These injuries will vary with their location, cause, severity and healing time, but the one thing they have in common is that most of them come from overtraining.

Ways that you can avoid many of these common injuries is by allowing yourself proper resting periods in between your training and your competitions. Being precautions like this will also help to avoid sore muscles and joints.

It’s important to remember that the main reason for the base training sessions is to avoid becoming injured later in the season.

Some cyclists will become injured during their training, but these types of injuries are usually not caused by overwork.

They are usually the result of changes made to your bike or using a different form or posture while riding; a good example of this comes up with a bad adjusted pedal which may cause the common “cycling knee injury”. This is why it’s so important to make major changes to your bike and equipment during the training so you’re accustomed to a comfortable bike when the cycling season begins.

Some of the changes you may encounter that may cause injury if your body is not used to them are handlebar position, stem length, saddle or pedal height. The main types of injuries encountered by cyclists are overuse injuries and trauma injuries.

Trauma Injuries

Trauma injuries are just like their name says. They are caused by some sort of trauma like falling or crashing. Results of trauma injuries are cuts, scrapes, bruises, abrasions, sprains and occasionally broken bones. Provided you manage to stay away from the broken bones, you may still be able to continue your training even after sustaining trauma injuries. The best ways you can avoid or lessen your chances of getting trauma injuries are keeping your bike in good condition, riding with a helmet, using good bike handling skills and using common sense while riding.

Overuse Injuries
They happen because of the body being overused with the amount of training it’s been given. Knowing about the different kinds of overuse bicycle injuries will be the best way to avoid injuring yourself and having your cycling season ruined.

One of the main overuse bike injuries is caused by attempting to ride too many miles early in the season, doing too much speed work, excessive hill riding or large gear riding before you’re ready. Body types that may encounter these injuries are twisted shinbone, riding flat footed, a wide pelvis, muscle imbalance or leg length differences.

Overuse cyclists injuries can also be caused by an incorrect crank length, poor foot pedal position or incorrect saddle height. Performing incorrect exercises during training may also help contribute to overuse injuries.

You need to start somewhere with all sports and with road cycle training that means getting the miles under your belt, then when you have a good foundation of base distance training you can move on to the more specialized training methods. Let’s go through what you have to do from the very start.

Base Miles

This sounds easy, but it’s not just going out and riding your bike, well it is, but there is much more to it than that. first you must start by riding a hour and if you are feeling good maybe two, this must be done at a brisk pace, hard enough that you feel your breathing but can still talk to your training partners, this would be around the 70% of maximum heart rate if you are using a heart rate monitor and/or training solo.

When you feel that you can complete one and two hour rides without too much problem it is now time to step it up, go for two to three hour rides and when that seems easy ramp it up again to three to four hours. Most of this can be done by yourself or with a small group of riders of a similar fitness or who want to follow the same schedule and are not interested in ripping it up.

At this point in your road bike training program you could relieve the boredom of solo riding by going out with a big group on Saturday or Sunday, this is good for a few reasons. First it gets you used to being in a big bunch and learning group etiquette also some of the riders you will be training with you will probably be racing against at a later date, so you can observe them at close quarters. With a big group you tend to ride further and longer with possibly a stop at half way, with a group the pace tends to change every time a new rider goes to the front, this is good as long as the ride doesn’t turn into a race, this is not what you want at this point in your road bike training schedule. The draw back with long ride big bunch training is that you should ride at the pace of the others and this can be too slow or not hard enough for you to improve.

Remember that the area you live in makes a difference to how long you will be training, if you live in a flat area then the riding is easier than if you live in a very mountainous region. The weather must also be taken into consideration as this will affect how much you can do if it is too hot or too cold.

When you have achieved regular four to five hour rides or longer in a group ride then you might be fit enough to start a more serious, more specialized phase in your training.

• Specialized Training:To improve your speed, climbing, sprinting or time trialing you must concentrate on these points, but more power will help in all of these so that is your first priority. To do interval training properly you should use a heart rate monitor so that you know exactly how your body is reacting to the training. There are many different methods of interval training, here are some of them:

• Power Training: Pick a hill that is rideable at a high tempo on a big gear and do as many intervals on it as you can manage before you are going too slow or your pulse is too high and not recovering in enough time. This method will improve your power and you’re climbing at the same time.

• Speed Training: This can be done many ways, solo or in a group. If you are training on your own for speed then pick a short section of road, no more than half a mile and ride as fast as you can over the distance, taking note of your speed and pulse. If your speed is dropping or your pulse is going to high or not recovering, then it is time to stop and ride home.

• Sprint Training: Sprint training is best done with a small group, another rider or a motorbike/scooter. In a group or with one other rider you should take turns to lead out and sprint past the other, with a moto you sprint past and then sprint to get back behind the moto. All these methods should be undertaken on a safe stretch of road.

• Time Trial Training: Time trial training is basically riding at, or better above, race speed for shorter distances than you would be racing at. Split your race distance into sections and then ride at top speed over each section, again if your pulse is too high or your speed drops, then it is time to stop and go home.

• Special Interval Training: Here are some road cycling training tips that are very hard, but if you can manage them you are bound to improve. The first method is best with a group of four riders, like a 4 man team time trial, but with a difference, instead of moving up sheltered by the rider in front of you in a circular movement of the riders, you ride in a line and the rider at the back has to go to the front by passing all the other riders to get to the front and then take his turn to do the pace making. This method forces you to ride hard to get to the front and then having to do it again to keep the group going.The second hard ride is solo, pick a ride and decide that you will ride as hard as you can between lamp posts or fence posts or any road signs, these distances will vary so that your rest periods and effort periods could be long or short and this can get very hard when you have to rest on a climb or ride harder or a descent which is all the opposite to what you want to do. Try these intervals and you probably won’t thank me!

Road Race Training

Road bike race training is best done by recreating a race situation, mid-week evening group rides are the usual way most riders train their bodies and their tactical minds at the same time. Ask at your local bike shop or cycling club where and when they meet, most of these fast group rides are just like racing.

Road Bike Training Programs

If you are going to train properly you must have a “road bike training schedule” and keep a Training Diary so that you know what you have done and what you intend to do, this is great to keep you focused and on the plan for your fitness and if the plan works you can look back and see how you achieved your goals. If you are having problems designing your training programs then you need to consult either a coach or invest in the Complete Book of Road Bike Training to further your plans or to consolidate what you have already learnt, a road bike training schedule is a must if you want to improve, a plan is something you should stick to as closely as outer influences allow.

Our lives are full and busy, the best you can do is to try to set a side your training time and stick to it as best you can, improvments can be made, in the end it’s up to you if you want the hard work to achieve it?

The use of monitors has made training easier and more exact; you can now train more specifically for top end performance, weight loss or general fitness with heart rate zones. Their use have revolutionized training methods.

Heart Rate Monitor Use

There are many HRM’s on the market and they have different functions, the most expensive have more functions than you will ever need, too much information isn’t always helpful and can confuse things, the simple information of the heart rate can tell you everything you need to know, this combined with speed (or pedal revs), steepness of climb (or power) combined with time and distance you will know if you are training properly or just going through the motions.

These are the main functions for when you are actually riding; a heart rate monitor can tell many things when you are at rest.

You can test your fitness level first thing in the morning, a normal heart rate is around 72 beats per minute, trained athletes can have a resting heart rate much lower than this with possible heart rates of as low as 36 beats per minute, in a normal person this would be considered life threatening, but for a strong rider this would show that they were training well and were healthy.

Taking your pulse every morning is a great guide to your health, if you average heart rate is 65 bpm and then shoots up to 75 bpm, then there something wrong, possibly you are tired or over trained and it could be telling you that you have a cold or picked up a virus, this can give you a warning and prevent you from getting sicker and recover sooner.

When you are riding the heart rate monitor read-out can tell you more than just if you are training properly, it can also warn you of tiredness and illness. When your pulse goes higher than normal or it will not recover as quickly as normal then it is probably time to go home and rest up or go to the doctor and find out if you are run down or suffering from an infection or lacking in a mineral or vitamin.

How to Heart Rate Training

There are a few methods of heart rate training, but it depends on what you want to achieve, this is where training zones come into play, but first you must know what your maximum heart rate is.

Heart Rate Zones

• The simple method is to subtract your age from 220; this is a very rough method of finding your MHR (Maximum Heart Rate) and is very approximate.

• The most accurate method is to go to a sports doctor or clinic and have the proper tests which will give you more information to help you in your training.

• The third method you can do with the help of a friend, after a good warm-up, pick a long steady climb and ride up it in as big a gear as you can manage whilst sitting down. You must do this to the point of exhaustion, 100% effort, until you nearly black-out and collapse, this is why you need a friend with you incase you have a problem. The safest method is in the laboratory, especially if it is connected to a hospital!

So now you know your maximum heart rate, if you want to improve speed then you need to be training at over 90% of MHR, this will be done with either flat out sprints or on short climbs, lasting around 15 to 20 seconds, this is anaerobic training.

The first few efforts may not take you over the 90%, but as you do more it will rise. In the recovery faze you should wait until your heart has returned to around 65% of MHR before starting the next repetition, if it does not return then it is time to have a cooling down ride and go home.

If you want to be training for longer distances at a good speed and effort then you should be doing a normal ride at between 70% and 85% of MHR, this is aerobic training. If you are riding at this level you will be training your body and will improve general fitness strength and to some extent speed. This training is for those rides that will be over 3 hours in duration, if you have found the time to be able to do a long ride then you need to make it worth while, if you are not training at this level then you are only fooling yourself, less effort and you are wasting precious time, up to a point.

You can train at that lower level, it wont give you speed and it might build up some strength, but it will burn fat. There are many coaches and doctors that will tell you to train at below 65%, but above 50% to burn fat and lose weight. They believe that at this level you burn more fat than at the higher levels which brakes down the muscle to rebuild strength. At under 65% you will also be on a recovery ride if you are tired or just wanting to go for a bike ride to clear your head.

Which Heart Rate Monitor?

There are many HRM’s to choose from, probably the most popular are Polar heart rate monitors which are the leader in the market. If you want a heart rate monitor that also gives you speed, distance, altitude, time, stop watch and a pile of other things then Polar manufacture many HRM’s that will fit the bill with accuracy.

Of the other makers; Ciclo Sport and Cardio Sport are cycling friendly and have bike functions included which saves you having more than one unit on your handlebars. If you only want pulse information then there are too many to choose from.

All of the above make these and you can add to that Timex, Mio, Reebok and Nike who also have pulse monitors aimed more at the keen runner, but if you want pulse only or don’t want to spend much money then these could suit your pocket as well as your HRM needs.

Fairly new on the market now is cycle computers with GPS, these combine exact positioning for your bike functions with a heart rate monitor, so you have lots of modern technology and all the information at your finger tips. Garmin are the best known manufacturer at the moment, but there will be more soon as this seems to be the way the market is heading.

Heart Rate Monitors, Do We Need Them?

The answer is yes, if you want to train more efficiently and effectively they you need to know what your body is doing and if you are pushing it far enough and improving or not doing the proper training and stagnating or worse going backwards.

A pulse monitor can tell you if you are tired or sick, if you make a heart rate chart you can follow your progress and if all is going well then your average resting heart rate should fall giving you a steady low heart rate, any sudden rising of your pulse is a warning sign and time to rest or see a medical expert if your pulse doesn’t return to its normal resting rate within a few days. Pulse monitors are a must and combined with a power monitor you would know exactly which way your training is going.

If you have been training for some time and know you are strong, but your training doesn’t seem to make you any faster then there are a couple of things you can do. Interval training is you best way forward and there is a few different methods of this very hard and effective training and so, here we will try to explain the why and how of “bike interval training”.

Power Training

Power training is what it says on the label, power training gives you more power, which will help you attack harder, climb faster and give you more all-round strength which in turn gives you more speed.

How it’s Done

First pick a hill, it is better to not be steep, a good hard climb that you can pedal on, not struggle or too easy that you will be spinning the pedals. This bicycle interval training can be used for different methods of training, firstly you can use as big a gear as you can manage and ride as hard as you can for a set distance, if you take this to its ultimate and ride hard enough you will be doing VO2 MAX intervals and performing interval aerobic training as you will be pushing yourself to your maximum or as close as your body and mind will allow.

Start with five intervals and using your heart rate monitor you can judge how hard you are trying. If you are reaching over 80% of your max heart rate then you are training properly, but your legs and lungs will be telling you this anyway!

If you want to find your heart rate max this is the method needed, but you need to warm up then do your hill interval as hard as you can without standing up on the pedals. You need to ride yourself to a standstill, 100%. If you are planning on doing this it’s much safer to take someone with you in case you have any problems with making this kind of effort, this is threshold interval.

If you are finding that five intervals are getting too easy then do more, be careful not to over do it. Power training can help in all forms of cycling, form the track to mountain biking and triathlon, not just road racing, without power you have nothing; power training can be the most productive form of cycle interval training.

Sprint Training

Sprint training intervals can be done in a few different ways; one of the best ways can be a little difficult for most of us. To do this you need a friend with a scooter or motorbike to help you get the speed and to emulate sprinting past another rider. You will need a flat road that doesn’t have much or any traffic. Your friend needs to take the speed up to just below your max speed, so that you can sprint past him at designated points, when you have finished your sprint the moto shouldn’t slow too much and then you have to make another effort to regain the back wheel of the motorbike again.

Without the help of a motorbike you can also train with a friend taking turns being the “lead-out man” and the other sprinting past. The disadvantage with this method is that as you both get tired the speed drops, this shouldn’t be a problem with a scooter or motorbike so the speed stays as high as you can keep it up.

Sprint training from a group is also great, but does add other problems of organization and safety, a group needs more room on the road, if you can find a closed circuit with a safe sprint straight, this would be ideal to have a fast training session with a sprint at the end of every lap, being careful not to get too enthusiastic and switching each other all over the road. An industrial center after everyone has gone home is perfect as long as there is not a security operative on duty.

Speed Training

All of the above methods of interval training on the bike will help to make you faster and give you more speed. If you are intending to ride time trials or triathlons where you could be riding on your own, then there is a very good system to improve your solo riding speed.

Find a length of road that is flat and a little more than a mile in length, mark out a quarter of a mile, a half of a mile and a mile distances, then follow this routine, if you find you are tired or you pulse is getting too high, then stop and go home and have a rest.

• 4 times quarter mile intervals

• 2 times half mile intervals

• 1 times mile intervals

• 2 times half mile intervals

• 4 times quarter mile intervals

This can be made harder by upping the intervals so that eventually you could (if possible) be doing 4 of each interval. If you can manage all this then you need to look at your speed and heart rate, are they high enough? Maybe you are not training hard enough and need to put more into it, after a session of these intervals you should not be feeling fresh!

This is a very hard training session and not to be taken lightly, if you feel you are not up to it, or you are not riding any faster than you would be normally then stop. This regime will help to raise your speed for any distance of time trial. If you want to race at 25 mph or faster, then you have to train at that speed or faster. There is no point training at 20 mph and then expect to be able to race 5 mph faster. Train at race speed (or better faster) over short distances then your body will be able to race at a higher speed over longer distances when it is required.

Training behind a scooter or motorbike is one of the best ways to raise your speed, as we have discussed before with this form of training you have to be very careful where you do this, a quiet road, preferably without and steep climbs or sharp corners. Riding behind a motorbike improves your speed, your bike handling technique and you’re drafting abilities.

Endurance Training

Endurance interval training is easier to organize either in a group or solo. First when training on your own, any route that you would normally use, no matter the distance, long or short, look ahead for lamp posts, post boxes, houses etc. this is easier in the countryside where there are less of these obvious points. Ride as hard as you can between, say a post box and the next street light and then rest between the next piece of pavement furniture and then ride as fast as you can between the next. This is great training for road racing as you don’t know how long you will get to rest between intervals or how long the interval will be, much like a road race scenario. To make this work you have to ride as hard as you can, not holding anything back because you know how far you will be riding, you need to be giving everything you have. If it gets too much just finish the ride at a steady pace.

With a group you have a choice of how you do interval training on the bike, the standard method of following the rider in front of you to the front of the group then moving over to return to the back and then start again moving forward again. This is easy when you are behind another rider and the hard work is done when you are on the front of the group.

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The harder method is to do a similar thing with a group, four riders is probably the best amount for this form of training. Ride in a line and instead of riding in a circle, the rider at the back has ride up to the front to take his turn at the front. This forces him to ride faster than the others to get to the front and when he gets there has to keep the pace high to make the next rider coming up from the back have to suffer and try his hardest. This is one of the hardest training methods and the more riders there are the harder it is as you have further to go to get to the front.

Our Conclusions

Interval training conditions the body to ride faster, if you want to race faster over a certain distance then take that distance and split it up into sections and ride as fast as you can over those sections and have some rest sections. Use your HRM to tell if you are training efficiently and ride hard and fast and you will improve.