Fourth episode with Tom Bell, the founder of High North Performance and an insanely fast guy uphill. We talk about hill climbs, advanced and simple metrics, importance or redundance of VO2 max and lactate data and the need to focus on what you really like to improve your performance.
Very technical episode, check out also his website for precious resources that can help you a lot.
Like I was saying the hill climb discipline especially in the UK is quite quite weird and quite eccentric you know the bikes are kind of weird it’s it’s sort of people think like why would you as you said at the start why would you drive hours for a race that lasts for 2
Minutes long hello and welcome to the podcast uh gol today we go into the UK and we have a guest coming from there so welcome Tom hi Simon thanks for having me on so brief brief introduction let us know a little bit who you are from from my
Perspective you’re one of the coaches that uh I was looking into when I first started claming with the material you produced online and your results and this was very motivating for me but to you oh thank you firstly that’s really nice to hear um yes so I’m Tom uh I I
Suppose am a coach and an athlete um in the past I’ve raced uh on the mountain bike primarily um I raced at kind of like a World Cup sort of international level was never challenging for a World Cup win or anything like that but uh still had some
Really good experiences um yeah racing some of the European World Cups uh and uh I went to a world championships in the mountain bik Marathon discipline um so yeah in terms of my results I suppose notable ones were winning the mountain bike Marathon National National title in I think
2017 uh narrowly missed out on the title on the of the cross country Olympic discipline in 2018 um and then kind of coming up to the pandemic obviously things got um international travel got very uh difficult for those that weren’t sort of salaried or supported by this sort of
International cycling Federation so uh I didn’t do as much Mountain bite racing um from about 2019 2020 onwards um and that’s when I moved into to more of like a UK Centric discipline which is Hill Climb Time Trials um where that you’re essentially it’s who can ride from the
Bottom of the climb to the top the fastest uh and in and in the UK most of the climbs are pretty short uh I would say the average length for a UK Hill Climb is probably four or 5 minutes sometimes they’re 1 minute to 90 seconds
And uh probably the longest one is maybe 20 to 30 minutes so they’re they’re nothing like kind of Alpine climb so I as an athlete have sort of a naturally High V2 Max so I kind of was always quite good on sort of short sharp uh
Hill Climb effort so I started racing uh hill climbs uh quite a bit from about 2020 started focusing on that as kind of I guess my primary discipline and then managed to win the national title in 2021 after having come fairly close with a silver medal in 2020 and then I got
Silver medal again in 2022 too um so yeah I I’ve I’ve uh sort of been on the mountain bike and the hill climb side and then uh on the coaching side I run a small company with my wife uh and we uh produce information resources whether that’s sort of free
Articles or some of the uh paid resources like uh online PDFs and different guides uh and then we also critical power calculator that is online and is useful exactly little yeah little tools like that uh and then we also provide uh kind of coaching and performance consulting
Services to to athletes as well so I work directly with some athletes and then uh more on a more on a sort of one-off basis just to give people advice and uh and guidance uh so that that they’re kind of the services we do we used to do testing iners kind of
Physiological testing but uh we don’t do that uh as much anymore I’ll stop you instead on one thing you said hill climbing races that can last a minute and a half or or two minutes upwards I mean do people really do that I mean they move to a place to
Make a race of two three minutes because for Italian standards this is so yeah I have to take the car to make a two minutes of parade I’ll not even consider it yeah it’s really strange I think it’s one of the sort of um yeah odd sort of Ecentric things
About hill climbing is that there are some UK people who will travel uh 3 4 hours in a car to race for 90 seconds on a a particular climb and it’s one it’s not like five repeats on the it’s one shot the time you get that’s it’s one
Climb yeah it’s one effort and it can be over as I say in uh 90 seconds uh sometimes and there are particular people in the UK Hill Climb scene who are very uh explosive very very powerful riders that wouldn’t do as well on something on a climb that was sort of
Any longer than maybe 3 minutes and they specifically Target um these very very short uh very very Punchy hill climbs there’s one uh in particular that’s called monel um and it has sort of Spectators that the photos are really cool and the atmosphere is really cool
On the day because it’s a a very very short uh road that gets closed and there’s barriers and Spectators lining the course sort of every year so it’s almost like the finish of like a grand tour or some kind of uh really big cyc
Race um and yeah it’s uh I think I can’t remember exactly what the record is but it’s it’s it’s under 2 minutes so it’s really really short that’s that’s nice I think it’s a big cultural differences for example in Italy people don’t go to some races because they are under two three
Hours on on on road bikes uh instead moving there to to make this kind of effort and follow this kind of competition I I I really like it because it means you know commitment for a certain type type of events and effort and but yeah I’m I’m happy that these
Things are are happening around and I would I would love to have this kind of stuff also in Italy but is it organized like like a series or is there single events that are independent one from each other and there is no common calendar yeah the the the season sort of
Unofficially runs from sort of the start of September to the end of October so it’s only really a two-month period that you that the race are kind of um collected around and it isn’t really a series that they’re all just independent events that are run by typically a local
Cycling Club um but the the kind of governing body so there’s the the international governing body which is British cycling and then there’s uh another body called cycling time trials who run uh all the time trials and Hill climes being included in in that um and they are non
UCI Affiliated so they’re not an international body um so they have like AIS I guess they have like a hill climb rankings um so depending on uh depending on which events you do and who else enters those events there’s kind of an algorithm that that puts you in like a leaderboard that
You can obviously sort of look at at the end of the year but I don’t think there’s any sort of prize for for winning that that that leader board and it’s they’re really just independent events and you can just look through a calendar and typically between SE September and October there are uh
Numerous events uh going on around the country that you can just choose to enter uh and go along to and it as you say it’s a really it’s a really sort of accessible way of racing because it doesn’t take too long if you find a
Local one you could drive there in 20 30 minutes and and race you know just for a very short period of time and and be done in the morning um and yeah it’s uh it’s and people really get into it it’s got a real kind of it’s it’s not a big
Discipline I don’t think too many people do it or know about it but those that do and those that are interested in it it’s got a real sort of cult following of sort of dieh hard people we could say it’s a little bit maybe similar to psych
Cross in Belgium you know it’s something that people really look forward to in a specific period of of the year but do people take this as their main priority or let’s say they they Mountain Mike and Road and then they insert this because they like it and add it I mean there are
Special uh Specialists that go for this only or is it more um Broad and I mean some of the guys or most of the guys that do for example Grand fondos or some kind of events then go also to hill climbing yeah I think typically it’s
Been kind of like an end of season blowout or a way to kind of use um remance of the form you still have from like a road or a mountain bike season um and just and just do some kind kind of more fun and shorter events but now I
Think since the sort of Hill Climb scenes been picked up by a few sort of media sources and it’s got written about I think people there are a handful of athletes and I think I’d include myself in this sort of previously and there are a couple of others that really do see the
Hill climb season as their main target for the year so they may well race uh on the road that you know traditional road races or as you say SP spores and Grand fondos or be on the mountain bike uh but then but but that’s almost secondary to
The to to what they’re going to be doing from September to October there’s there are I think increasingly more and more cyclists who are actually seeing the hill climb season as their a priority sort of focus for the for the year so um but there but there are still plenty of
People who will primarily just have their the main goals be be Road or mountain bike and then just uh do the hill climb season for a for a bit of extra fun yeah close the season I mean it’s then it’s a similar to a ramp test
You know we suffer a lot but you know it’s also quite short yeah so you go for it but okay yeah I’ve been a little bit around UK and I’ve seen on sta you know Hill Climb stuff this and there I was going up on five watt per kilogram and I
Saw it was like 00 people in front of me I was like yeah that’s unusual yeah and then I understood a little bit where where it comes from because they making the races there stuff again and again uh what I’ve also seen uh maybe from from some some videos
Or some articles is uh the weight wienies that that go into into this no because I mean he’ll clim watts per kilo more or less that is that is the idea know so is it people have special bites for that no or they try to adapt for for the
Race yeah as I alluded to before the it’s by a body that isn’t UCI Affiliated so there’s no UCI weight limit uh imposed on the bike so that basically means that everyone kind of or a lot of people kind of go crazy with making their bikes as light as possible because
As you say unless it’s a very sort of shallow climb you wats per Kil I mean even on any climb I think wats per kilogram is is really the the key sort of factor but especially on the very sort of shorter uh steeper ones um that that obviously is uh something to really
Sort of uh really try to optimize so yeah people uh remove anything ex strenuous from the bike There are rules that you have to have like a saddle and you have to have uh two uh a front and a rear break so you can’t sort of take
Everything off so yeah it it remains relatively safe um and until recently actually I think until after 2020 uh until 2021 there was no um mandatory um it wasn’t m to have to wear a helmet so everyone just just would ride up in kind of a cap like you’ve got
On Simon or like or or nothing um so so yeah yeah it’s exactly exactly so it’s uh it’s an easy weight saving but uh yeah people will uh run like a one by setup that’s more you know you’ve been more familiar with on like a a a gravel
Or a mountain bike uh the wheels are often very very light they usually uh clinchers and they still use Rim brakes because they’re lightest um and some people will go as far as drilling holes in their chain rings and rear derailers and this kind of thing uh just to make
The bike as light as possible do people also let’s say put leave only two or three specific gear for a race or usually they have the cassette and that’s it because yeah there have been there have been certain certain courses and certain Riders who have you uh certain Riders who have used single
Speed uh bikes for particular course is where there isn’t a great change in the gradient so the speeds the difference between the sort of highest speed and the lowest speed you’d achieve on the climb aren’t particularly there’s not a great deal of difference so you can get
Away with like a single chain ring uh most of the people that have been at the sort of top end um of the results in the past few years from what I can see have used fairly traditional gears so whether that’s like a um 1128 or um something
Like that on the back uh and then usually the chain ring on the front is the thing that changes the most um so if it’s a really really steep climb it might be a 36 or 38 tooth and uh something shallower might even go to like a 44 something something a little
Bit bigger yeah you want a title and made some podiums did you alter your bike for for the race or what was your setup and the weight of the bike for the race so I never really went too too uh far with making it really really light
So it was it’s the the bike was still probably 5 4 kg so it’s uh quite quite a bit below you know it’s a lightweight bike anyone that yeah anyone that picks it up you know is quite surprised with how light it is but you do see people
That go to almost sort of 4.8 kog and that just that usually involves spending a lot of money on very kind of exotic parts and also uh risking some sort of structural Integrity with the bike as well so I think I found like a a nice sort of middle ground with it being
About 5.4 5.5 um usually I would keep the the setup very very similar it’s just a a basic kind of Rim break carbon road bike um with with uh carbon clinch of Wheels uh and and sort of you know Shimano jur race algra kind of components so nothing nothing really
Really exotic um and yeah as I say the chain ring on the front would usually change if it was particularly steep or or the speeds were a bit higher because it was a shallower climb uh and then specifically for the 2021 Hill Climb uh where I managed to win I actually put a
Uh like a winter like a grippier wet weather specific Tire on because it was a very wet day uh and a lots of people were having traction issues with the rear wheel just slipping uh so I was quite mindful of that and did a bit of
Testing on a few a few different tires and eventually settled on like a pelli uh winter tire and I used that in the race uh and didn’t have any kind of issues with slipping that I think did uh cause some of the other Riders you know
To have slightly slower times or to to get into difficulty so that was that was kind of a big change that I used in that particular race inste from the coaching perspective how do you train for a race like this or or also in in general because having raced a little bit around
Europe I’ve seen quite a lot of uh British people in Mountain races and as you told me the the main climbs in in the UK are pretty short so how do people trade for the for the hill climb thing and how do people train usually for longer climbs in the in the
UK what is the approach here yeah well as I said the the sort of longest climbs you can really find in the UK uh maybe sort of 30 minutes long um for for sort of a you really have to find it yeah you do you do they’re not they’re not
Everywhere and and usually that would have sort of shallower sections in it as well because uh if it was just really steep you just run out of elevation quite quite quickly um so and as we talked about before there are some Hill Climb events that maybe only last uh 90
Seconds 2 minutes so there’s a very there is a very different kind of training approach for a two-minute climb versus something that’s more 15 to 20 minutes and it will suit uh a different type of Rider so the the the guys who do the guys and and women who do very well
In very very short climbs look very different and train very differently to to those that that are uh that succeed more on the on the longer climbs I would say in in any case having a strong aerobic Foundation or you know a big base of Fitness is always important
Because even on the even on the very short climes there still a lot of uh energy being being contributed aerobically so have the the bigger the Bas is I think we we kind of all know this by now but the bigger that aerobic base is the the better the better but
Then I think how you actually approach the sort of higher intensity training is is quite different so the guys that the people that do well in the very very short uh discipline spend quite a lot of time in the gym actually working on sort of you know neuromuscular power and just
Sort of raw strength um and I think as I was saying a bit about myself I think a high V2 Max kind of is probably the one of the key performance predictors for for the shorter climbs maybe up to sort of five or six minutes and then as you
Get to the longer climbs I think power at your sort of second threshold so whether that’s uh a second lactate threshold or FTP your critical power is probably the highest performance predict predictor there so there’s a I think you still everyone still needs to kind of do
That base training if if if you’re targeting the hill climb season I think spending most of the year you know doing longer work and being very patient with building a a strong aerobic base is important but then at a certain point coming into to the season you need to
Then add the high intensity uh abilities on top of that and that is probably where the key differences are between someone that’s aiming for a longer climb or a shorter climb or someone who is naturally kind of gifted for one of those yeah so reading into this you are
Also saying that to train for longer climbs you don’t necessarily need longer climbs around your area so this obviously could help but uh the main goal being building a big aerobic engine this can be achieved also on on the flat or maybe indoor or maybe on down Terin
Somehow if you if you me to do it correctly yeah I think I think I think that’s correct uh as you say I think in an ideal situation you have uh the long climbs to actually be able to train on and that makes your training as sort of
At a certain point as specific as it can be um but with the Advent of kind of indoor training uh and so the ability to kind of virtually have climbs and and Roads that are uninterrupted and with tools like urg mode where you can dial into you know have have yourself locked
Into a certain intensity those kind of things can augment some of these uh some of the sort of experiences you would have in a longer climb without actually having the climbs there in the real world sort of on your doorstep yeah I think indoor cycling changed a lot in in
The last five years maybe or with the co probably forever changed how cycling is perceived by by amateurs because it was a such a big impact and I can imagine in the UK that I’ve been a couple of times in in the UK because my my brother lives in London and the we
It’s uh let’s say different from what we are used in in southern Europe or something and do you see that this help uh like the you know the age groupers uh train differently more consistently or do you think in the in the British culture there was already this this
Mentality that oh man if it rains you still go out and doesn’t change much because in Italy if it rains I don’t go out if it’s below 7° I don’t go out I goia yeah I mean I mean I think there used to be more of a culture of yeah you
Just go out in in the wet weather you know you put you you lay up you put the right kind of waterproof gear on and you just kind of go out and it’s not very nice I mean I think the coldest the sort of conditions where you get the coldest
Are often much much like what you get in the UK where it’s just above freezing so it’s not it’s not kind of snowing it’s still it’s still raining there’s still a lot of water coming down but then you have this combination of cold weather the wind you know the winds it could be
Pretty windy in the UK as well you know the wind chill takes it almost to a sort of feels like temperature below uh below 0 degrees and it’s really really hard especially with your extremities like your hands and feet to to stay warm and
It yeah it’s it’s it’s tough and I but I think indoor training is making UK Riders softer in that approach uh there definitely isn’t there’s definitely more I think of a a feeling now that if it’s bad weather outside then it’s way better to go on the indoor train I think that’s
I think that’s probably true but uh I think the culture before was probably just everyone rides in bad weather any you know whether you know people still ride in bad weather whereas I think I think nowadays indoor training has just improved so much from when I think back
To when I was at University on like a magnetic trainer in my sort of University dorm room um with with uh with with no uh yeah watching an empty screen or exactly yeah and just uh the wheel slipping and everything it’s just it’s so much better now days to to train
Indoors so it’s not it’s understandable why people people don’t ride as much in the rain in the UK I don’t think yeah my idea there is that the direct drive um indoor trainers made a big difference because they’re more consistent they’re measure the power fairly accurately and
Also having the possibility to use the ark mode or to have adaptations based on on the on the route that you do I mean makes it makes it easier makes it fun makes it different but do you think there are problems connected to that I mean uh you said there are advantages
What are the main disadvantages that are brought by indoor training what happens to the people that let’s say spend the majority of the time indoor instead of Outdoors yeah I think if you’re training for for something Outdoors you know your your events are are like Outdoors which
Most most events are I think if you rely too much on indoor training I think you can sort of see all the advantages it brings um and just think that that’s it’s that it’s almost Superior to riding outside but it it is a very different thing and I kind of mentioned
Specificity before with the with the sort of long climbs I think you you have to make training specific to the demands of what you’re training for to really get the most out of it so riding outside I think if you’re training for something that is outside is is a necessity um and
I I think you know especially on like a direct drive trainer uh one that’s just very fixed I know that there are some with kind of sway features now and uh that that move a little bit and steering but it doesn’t ever really recreate sort of what what is happening outside the
Bike doesn’t move around underneath you quite the same I don’t think your you know muscle fiber recruitment patterns are the same um so so there is there is sort of missing parts that don’t that that leave some gaps between what you what you sort of need to train for
Outside I I see this coming also from from your background because you’re saying you are from the mountain biking perspective so the mountain biking word and I mean this this makes sense for me you know uh in mountain bike you have to understand how to ride your bike how to
Recover when you do a downhill stay stiff how to change quickly uh you know the your your your pace your Rhythm and that is probably not something that you can achieve doors no so you see big differences in uh in in Road and mountain bike and more or less uh
Between the people that you train you coach how many people do one thing and how many do the other thing and how many do they do both to have a broad idea yeah that’s a good question I think uh that primarily most of them are on the
Road um and there are some that do a little bit of both but you I think thinking to sort of who I work with most of them are more sort of folks on the road and if they do mountain bike it’s more of like a just an extra sort of
Challenge or something they enjoy doing a little bit but do you think that having them uh also do M bike helps them on the road or on the contrary does it limit them a little bit on the road I I think it does help because uh there are
There are a lot of similarities between someone that’s good on the road and good on on the mountain bike I mean you it’s it’s easy to point to examples like Tom pitcock and M matu Vander pole but I think they’re just the best sort of cyclists in the world period so they
They’re just you know they they can do anything essentially but um there are there are other cyclists as well who uh do do both mountain bike and Road uh so Victor kety for one uh who is sort of a Bor hands grower um Athlete on the road
But races a lot of mountain bike as well um again I think both both disciplines you need uh a good base aerobic fitness that kind of underpins everything and then there are subtle subtle differences in I think the the efforts that you need to do and uh the the sort of um yeah
Physiological abilities that you have so I think broadly speaking on the mountain bike you probably need a bit of a higher anerobic capacity and and V2 Max just because there are so it’s such a stochastic event where the there’s big spikes in power um that demand because
Of the terrain demand a high kind of torque on the pedal so like a a greater sort of muscular demand uh whereas on the road it’s a little bit smoother but you kind of have to lock into like a longer effort and be able to sustain a
Very high power output for for a long period of time um but I think if you’re good at one thing if you’re good if you’re really good on the mountain bike I think that can that can uh fill in for gaps that you might you know might might
Have on the road bike and vice versa so I think probably a uh if you were really really trying to dial yourself into to be a road Rider I think there’s an opportunity cost to spending more time on the mountain bike rather than doing your specific discipline but I think for
Most people who haven’t got every every single thing optimized I think doing a bit of both uh can really help and as you mentioned before like a technical skills in a technical skills sense as well I think you gain a lot of things from the mountain bike and how you know
Where where the surface is uh potentially not as grippy or you need to just really kind of dial in your your handling skills I think that can obviously translate over to the road and there’s plenty of free speed to be had on descents and cornering and this kind
Of thing if you if you know what you’re doing yeah also staying in in groups maybe can be handled with different security if you’re used to the mountain bike probably have a control of the bike that is very high also the balance and something so when you start going into
The groups at first you’re more in a comfort zone then still also being in a group you have to push a little bit with the shoulders left and right and don’t be scared of that which probably mountain bike I don’t know how much is that common because you’re it’s more
You’re not so close one to each other usually no but yeah after the dur during the starts because the mountain bike the mountain bike events are mass start events there’s quite a lot of that there’s quite a lot of jostling for position you do have to be you know kind
Of sharp elbows and be a little bit aggressive so that but but as you but you’re right it then sort of spreads out to be more like a sort of effort a maximal effort that everyone kind of does at the same time uh but the there’s
Certainly at the start of races and in mountain bike marathon races where it tends to stay it tends to stay in groups for longer it’s more like a road racing Dynamic and I suppose gra gravel is sort of halfway between the two where it’s it has that the intent of gravel yeah
Exactly yeah yeah I make you a different question so let’s say I’m I’m an amateur at 3.5 or was per kilo whatever and I really like both mountain bike and road racing and I have to plan my season would you as a coach rather have me do the first four
Months only mountain bike and then four months of uh Road I mean racing or would you rather have me uh make let’s say I race every two weeks one we one once I do mountain bike then in two weeks I do road then I go back to
Mountain bike so I can let say alter and continuously change the disciplines what what would be your Preferred Choice that’s a good question I think it would primarily come down to the goals of that that athlete so if they if they were looking for sort of pure enjoyment
And they really liked varying things up then I think that kind of alternating approach would be a good thing so that you know you don’t you don’t just uh kind of get burnt out with just doing one one discipline for a while and then moving onto something else I think for
Sort of a Pure Performance and again like a specificity kind of uh idea probably having key competition periods throughout the year that you sort of train up towards and then rest rest afterwards and then train up to the next one uh clustering those probably into more sort of uh you know homogeneous
Events homogeneous discipline um situations would would be probably a good way to go just because you could then specifically train you know more and more on the mountain bike if you’ve then got a a two or three week period of mountain bike races have a bit of a
Break after that key key competition period and then switch your focus to then building up more for say the road bike and honing in the specific abilities that’ll help you more in those events um but I mean that’s that’s that’s very sort of generalized I think that there are probably some athletes
That might benefit from having it be a bit more mixed um because I think variety variety has its benefits as well so I think in that situation I would be sort of speaking to the athlete and seeing what their you know what they wanted to prioritize in the sense of
Maybe yeah as I say having having a bit more fun and variety or really kind of uh performing well in in a couple of key key events so so it depends a little bit on the goal so probably if you rais to win or you rais to make a volume or the
Best possible results probably choosing blocks of compatible races or similar races makes sense if your main goal instead is to reach let’s say decent levels but your effort on into cycling from 1 to 10 is seven 8 six then mixing can can make you happier at the end of
The story no so I think so yeah I think so yeah yeah yeah interesting because some people think U I know that yeah but I’ve only raised mown bikes in the past few months now I need two months or three to to make to
Adapt to the road and go to I will not make the first race on road unless I have two or three months specifically on the road and then I’ll just go into that and I I don’t really think it’s too necessary uh especially if if the people are coming from
Marathon Mont bik can go to ground fundas or if they go from criteriums to cross country those things are for some characteristics pretty similar know so and you can probably also have some benefits uh varying the disciplines to to change a little bit how you feel the people you see around some motivation
Maybe some sometimes you go better on on the road sometimes on the mountain bike and this can drive you through through the season you have an excuse you know I didn’t do so good because that’s we I was on the road I to mountain bike and to tell your friend
Yeah it gives you yeah exactly it gives you gives you a bit of an excuse but yeah that’s that’s a really good point actually is um you know there are Offroad and on-road disciplines that do share a lot of the same similarity so uh yeah if that was the way um you could
Organize a season as well I think that would that would bridge that Gap a little bit so as you with your example um the mountain bike Marathon uh discipline would have durations that are quite similar to a road ride and the group dynamics would be very similar um
And as I said before I think for mountain bike and for for for more Road disciplines your sort of foundational training early on in the training process is very similar anyway uh so you probably tra some of your quite a lot of your training would probably be very
Similar whether you a road Rider or a mountain bik Rider it would then be more in the sort of weeks leading up to to to some events that you do your training would probably become more specific uh so I I think I think both scenarios would would could work well it would
Just depend on the athlete and what they what they were training for and when evaluating Instead The Athlete uh what is your typical approach to let’s say you start training with a new person comes to you for the first time and let’s say yeah I want to start training
I’ve been riding my bike since five years seven years 10 years whatever I’ve never had a coach before and I usually do 10 12 races a year uh what kind of test do you like from them uh is there something standard or do you try to vary
The test that you do based on the people that you have in front yeah it’s more it’s more the kind of lat situation and it’s it usually comes down to what what testing they might have done in the past what sort of uh tools they have and what what sort of
Opportunity opportunities they have to test so some of them may be able to to go into a lab and just you know you get a look a little bit under the hood at their sort of physiology and sometimes you’re just limited to to field-based testing which is fine as well um and
Then some athletes don’t want to do lots of testing some want to do lots of it it’s uh it is very different person to person someone wants to do a lot of it really there are people out there I I think UK is really an incredible
Character I’ve never not even I mean not even in the UK sometimes not even in the UK I mean there’s there’s you plenty of us athletes that are very you know come from come from a Daya background so maybe their their day job is in sort of um yeah something data related so
They’re very interested in in applying those kind of uh that kind of insight to themselves um so but yeah I the the goal really initially I think is to figure out sort of what that athlete strengths and limits profile looks like so for instance with with field based testing
You could use like a critical power uh method where you would test sort of maximal efforts over some shorter and some longer durations and you know put feeding that into the model that will give you an estimation of that critical power so that point maximal point of
Sort of metabolic stability or that that crossover point between the sort of heavy and severe intensity domain and it will also give you something like the W prime or what what is sort of similar to like an Anar obic capacity so you can sort of compare compare the two and and
See in a very sort of General sense whether they’re sort of more uh gifted on the sort of anerobic glycolytic side of things or or uh more on the sort of aerobic side you know talking very very generally these terms aren’t totally accurate but um but but but essentially
You’re looking to try and figure out what that athletes kind of strength and limits profile is and then you then you can look at the strength the ideal strengths and limited profile for uh an athlete you know training to succeed or training to do well in the events that
They’re training for and almost sort of superimpose one over the top to see uh you know where the where gaps exist or how how those two align or or don’t align so that you can then sort of either advise some in some cases advise and say maybe this isn’t the right kind
Of discipline for someone of your particular particular uh physiological makeup or more more likely is that okay this this sort of uh aspect of your Fitness is fairly strong already here and here are where there’s the biggest areas of opportunity the sort of lowest hanging fruit that that’s the kind of as
Much as we’re going to do some sort of generalized foundational training anyway there’s a few areas here where you know you’re you’re uh you’ve got a bit of a weakness that does relate to what you’re training for so so that’s where the the probably the the best areas to focus are
Yeah that’s interesting also how how you explain it because more or less from what I understood you’re also trying to compare a power curve of the person with a power C of a person that is successful in what these people want to do and so you make the evidence in front of them
Somehow and you see here are the main problems we we have to work on this and here is the a good part and and also comparing this to another discipline you say if you would raise criteriums instead of grand fers you know you’re very strong in in this part did you ever
Think about this or or something but usually do you try to move people in the in into a discipline that uh let’s say uh makes their best part come come out uh or or you say rather you know your weak points in these disciplines are are this and this
We’ll try to work on this first so you prefer to uh direct the athlete towards something that you can see that he could have a lot of success or do you more tend to accommodate the person towards what he wants yeah I I I think it’s fairly rare
For me to to probably recommend that they go to a different discipline so there are there are some athletes that maybe do a mixture of a mixture of a few different things and you might say based on your what we can see about your sort of physiological strengths and limits
This particular one might be the best for you you can probably expect better results in in this rather than rather than you know in in in a rather than b but yeah usually usually the athlete comes and they know what they like and they want to just do the best that they
Can in this particular discipline because they enjoy it uh and it’s not really about you know they’re not trying to make a professional career out of it um so usually it’s just about training them in a way to to optimize uh for the discipline that they enjoy more so than
Finding another one but some sometimes people ask you know you know they might be more open to to trying different things and what what based on what you can see sort of from their from their strengths and limits you know what what would be the best one to do and and you
That can that information can feed into uh advising on that sort of thing so so far we talked about RP which is let’s say subjective and we talked about critical power which is power data we we didn’t mention so far some some other metrics that are are pretty common
So heart rate first is it something that you consider secondary or in my case I consider it a way to confront the the the wats so I always look at the heart rate only always only I will not be so drastical but usually I compare the the
Evolution of the heart rate to the Watts and don’t look into it on its so um what do you think about heart rate uh like nowadays how do you look at it yeah I I think I always sort of think that uh heart rate data improves power data and
Power data improves heart rate data so it’s like they they qualify each other and it gives you more more of an insight into uh into what’s going on uh heart rate’s a very good measure of input so actually how hard you were working obviously it’s important to see
What the out it’s usually important to see what the output of that is because that that really you know races aren’t won on the basis of who tried the hardest it was you know what what uh resulted in the greatest output typically obviously other things tactics
Uh skills Etc but um yeah I think but I think rpe as sort of rudimentary as it as it is I think RP is just as important as heart rate uh if not more important I think uh because you know it heart rate does fluctuate a lot with various
Different factors and especially in a race in a very sort of adrenaline fueled uh high octane situation you know your heart rate values that you typically might follow or see in training kind of go out the window and you really are left with RP and your sort of sense of
Uh you know your pacing skills and your sense of how hard things are in any particular moment so I think actually having rpe heart rate and power all together is is the ideal situation really trying to pay attention to how they all relate to each other and and
Interact and how and and actually thinking about rpe quite a lot because uh it’s it’s something that you can you can use to great effect if you really tuned into it uh for pacing in trading and racing and let’s say if you have two sensors so RP you have it always because
You can understand how you feelit you have two sensor one of the two dies which one would you rather that you you miss data you would rather keep on having heart rate or you would rather keep on having the power for the rest of the ride as a coach to understand the
Data that’s that’s a good question I I think I would still prefer to have the heart rate die because I think r can fill in for for heart rate in in some kind of in some kind of way it would be a loss to not have the heart rate data
Because uh you can look at all kinds of things with heart rate you know uh this sort of session compared to a similar session previously um how how sort of your uh you know internal feelings were affected by by temperature or by uh the duration of a ride and you can look at
How the heart rate changes relative to power over the course of a ride uh you can be used as a bit of an efficiency measure compared to heart rate so like with training Peaks as efficiency Factor uh metric for example but I think RP can RP is still covering that kind of input
Uh side of things so you would still have an input and an output if the heart rate died you would have power and power and rpe so that’s what I would probably say but I think depending on the training session and um and and the goals of that sometimes heart rate is
More important than the power output I think yeah nice I I I agree with this so but also going into more advanced metrics so in in the past year probably coming from also from triatlon there was a lot of development on the on the latite measure uh this is something that also
On the amateur side became more and more popular uh to the point that people started taking it into consideration before uh from from my experience it was a metric that was done once per year when you go to the test to the to the lab you
Make the test you have your your values at two minimals four minimals or whatever and more L that’s it and see you next year uh what what do you think about lactate and if you want to introduce how you see lactate so why is it relevant and what
It is uh in in the coaching perspective why is it useful yeah well I think it has it’s been used for ages but I think it’s come to prominence more through sort of media uh and and things like that in the last few years as you say with maybe
Norwegian Triathlon and um Ino Sam Milan talking about it with his sort of coaching of paga um and the UAE team um yeah so so lactate is essentially it’s a you know metabolic byproduct of glycolysis so it’s a we we measure its accumulation in the blood um and that
Giv gives kind of an indirect indication I suppose of like mus muscular activity and uh fuel utilization and Energy System usage um and I I I think it’s another it’s another data point that you can use uh and especially if you’re a professional athlete and you have a team
But you you have the resources to be able to test regularly and you have uh a coach or a set of coaches that can make sense of the data I think it’s it’s a useful it’s a useful tool to add you if you could why why wouldn’t you if you
Were a professional but in terms of like its value to the amateur cyclist uh I think as you alluded to there the typical way it works is someone goes into a lab for a lactate test say once or twice a year um and gets some values that then they hopefully uh can
Translate into day-to-day training so you you you’d relate like a lactate curve to heart rate or power um in our experience you know it it’s not as simple it’d be really nice if you could go into a lab run through a very standardized test protocol and get a
Really really clear set of data that uh gives you all the information you need and in our experience that’s not really the case it’s you I think you need multiple tests over a sort of short period of time to get to to sort of account for anomalies and just account
For day-to-day variation in how you feel um depending on the equipment that used in a lab uh it might not be the same as what you use out on the road or out on the trail uh so there’s there’s a sort of transferability question there um and
Uh yeah as I said it’s it’s it is still an indirect measure you’re looking at accumulation of something in the blood which is the net result of production and sort of clearance or elimination and you don’t know you don’t really know what the production uh the production
Rate is or the clearance rate is you’re just seeing the the end result of it um and you can you can sort of test one day to the next a bit like how heart rate varies dayto day and has uh influence in factors lactates the same so it’s it’s
Uh it can be quite difficult I think if you’re willing to as an amateur willing to do a couple of tests and then maybe uh once you’ve estimated like a second threshold sort of honing in on that and using a different Pro call that uses sort of longer steps around clustered
Around that figure you can then hone in and figure out a bit more for your for your for yourself where where those where those values are I think there’s a lot of value in figuring out a general range of uh the first threshold as well um and using that in training and and
Seeing really whether the testing tells you that your your first or second threshold is sort of high much higher than we would expect and in which case that’s a that’s a good sign um or in most cases a lot lower especially with that first threshold there are a lot of
Amateurs out there that just train too too hard and they could really really a lactate test can really show them that this you know there’s a ceiling here that’s much easier than what you think you should be doing and there’d be a lot of value to actually starting from
Starting from a very sort of patient approach uh at a lower level and Building Things Up From The Bottom so I think there there are always things to you you could get from lactate testing but it’s a question of resources and you do have to kind of work to understand
The data I think uh because it’s not as clearcut as it might seem yeah so yeah in my opinion also from I come from the same perspective as you do so it makes sense if you use it a lot so do it it once occasionally doesn’t change
Anything doesn’t give a benefit as I see it if people want to go in this way it can be useful can be very useful to confirm also some other data that come from power meter measurements or heart rate measurements and everything but it
Has to be a lot of a lot of testing done this way I would for example I would like to have past uh once at at the end of every mesocycle so every three four weeks to to see how the block of training that you did moved eventually
The first or the second contal because with FL it more or less those are the two main things that you look into probably than the how do you how do you recover the lactate how do how do you say it sorry how do you dissipate it or
How does it go down H but that is already let’s say a little bit more advanced training that even pro teams uh don’t test in on the daytoday basis their athletes during the season they might do that in the offseason when they have people available in training or so
But uh from from what I understood Pro atlet don’t don’t monitor this constantly because it’s difficult to do at the end of the story no uh it could be easy and it might get easier in the in the next years then we might see something
Different but as it is now it’s kind of complicated but from the amateur side instead I I really think that the definition of the first threshold and you already mentioned this is is something that might surprise a lot of people because uh let’s say we go for an
Easy ride yeah Easy Ride we check a little bit the zones and you say this was not so easy and if you have a confirmation from let’s say a a lactate measurement that after two hours of your Easy Ride you have a l of 2.8 that yeah
Easy but that’s not so easy man and people probably with with some data like that would understand that there is a lot of potential a lot of training that can be done at a pace that they think is not producing anything know and to have a tool that tells you this is something
That you know can support the way you teach some people uh and this is probably the main thing that uh I like from from the lactic measurements so having a confirmation that there can be metrics that can be vast improved uh with let’s say light work as it is perceived by by the
Athlete and of course it has has to be well addressed and it’s not only the light work that will bring benefits du to the first threshold for example but still is is something that you see moving after a certain type of work that is not necessarily killing you or you
See that Al only training in in between the first and the second threshold as you sometimes do inadvertedly because you like to do the ride with your friends doesn’t bring this much benefit rather than training lower and higher so even make more more specific approach
Yeah I think I I mean I think the culture now uh is is quite uh geared towards you know there there’s a lot um of material out there for sort of time crunch cyclist and the the um the sort of usual way around the sort of time
Time limited uh problem is you know intensity and an intensifying training and I think there are a lot of amateurs out there that would would really really benefit from just being very patient starting from almost starting from scratch uh and you as you said using that um first first threshold as a bit
Of like a recalibration for what an easy RP or an easy effort actually is and and having that as a bit of a a ceiling to keep them from uh like a natural tendency to go harder and harder because as you said there’s this disconnect between feeling like yeah I want to be
Faster in these races but I’m going why should I be riding around like painfully slowly and for some people it it might even mean avoiding any sort of you know particularly steep climbs because depending on their gearing and everything they just cannot stay easy enough they can’t keep it easy enough um
So and it might take months and months of that kind of painfully slow training to actually get it to you know get move that first threshold to a point that’s that’s reasonable um but but the the the sort of gains that you can get from
Doing that uh are enormous if you can if you can sort of add 50 100 watts to the to the power output that you’re producing before you start significantly burning carbohydrates or or using other less efficient muscle fibers that makes an enormous difference it’s a different game you’re
On a different level then so um so yeah I think I think you’re absolutely right and I think if people started seeing more of that first threshold as as being important and maybe one of the most valuable things that lactate testing could could bring that sort of helps
Simplify the process as well because you don’t have to do quite maybe quite as much testing uh you don’t have to do as much interpretation and data management so yeah I think that’s a really good point that that you rais that also in the definition of the zones I think that
Probably the second threshold you also mentioned the the critical power and FTP I mean they fall in the very similar range at the end of the story while the first uh the first thresold if you use a kogam model or an FTP model or critical power you know you generally put there
You know at 75% you start your zone free but if that 75 for some people is 80% and for some other is 65 and that has a has a big impact because probably the vast majority of the training is done at around those intensities no so having it you know two
More hours per week at the right intensity instead of a harder or easy one can can can bring a lot of value but yeah so this is in in my idea what what the lactate can can mostly help you but other than that I think it’s as we have
It now it’s a a complicated metric as you said subjective takes a lot of time and and effort from both the coach and the athlete to to have it right and the V2 instead V2 do you like the V2 testing or do you you see uh I think that’s quite I
Think just just testing for v2 Max is quite a limited sort of thing it doesn’t really have a great deal of again transferability into the day-to-day training you you get a number and it might be uh a lot like I said a lot higher than you might think or it might
Be a lot lower if it’s if it’s sort of lower that gives you uh again maybe some sort of low hanging fruit to sort of work on depending on what you’re trying to train for quite often It’s usually the case that someone comes in and the
V2 Max that value that they the VO2 max result that they get is sort of that’s kind of what we expected and you know you don’t really it doesn’t really tell you a great deal I think with if you if you are testing V2 then the ventilator
Data can be really really interesting so when we were testing before we’d we’d have people do like a spirometry test to measure kind of lung function and then you could compare that to uh some of the respiratory data that you got from like a a mask or an analyzer um in terms of
You know tidal volume and um respiratory rate and this kind of thing uh so that but again that’s just opening a whole new kind of worms in terms of lots and lots more data to look at and once again that that same tenant sort of stays true
Where you sort of almost want to be testing quite a lot to to to have anything particularly useful to work for I understand that some people just are curious and want to go want to go in and do a very quick test to to see what this
V2 max value is but uh yeah in terms of in terms of real sort of uh transferability and sort of uh insight into how you should actually train to improve I think it’s pretty limited on both these metrics so let’s say lactate and V2 do you think there is a a limit
Uh in in FTP let’s say in Watts or watts per kilo after which those met becomes useful and Below which they are let’s say negligible or do you think it’s it’s they have a use across the whole range of levels of Fitness levels let’s say this way and
Performance um my I was first say my opinion my opinion is that below below five wats per kilogram more or less give it or take 0 five wat per kilogram to have those metrics under your control even regularly do bring very little value because it’s it’s not the main
Problem um and after that they can potentially be be useful so um from my perspective uh there is a certain type of performance that can and should be reached before going uh deeper uh in into the Matrix of course it can vary a lot between male and female
Between age a younger person the number is probably higher for an older person can be can be lower because there are you know so some some limits of of the age or or the size but more or less this is more my my general idea so yours yeah it
Um I sort of agree and disagree um I because I think with with v so with VO2 test there are I think some people don’t really realize there’s a bit like with a power meter there’s like the sort of error range or or sort of accuracy uh
Accuracy range usually it’s sort of with power meters now it’s sort of less than 2% or maybe two 2 and a half% or something which is pretty pretty close with a V2 analyzer as far as I understand there’s a bigger there is a bigger margin of error there that you
Have to account for so if you’re a highly developed athlete whose potential is quite uh you you’re sort of fairly close to maximizing your potential and your particularly your V2 Max might not be uh able to change a great deal if you’re using sort of a V2 Max test to
Sort of as a benchmark to see how you’re improving your sort of expected rate of improvement might well fall within that that accuracy range so you actually don’t know uh whether that’s a sort of true reading or whether you know if you if it seems like you’ve improved two two
Or 3% but the but the accuracy range is five is it yeah is it statistically uh accurate basically so so that’s that’s difficult um and I suppose that there is an argument that those that have those that are a lower performance level have more scope to improve therefore sort of I
Suppose understand using some of these things to understand where they might improve the most could be important but as you say if they’ve got they could just work on if if these cyclists could work on almost anything and improve there is a question of do you need do you need
These sort of more granular uh more do you need any of this sort of more granular data to actually know what to do uh I don’t think you I don’t think you do but uh if you have the resources and you have the inclination and the uh the it makes you
Happy go for it if it makes you happy yeah and you and you can you can afford to do that you have the time and the resources to do that uh I think more information if you can manage it and interpret it well is is good but I think
I think you’re right in terms of those that have plenty of stuff to work on so like we were talking about with the first threshold if the best thing for an athlete really is to spend three months mostly riding around at a very easy intensity then you don’t need a great
Deal of other things to to you don’t need a great deal of other data or or metrics to tell you what to do um it’s fairly clear whereas when you get to a higher level of performance the you know figuring out those little areas where you can actually uh make improvements is
Quite difficult and some more detailed testing could potentially help you uncover that on your garment last question what screens do you have on your garment when you when you go for a training ride what do you like to see because we probably have a lot of sensor I mean coaches
Usually have whatever sensor they like so they can have the The Moxy the heart rate the the core temperature anything what what do you like to see when you do a training ride and when you your intervals yeah so I typically have power sort of instant or 3 second smooth power
As the as the Top Line uh that’s kind of what I’m looking at most I would say uh then uh there’s like duration so ride duration or maybe lap duration if you’re if you’re if you’re doing some sort of effort um then definitely heart rates on
There um and then some of the some of the probably uh like Max Max heart rate achieved or like Max or normalized power is another one but I I would say when I’ve done hill climb races I’ve tried to pair that down to just power I’m trying
To think what it was it’s probably like power power time and heart rate basically so I I try not to have too much obviously that I have plenty of screens I can flict to if I want to to look at smo2 or you know if I
Was wearing a Moxy or or uh or just have like a heart rate screen see all the all the data points that are related to that but uh yeah usually usually power I would say for most sessions I think usually I’d be looking at sort of uh
Current power output uh and then yeah ride or interval time and then and then sort of current heart rate as well so pretty pretty simple to be honest mean Simplicity is is an added value most of the time and not how do you say less is more some it
Is yeah because you’re you’re trying to I think you’re always trying to glance you know you’re glancing down you want to try and get as much information at a very quick and easy glance as you can so keeping things for from in my opinion just keeping things simple and just
Having the the the main things there is is the easiest way to do that and then you can actually I find that sort of pacing efforts or pacing rid is just a lot easier when you have when it when it is simplified yeah and then an eventual
Debriefing you do it at home with all the time you need yeah exactly good D thanks thanks a lot I think this this was very very nice so I discovered a lot of things on on very short races for me are great but is it more popular than the time
Trials or is comparable is is the same people doing time trials on uphill or two different Wars uh I would say still still your s of traditional time trials like 10 mile time trials 25 mile time trials are still uh much more uh popular but I just don’t think they have they
Just don’t have the same kind of cult following I don’t think um of sort of Cy fans because you know then the the like I was saying the hill climb discipline especially in the UK is quite quite weird and quite eccentric you know the bikes are kind of weird it’s it’s sort
Of people think like why would you as you said at the start why would you drive hours for a race that lasts for 2 minutes long it’s like it’s there’s this weird contrast between people losing as much weight as they can to be to improve their watts per kilogram but then the
Race headquarters is just full of like cakes and stuff that people have baked so it’s just a really sort of weird and sort of fun uh fun scene uh that I think that has a lot of charm and I think a lot of people sort of tune into that as
Fans but also as as athletes that you know you don’t really get with something that’s a bit more standard like time trials or or road racing so I think that’s really the appeal of hill climbs and hopefully they just keep you know they they keep gaining in popularity in
Other countries uh maybe start to to put on some similar races themselves because they’re they’re very they’re very easy events to to organize in in sort of relative terms you know that you just need one sort of stretch of Hill doesn’t have to last all day it’s just
Essentially like a stopwatch at the at the bottom and the top it’s fun and it’s yeah and and that’s the thing everyone’s like trying to do as well as they can but there’s a very very friendly atmosphere because I think everyone does Bond over the fact that they’re doing
Something that’s a bit strange and that regular people think is a bit strange so yeah it’d be nice to see it sort of uh that kind of uh discipline and the way that way of running events you know spread to different different countries and uh and to continue gaining
Popularity because it’s it’s a lot of fun you know if if I manage to lose 5 to 10 kilograms by by Autumn I will come to to visit my my brother in London and try to join one of the and probably meet you there at this
Point yeah yeah I mean if if you were in the country and there’s a hill climb I’d yeah I’d be happy happy Drive in a few hours to to do that with you that’d be great good thanks again for for the conversation byebye thanks Simon thanks take Care