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the road cycling performance manual. nikalas cook. bloomsbury sport. 207pp illus. £18.99

the road cycling performance manual - nikalas cook

said very much tongue-in-cheek, graeme obree once claimed, in response to cycling's growing reputation for alleged 'chemical assistance', that in his mind, training was cheating. it's a stance with which it's hard to disagree; if cycling, along with many other sports, is truly supposed to be 'mano e mano', then surely participants in the competitive milieu ought to best to rely on their natural talent? any attempts to better that situation, such as training, should be considered a rudimentary means of deception.

however, that's easy for graeme to say, given that his cycling cupboard contains olympic medals and world championship jerseys. oh that we could make similar claims. but mr obree is possessed of a constitution considerably more substantial than that possessed by the majority of us and yes, even he trained to get better.

but the real problem with training, other than the knowledge that quite a lot of it is going to hurt, is just how to go about it. the acquisition of athleticism has moved on considerably since il campionissimo proclaimed that pretenders to his crown should "ride a bike, ride a bike and ride a bike'. if you're anything like me, you're still pretty much following coppi's advice. thankfully, i'm well past the point of having any need to train; yes, i like to keep fit, but as long as i don't get dropped off the back on the sunday ride, i'm pretty much good to go.

that being said, there's no doubt that a sizeable number of those who get hooked on bike racing, sportives, or just the race for coffee each sunday morning have an overwhelming need to ride faster for longer. and the only way that's going to happen is by training of one sort or another. but the bit that most of us miss is that of structure. gleaning half truths from magazine articles and attempting to glue them altogether in the vain hope of a phone call from dave brailsford, is not what i'd think of as a cunning plan.

and that's where former masters team pursuit world champion nikalas cook fits in.

along with a little help from a bunch of well-connected friends and a foreword by british cycling's former physiotherapist, mr cook has devised the precise means by which we might all become a tad better at our cycling. however, and i'm not sure the blame lies at nikalas cook's door, i'd really rather the cover did not contain the subtitle 'Everything you need to take your training and racing to the next level'. for me at least, that smacks rather too heavily of an x-factor judge's comment. just saying.

a bit like the warm-up regime we will soon come to know and love, the road cycling performance manual begins with the softly, softly approach. rather than throw us all unceremoniously in at the deep end, the author discusses the ubiquitous bike-fit, the eccentricities of crank length, saddle comfort and almost inevitably, turbo trainers and the invading world of virtual reality, though he does temper all this by including good old-fashioned rollers. by the time mr cook approaches the various types of bicycle, we are already his best pals, more than willing to accept the following stages of purgatory.

nikalas cook, while hardly dismissing the heart-rate monitor out of hand, is firmly in the power-meter camp, already having broached the subject long before considering what sort of sartorial presence it might be best to adopt. from there, 'tis but a short stretch to comparing functional threshold power with functional threshold heart-rate and the slippery slope into training zones.

"Trying to train without using accurate training zones would be analogous to attempting to drive without a speedometer, rev counter or fuel gauge."

having convinced us to exclude a new pair of carbon wheels in favour of a power meter, cook then proceeds to assist us in our comprehension of those selfsame training zones, explaining the testing procedures necessary to discover your own functional threshold. and were you of a mind to think that the author were totally in thrall to those zones, miming 'well, he would say that, wouldn't he?' mr cook maintains a healthy regard for his own expertise, bringing to our attention 'common problems with training zones'.

after that gentle introduction comes the hard part, where we do all the work and nikalas just makes sure we get it right.

cook's 'road cycling performance manual is intelligently written, composed, presented and illustrated, featuring frequent side-quotes from the altogether more physically blessed. tiffany cromwell, katie archibald, andreas lang and hannah barnes, amongst others, help confirm the need for a strict training regime, on the off-chance that our enthusiasm might be seen to be flagging. however, my one gripe with the manual and i'm more than willing to accept its triviality, concerns the plethora of illustrations.

adhering to the 'less is more' philosophy, i'm always in favour of illustrations actually illustrating something, if you see what i mean? illustrations for their own sake may conceivably undermine the veracity of those included out of necessity. to drive home my point probably more forcibly than i need to, all the picture captions feature an arrow in the direction of the pictures, but simply showing a rider on a bike with the legend "Try to divide your year up into focused 8-12 week training blocks" seems a tad disingenuous. similar examples abound throughout the book.

but, as i said, probably a trivial point.

there are many, many cycle training manuals currently on the bookshelf, the majority of which expound a similar path to that of nikalas cook; training is fairly well codified these days. however, i don't mind saying that this particular manual is an excellent example of how it ought to be done. everything is clearly and logically explained, as bang up to date as any publishing schedule will allow, that even those without resort to a coach should have little trouble creating their own little world of exercise purgatory.

i still maintain that i have no need of even a disorganised training regime. but if i did...

sunday 22 july 2018

twmp ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................