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Thursday. 28 March 2024
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Is your bike hidden in a dusty corner of your garage?

Through distance cycling a missing sense of adventure can be rekindled

 


Youngsters use bikes as tickets to freedom that allow them to explore and discover new nooks and crannies of their young worlds. Adults with ever-increasing responsibilities, however, use bikes for only a few hours on weekend club rides or relegate them to dusty corners of garages. According to experienced cycling coaches John Hughes and Dan Kehlenbach, authors of Distance Cycling (Human Kinetics, 2011), rekindling that sense of adventure through endurance cycling is actually something that regular riders with everyday responsibilities can easily accomplish.

“Long distance cycling is much more than sitting on a bike and grinding away at the miles,” says Hughes. “It is about the journey, about planning new adventures. The journey is deeply personal, a way to enjoy the camaraderie of fellow riders, develop new relationships, and discover greatness within yourself.” He and Kehlenbach stress that training is just one of the requirements for a successful ride, offering six keys to athletic success that will help cyclists manage the delicate balance of training and daily life:

  • Planning: Self-assessment, goal setting, and season planning
  • Training: Aerobic, strength, and flexibility workouts for baseline conditioning and event-specific training
  • Mental skills: Relaxation and visualization techniques and dealing with potential hard times during a ride
  • Nutrition: Good nutrition for athletes year-round, nourishment before an event, and fuel during the ride and for recovery
  • Equipment: Bike selection and fit, clothing, tools, and other accessories, along with bike maintenance before and during rides
  • Technique: Safety, cycling economy, group riding, pacing during events, and dealing with problems like flat tires

Endurance riders who focus on these areas will be well on their way to improving riding technique and overcoming obstacles, whether they are cyclists preparing for a first long ride, endurance riders who want to ride centuries and 200K’s more comfortably, century veterans looking to see more countryside on multi-day tours, or experienced endurance riders ready for the challenge of double centuries or brevets.

“We both ride because we love riding,” Hughes says. “We aren’t racers primarily; we just enjoy going places on our bikes, traveling great distances under our own power, feeling the sun and the breeze, and feeling like we accomplish something.” In Distance Cycling, they offer a step-by-step guide through the process of preparing for and completing a variety of events, helping endurance riders apply the principles of training to achieve their goals.

For more information, see Distance Cycling.


Website Page URL (Link) Reference:

http://www.humankinetics.com/news-and-excerpts/news-and-excerpts/Is-your-bike-hidden-in-a-dusty-corner-of-your-garage?

© 2013 Human Kinetics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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