Welsh athletes shine at National Cyclo Cross

Jessica Roberts (Towy Riders) demonstrated her talents at the National Cyclo Cross Championships at Bradford's Peel Park on Saturday, winning the National Under-14 girls title by a comfortable margin.
Roberts rode within herself for the first two laps, before going clear of her breakaway companion Lucy Horricks (Hope Racing) to win by an impressive margin of almost three minutes. Roberts' success follows her domination over the National Trophy series, where five wins saw her comfortably take the series honours.

Welsh athletes shine at National Cyclo Cross

Winter Turbo Training

With the poor weather here in Wales which has inhibited a lot of my riding the only way to keep things in check physically during these periods is the indoor trainer. I, like most people find this style of training mind numbing & tedious and the constant drone of the resistance unit spinning would send most asleep.
Recently, I've had to re-visit indoor training partly as mentioned earlier the weather and additionally the lack of time I tend to have with work & family commitments. Having owned turbo trainers before I thought I would look into what was on the market and try to emulate first, the experience of riding on the road and secondly something that would focus the mind and thus maximise the result of the workout.
As I have a Carbon framed road bike I felt a little reserved with using a standard fixed trainer like a Tacx Trainer or similar. My reason being, when carrying out a hard interval standing I felt the lateral forces across the rear triangle of the frame with it being fixed to the trainer could be quite high resulting in potential damage to the frame.
First off I opted for a set of Fixed Rollers. These were great once I got used to maintaining balance and not falling off!! Once mastered, I found that I could really hold good form and there was no chance of getting bored as I was constantly engaged with the ride. The only limitation I found, it was near impossible to stand whilst riding. As a result I opted for the Tacx Galacia Rollers, these were great as the entire roller frame would move backward and forwards with the rider. They were fantastic for standing and far more comfortable in the seated position than the fixed roller.
This brought me onto a further problem, the lack of affective resistance. I attempted to achieve this by deflating the tyres or using the gears on the bike. The trouble was, as I got stronger I was able to complete an entire training sessions in top gear.
So, back to the drawing board and a bit of digging around the interweb I soon found that there was a trainer that fitted the brief on both accounts. It was called the Kurt Kinetic Rock & Roll. Believe me, this is as good as the video below illustrates...

Now, that I had found the tool for the job I went on to looking at the various training packages/videos that would motivate me to get out in to the garage and train! For the rider that really wants to push themselves then a company called thesuffefest would be right up your street. The sessions generally last around an hour and give you a visual guide of the effort/cadence that you're  required to put in whilst following an edited video witch has a well thought out soundtrack along with the occasional motivation text flash - some of which I think are really good. (this link to my Garminconnect give you an idea of the work output I put in - 'on the Rollers I may add') Below is a video introduction of the same session I carried out.

For the rider that doesn't want such an intense workout or maybe requires some variation with their winter routine I found a company that creates some really nice videos (breathtaking scenic shots)  supported again with great dialogue and music. The company's name is Cyclefilm - again see below...

 By sheer fluke I discovered via a friends post on Facebook an app called Trainerroad which with a 30 day free trial I knew I had to give it a go. The rider is offered an array of turbo trainer sessions along with the option to follow a full training package. The part I especially liked was that Trainerroad software is synced to Sufferfest videos. Additionally, they are able to generate 'Virtual power' readings from some listed turbo trainers. I've completed a couple of thesufferfest videos using this App and have been pleasantly surprised with the result - I did find a tiny amount of latency between the video effort prompts and the trainerroad effort prompts but nothing too concerning. I put it down to the video graphics card of my laptop not being able to handle MP4 files. Below is their introductory video...

The system is also based on a community which allows the user to sync their workouts with trainrroad servers and compare your results along with others users.
The last App I would like to share is Strava. I've used Garminconnect for many years but  have recently been introduced to Strava by a friend. What I find rather special about this app is that outside of the indoor trainer arena (which you can upload data from if you wish) is that other users in the area that you ride can along with yourself segment certain parts of a ride which are then comparable by time. This I think is a brilliant idea and if you're a competitive minded rider you're able to  set yourself goals against yourself and other riders. The system uses KOM for the segments, from which you can gain points and be gifted with some Kudos from your friends in the area who also use the app - what a great idea!! (Strava Link of my local ride). Additionlly, the user is able to migrate their .TCX files from other applications like Garminconnect...