlebars gasping for breath. Don’t worry, it’s all good even if your classmates can see your color zones. I get how this type of exercise is good for 45 minutes, but how does it relate to summer touring?

There really are many differences between indoor cycling and outdoor touring. I observe that most of my guests in the summer are good at maintaining a steady output for 5 or 6 hours at a time, and how they magically manage to maintain a constant speed and level of output over the day. Since much of my riding is with guests, I’ve also trained my body to stay in a steady state of output where my pulse will rarely get above 100 bpm. I explained this to Tom and asked for his comments. This is a difficult question, since many of my guests are perfectly fulfilled with their current  training plans.

He immediately grinned. “Somewhere deep inside people like to go a little faster” he said. “It’s fine if the event is designed for constant output (touring), but in their run up to it, they might vary their training style. It will make the ride much easier if they’ve done some interval training ahead of time.”

Interval training can be as simple as taking a portion of your regular Saturday ride and adding a series of 2 or 3 minute bursts of speed (intervals), followed by an equal time of riding at a reduced output (rest). In practical terms, find a straight-away where you can see an object a half mile up, and boost your cadence by 10 to 15 RPM until you pass it. Rest for the same time duration, and repeat several times. If you live close to a hilly course, you could do intervals by repeating some of the hills.

Another way to think of this for an hour-long bike ride: use the first third of your ride for warm up, and then take the middle third for interval work. The final third should be a taper off from about 80% effort down to your cool down at an easy pace, maybe 40-50% effort. If you do this for a month or 6 weeks, the results should be improved aerobic capacity plus a small boost in speed.

As Tour Chief, my desire is to see guests at the end of the day happy and satisfied with their effort that day. It’s not about speed, but it is about having the capacity to come in without being exhausted.

My non-scientific observations suggest there are a fair number of indoor cyclists who don’t ride outdoors. Likewise I have many cycling friends who enjoy other activities in the off-season. I do think a varied training plan is a good thing, so if you’ve never tried an indoor class, maybe check one out.

As always, your questions about this blog post are welcome. You can contact jim@biketourvacations.com for general training questions, and I’m happy to forward your interval-specific questions to Tom at Powerhouse Gym in South Lyon. Need more? We even have some great tours   where you can practice intervals.

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