A few weeks ago we wrote about the release of a series of training DVDs by Three Legs Cycling (3LC) based on the Isle of Man and the home of Mark Cavendish. 3LC currently has five, one hour long training sessions that are designed specifically for cyclists and take a little bit different approach than other training DVDs. 3LC’s approach is to focus on cadence and Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) instead of the watts or heart rate. Being primarily a mountain bike rider and occasional racer who prefers long distance races like the Leadville Trail 100, my best performances on dirt seem to happen when riding at a higher cadence – these DVDs seemed perfect for my winter training needs.
3LC sent three DVDs our way, ‘Road Race’, ‘Sprinting’ and ‘Climbing’. Each of these 50 to 60-minute sessions are designed loosely to simulate the power exertion that can occur while performing each of these activities on a bike. ‘Road Race’ was first picked to review since it featured a little climbing and sprinting that might occur during a race; and in all honesty, starting with ‘Sprinting’ featuring Mark Cavendish wasn’t the physical abuse that I was looking to begin with. The riders in the video are all using turbo or rear wheel trainers. In theory any bicycle trainer is fine to use with this series as long as you can adjust the resistance to a point that you can maintain a cadence of 80 RPMs and lift it to 130+RPMs during various times in the session. Since the mid-1990s, I have been using Kreitler Dyno-Myte rollers (below) and recently added a weighted flywheel to simulate road resistance. This would be the trainer used for our evaluation. Continue reading Hands On: 3LC ‘Road Race’ DVD Training Session