(Part 2) Best products from r/Velo

As others have said, rollers are superior for improving technique and trainers are superior for improving strength. Simple as that.

Rollers

The reason why people have a hard time adjusting to rollers at first is usually because their pedal stroke and handling are piss poor...riding just this winter has done amazing things for my pedal stroke.

The downside to rollers, as one person mentioned, is the lack of top-end...to counter that you can ride with lower pressure in your tires or buy something like this...looks like they sold out. I own one and it does help quite a bit but my trainer is still WAY harder to top out. I guess I'll also mention that there are other adapters that will allow you to lock your front dropouts in place so that you can ride concentration-free.

Trainers

Trainers are nice because you can just sit on the bike and grind out miles without paying attention...I'll play video games or watch a movie and the time will fly by. Trainers are also great for interval work, especially if you have one that will allow you to adjust resistance while riding.


Recommendation

That said, I'd recommend rollers over a trainer any day. A better pedal stroke requires less strength (makes up for some of it's weaknesses to the trainer) and better handling is always important. Only reason I'd suggest a trainer instead is if you want to grind out mileage without your mind being involved all the time.

Video on Senna

I've seen that before but that was when I first started riding rollers. Having tried it myself, I assure you it's far more impressive than it looks. Riding without your hands on a roller is slightly harder than riding on the road (in my opinion) and I was able to do it after about 20 hours. What I find amazing is that he's doing so well in a game that requires intense focus while still staying very stable on the rollers. I'd imagine the reason for that specific training is partially for the fun of playing games but mostly for the mental training to keep track of so many different things at once.

Here it goes. I use [these] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HMJ4ODG?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00) for the calm shell exercises and variations. The black one is money, but I dont know how strong you are. The green band works the best as it is really the only band which I can wrap my foot around. Its strong. Basically, what I do is wrap my standing leg around one of the band and I attach the other side of the band to something sturdy(at my house its a pole on the stairs) and then I do this I do both sides and I stay on my standing leg for as long as possible. I move around a big only to play with my ankle flexibility and to make sure my hips are sqaure and my back is flat. I will lean forward and back a bit to play with balance. But the goal is to feel it in your ass of your standing leg. Trust me, you will feel it in your glute. Once you get strong you can play around with pulling in your extended leg with the band to work on core strength and hamstring strength, you can also try standing splits by placing your hands on the floor and working on your hamstrings and core strength. I would also look at warrior 3/airplane yoga poses to understand alignment and how you want your body reacting in the pose, half moon and revolved half moon are also variations you can play around with once you can maintain balance. When you get really strong look into belgian squats. This will blow the glute and really work the legs and core.

There are a blizzard of meditative techniques and guides to consider. I tried one in great detail (1) and am considering resuming it in part to improve this problem. It is essentially a close variant of a better known older guide (2).

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mindful-Way-Through-Depression/dp/1593851286

http://www.amazon.com/Full-Catastrophe-Living-Revised-Illness/dp/0345536932/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415294573&sr=1-3&keywords=MBSR

The guy who developed these meditation techniques for western therapeutic application, Jon Kabat-Zinn, started with Olympic athletes and visualization in the 1970s. I was first introduced to it as an athlete in the 1980s. Ignore the titles. the exercises are the same whatever you seek to accomplish. The meditations help unlock parts of your mind that you don't directly control and free them to solve problems. These skills and the focus you can develop will aid you in absolutely everything you do. Daily practice of 25min a day over 8 weeks has been shown to change both brain function and even physical structure in both novices and experts (no ashram required all can benefit quickly).

It is not a religion. It won't try to sell you on anything. It will seem odd, but if you do it daily you will get valuable results. (They may be realizations regarding anything, so keep an open mind.) if all this sounds too flakey or new age for you, consider that the muscles we hope to better control are involuntary. The study showing the link between meditation and physical brain changes was so groundbreaking it made the cover of the NYT and the researchers won a prize. The studies are out there.

It is the cheapest therapy you will have tried to help with this problem. From my experience, I would expect it to improve awareness of muscle state and activity, from there, you could train yourself to relax the muscles. To build strength, physical exercises will be needed.

No problem! better to ask when you can, i couldn't find a single person to talk to and had to buy my set blindly.

I went with the IRC just based on a recommendation from a shop, Specifically the RBCC version as it's seemed like a good trade off between speed and puncture resistance. I think its a good tire for the fall/summer/spring season, i have an tubeless compatible aluminum wheelset that i'll switch too once the salt starts going down on the road and for that i'm looking into the hutchinson sector and fusion 5 all season. Its a bit of trial and error at this point, which can get expensive but there isn't not enough data or user feedback on what works/doesn't work.

I don't know the difference between Road tubeless and tubeless ready. Both the Sector (Road tubeless) and Fusion 5 (Road Tubeless ready) are on ENVE's approved list. I'd trust either one

I used the diamondback steel core tire levers and they worked well. It looks like IRC has pretty interesting looking levers and hutchinson has levers that you can fill with soapy water to help with installation. All you really need is a lever that has a nice wide/flat hook to prevent damage to the tire bead because without a tube any imperfection in the tire bead can cause a leak. ENVE actually recommends against tire levers all together, but from my experience getting a tire on (At least the IRC formula pros) is impossible.

Let me know if you have any other questions!

I have found this combination to be by far the best.

Bluetooth Adapter

Sennheiser OCX 865i

I have been running this setup for a several years without any issues. The adapter works way better than some integrated solution. It relocates the weight to anywhere you want. Gives you headphone choices. Works well outdoors too. (I only use it on runs with my phone but I don't see why it wouldn't work on a ride.) And if your headphones die you only need to replace them.


I wrote a long blog post about this setup some time ago but can't find it anymore. Anyway, I found the battery lasted about 4 hours when it was set to full power with those headphones. The adapter is a generic unit so you will find multiple brands. For example I also have a NoiseHush version. Just make sure to get the one with a micro USB charger. The first gen units had this goofy charger cable that you can't easily replace.

Finally, another nice feature is that the play and skip forward and back buttons do work with at least iOS. I found it extra handy when watching Netflix on my iPad while connected to the TV. I could play/pause the movie from it.

As for the headphones, those are my personal favorite. Good volume, good sound, and nice fit options. I have sets of both the retail and refurb and all are still working well after a lot of use.

The Confidence Gap

The Chimp Paradox

Mindfulness

These are some great books, by some fantastic psychiatrists. All these can help with anxiety. The Chimp Paradox book especially is written by Dr Steve Peters, who worked with the British Cycling track team and helped Chris Hoy, Victoria Pendleton, etc become the top in their sport (though his book is not specifically for cycling).

Althought some people will be saying 'don't worry about it' or 'just enjoy it', these are particularly useless statements and (through not fault of their own) generally come from people who have never delt with mental help issues. If it was as easy as 'don't think about it', then you wouldn't have made this thread. These books are based on real scientific evidence and help you deal with the anxiety and not just push it away.

I would say that The Chimp Paradox is best for understanding why you're feeling anxious and the other two books are really good for practising how to deal with the anxiety.

I really recommend Matt Fitzgeralds "Racing Weight", there's an entire chapter devoted to discovering your ideal race weight.

TLDR:

1. Find the ideal body fat % that corresponds do athletes in your sport/age/level
   
2. Determine what weight you would be if you were at that %
   
3. Experiment around the fringes of your ideal (e.g. is your performance in races better if you weigh 'X')
   
   The entire book is full of great tips for maintaining a healthy diet for competitive endurance athletes.

I have these:
http://www.amazon.com/Gore-Bike-Wear-Gore-Tex-Overshoes/dp/B006URAE3A/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1416522362&sr=8-6&keywords=overshoe+cycling

I got them for $50, don't remember where. I highly recommend them. I went on a bicycle tour last Summer and for a while was in a group of seven people. Everyone had overshoes, I was the only person happy with their overshoes. Zippers let water in and some overshoes seem to be permeable. These are legitimately waterproof. I got some pretty serious rain storms in the Yukon and my feet never got wet. They have been walked in a lot and are still in excellent condition.

Looks like there's a similar product by same brand for cheaper on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Gore-Universal-Gore-Tex-Overshoes-11-0-13-0/dp/B002PU9PBS/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1416522362&sr=8-7&keywords=overshoe+cycling

Best of luck,
Ricky

I live in New England and ride all year round. Aside from the obvious stuff like good layering, and fenders. The best thing I've found are toe warmers. I tried booties and winter shoes, but the best results are with simple toe warmers. They don't just keep your feet warm, but make your whole body warm. Get them in bulk on Amazon. HotHands Toe Warmers (5 pair) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01B1SQJLS/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_JDSgybDNTQVN9

I don't know what you mean by energy systems, but for understanding training with heart rate zones, Joe Friel is fairly popular and easy to understand. He has a book that is good, but the essentials are covered on his blog.

Been working on weight training this off-season. "Starting Strength" seems to be the equivalent of "The Cyclists Training Bible" for general strength training. Everyone should read it. Maybe twice.

My back is my main limiter. I had a bad case of thoracic hyphosis (aka "nerd neck") so I needed to fix that and train up my upper-back muscles in order to be able to safely squat heavy. I'm thinking the added strength and mobility will help for holding my head up after long hours on the bike.

I've brought my Bulgarian squat up from 3x5's at 80 lbs to 3x5's @ 130 lbs. I've also brought my weight up by 7 lbs, so I guess I'll be carrying that around. But it's pretty flat where I live and race so I wouldn't mind trading some W/KG for some raw watts.

I'm planning to continue building strength through base and switch to more speed/power movements during build. I'm going to incorporate the fast lunges described in Maximum Overload (terrible book, fine idea) for blocks of 30s to 5m. I think that will be a good accessory to VO2max intervals. Hard days will get harder, so easy days will need to get easier.

I have the Kinetic and it is good ... you could always order one off the internet. That said a second-hand cheap (<$100) stationary trainer will work fine, biggest real difference is that they're louder. Just check amazon reviews before you buy anything.

Power meters are expensive (many hundred $'s), heart rate ($70) and speed/cadence sensors ($70) are both very useful and cost a fraction of a power meter.

Trainer Road (~$12/mo or $99/yr) is a neat alternative to Zwift ... check you have the right equipment for it here

HIIT sessions calibrated to your FTP (check out the sufferfest ones on Trainer Road) are great for indoor short (<1hr) sessions.

You'll get hot exercising hard without the wind ... get a big fan. You'll sweat a lot so a mat underneath is a good idea.

Sitting on a trainer for many, many hours is dull ... netflix helps but you'll likely need bluetooth headphones to listen to it at a reasonable volume. I have plantronic backbeat fit ones (~$90) I also run with and they've been excellent.

And there's always the ever-reliable DC Rainmaker if you have a week or two to research ;)

New England here:

Bike: Dedicated winter bike with sealed cables, 32h box-section wheels with 28c tires. Staying on top of bike maintenance is super important because stopping for a mechanical can be downright dangerous if you're riding in remote areas.

Some people I know ride with thorn-proof tubes in the winter because they want a nearly zero percent chance of flats. They are really heavy!

https://www.amazon.com/Sunlite-Thorn-Resistant-Presta-Valve/dp/B00QU9C1O8

Dress: This is person-specific. Obviously layering is key.

More key is having more zippered layers up top so you can unzip when going uphill. Keeping sweating minimal is the goal. Sometimes it's unavoidable. On a recent 5 hour ride, I carried an extra thermal baselayer and pair of socks to change at a midway stop. 10/10 - would recommend.

Also key are chemical handwarmers on top of your shoe, underneath the shoe cover (I have a set of zipperless neoprene booties that are the most durable set I've owned.)

As nerdy as they are, I use Bar Mitts when it gets below freezing. I've been able to use very light gloves with them, which provides much more dexterity for shifting or grabbing food than heavy gloves.

Bonus pro-tip: Don't forget about hydration when out in the cold! It's really important for staying warm.

What kind of HRM is it? If it's a Garmin and using the soft strap, that's your issue. Solution: Buy the plastic hard strap like myself and everyone I know has done. Or spend hours on Google researching, then buy the cheapo plastic strap. http://www.amazon.com/Garmin-010-10997-00-Heart-Rate-Monitor/dp/B000UOD5QM/ref=sr_sp-btf_title_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1383158761&sr=8-6&keywords=garmin+strap

If you already have the 500, I would really suggest getting a cheap HRM.

http://www.amazon.com/Garmin-010-10997-00-Heart-Rate-Monitor/dp/B000UOD5QM

$36 for the hard strap really isn't a lot if you already bought the 500. You can then figure out your LTHR (there was a thread about it yesterday) and base your intervals of off that.

I rode 2 years without power or heart rate and my the largest gains I made were right after I finally bought a HRM. Having an idea of what training zone you are in is a much better gauge versus using perceived effort