London Fixed-gear and Single-speed

Joining details are here;

http://www.rollapaluza.cc/?page_id=85

The club is affiliated to British Cycling, Cycling Time Trials and the London Cyclocross League.

Ta. Will do that now.

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when is there going to rolla action in Londons? This winter league has been pending for an age now : (

Hmmm im tempted to join. Ive been meaning to join a club for a while now as ive been working on my fitness and think i could possibly keep up now

There will also be a few slow club rides this summer, with a focus on a good pub lunch.

With the National series of the Rollapaluza coming up, I'd like to do my utter best to perform well.

What are some of the things I could do to increase my performance? Spinning, climbing, etc.?

I've done a rolla event three times

4th at Fixerati Antwerp 2011
Qualification time 21.89
This was after a 60 mile ride.

2nd at London Calling 2011
All went well, until a complete (mental) burnout on the 1km

Some shitty place at BFF 2011
(lost in the first round after qualification)

Any tips or advice are welcome :)!

Great thread, I was wondering if something like this might be posted on one or other of the forums where people have mentioned this comp - I like the idea of preparing semiseriously for something that's essentially pretty hilarious. I have no expert knowledge about training, but having done rollers 3 times I can certainly say my best performance (24.something, hey, I'm an 'endurance' athelete!) came after I'd deliberately done some short hard (sprinty-type?) intervals in preparation a few days before
- but I imagine the best training for it would be very much like track sprint training (- which I know nothing about..). I'd say any way you can practice generating power at very high cadences would help; there's also thing I've vaguely half-remembered that I think track sprinters do to develop more fast twitch muscle which involves rigging up a very high-geared bike and like pushing as hard as you can for short periods of time? Something about neuro-muscular something? It was something to do with Chris Hoy/Team GB's training stuff.

Specificity. How is climbing going to help balls out, high cadence spinning? It's not.

Get your legs moving.. FAST.

i thought it was just about drinking more to loosen up the muscles?

That's my method.. I've honed it so well I don't even bother trying to qualify as it would interrupt the muscle softening process..

1: Turn up the stereo
2: Drink beer.
3: Pedal fast.

0. Drink beer
1: Turn up the stereo
2: Drink beer.
3: Pedal if you must
4. Drink beer

Because I thought that might create muscle power, which might help. I'm completely unknowledgeable in this subject.

Well, it's not a training plan that would work for everyone, but whatever works for you.

^
Hahaha, cheecky.

Go to a gym and use their spinning machines.

Don't do a spinning class, but just turn off resistance and spin for 1 minute, relax for 1 minute.

Do 6 reps of that.

Can't imagine much would be better than basically replicating the experience and training your body to go faster repeatedly.

BMMF is quite the Rollapaluzaer and I would say Hill climbing accounts for most of his training.

I would say to get better one would need to improve leg strenth and work on have very smooth cadence and maybe work on core strength as well.

Also, Casper told me, when on the rig, get in the drops as you can transfer power better. I asked about the restrictions to breathing from this possition, his anssure? You dont need to breath, its only 20 seconds. This was all duly noted and I knocked a second off my time.

Some say stay on the tops and some prefer drops..

Btw sorry for making this thread so egoistic. I should have made this a thread for sharing ideas about the rollapaluza in general.

Which it's luckily evolving to :)

Most truth.

I was thinking, there are two things one can improve on, the racing itself or the pausing between each sprint.

Any thoughts on the latter?

As mentioned previously, it's the bit inbetween the sprints that you have to get right... Too little and your lungs will be dying, too much and you will be pedalling in sloppy squares..

Me too (not even past qualification), I feel compelled to redeem myself. Was considering riding my geared bike around town on the lowest gear and spinning like a loon everywhere...

Get on a turbo, 200rpm bursts for 20 seconds. Repeat after a rest. For authenticity, drink between reps. You need to handle 220+ to trouble the winners.

Most definitely not for me, but whatever floats your boat.

As already said. It's neuromuscular training you need to do. It's about the maximum recruitment of muscle fibres, not the strength of each one.

.

Gotta get that mindset

And I naively thought Rollaz were about fun.

@Doutzki

Leg length discrepancy?
I try to push the same with both legs...........


sorry, post pub pedant humour.

This. Or use the standard gym bikes on the lowest resistance available.


200/220rpm? We used to get 300rpm+ out of the gym bikes in Newport. We used to get some strange looks from the other 'normal' keep fit people who'd struggle to get out 60rpm

The most amount of efforts you do at the race is 5/6 isn't it? No point doing much more than that.

I seem to recall going through the results a while back, 220 average for 20-whatever seconds was what it took. Might have muddled my figures a little. Either way, completely beyond my mashing mindset so wrote it off and stopped paying attention.
Forgot to add for that extra super authentic touch don't forget to change your saddle height between reps, just to keep things interesting.

Laps of swains. that is all

Was.

No.

FOOL! For me I'm just quite pleased if I make it past the first round and improve my time a little bit.

As others have said, it's quite an amusing concept *training* for an event that is essentially fun.

I'm going to organise a crazy golf ride when the weather picks up. Start your putting practise now kids!

Ride hard. Ride relaxed. Thats the key. Tension in the upper body restricts max cadence. Instead of trying to build strength and power at this point (the nationals start in a matter of weeks), I'd say try and work on leg speed.

Get a set of rollers and spin.
In order to get good at a specific event I believe you just need to practice and practice that event.

And you'd be wrong.

I have massive legs.. able to leg press entire countries into orbit.
I'm rubbish because I can't move these legs very fast. Leg speed. Leg speed. Leg speed.
If you have both, you should be racing on the track.

Well, whenever I say him training it was on the hills. Maybe this was due to me living by the hill that were being trained upon.

I am more of a climber than a sprinter or TTist (despite being unusualy heavy for a climber) and have always been relatively compatative on the rollers. Maybe this is due to a fine cadence (if I say so myself) helping spin (or mash depending on fixed or geared) up the hills or on the rollers. I DO find that climbing helps with this as keeping a steady and smooth cadence helps with the climbing. You also get the added bonus of spinning down the hill loosening the legs up.

I can pedal smoothly as well but get ragged upwards of maybe 150 which is no good for the rollers. When I was younger, singlespeeding or racing my average cadence was higher and top-end cadence faster. I think I've tended towards bigger gears and lower rpm in recent years. I climb by pushing the earth away from me...

I wasnt insinuating that you can pedal smoothly. So it was your hill climbing up in the UK that have caused all the earthquakes down here.


I think maybe the key to the rollers is actualy drinking as heavaly as you can, stumberly up on to the stage the pedaling untill someone stops you or you are sick.

I shaved two seconds off my time once I was suitably inebriated. Wasn't sick, but have never felt so close to death.

I used to try the second method all the time. As I said up-thread.. the rollers started getting in the way of the drinking.

Well, you'd normally bump into me in September or something, when I'd be spending a couple of weeks getting a few pacey climbs done, ready for the HC season.

That's the real reason, not the 'added bonus'. Climbing does fuck all for roller racing. Look at Povey. He can barely make it over speedbumps, but he's still good enough to only just get beaten by me on the rollers.

I qualified at Rollapaluza once. Just once. Mind you, Clive qualified, too. It was a slow night a very slow night a very, very slow night.

I can't say I've ever trained for the Rollas. My usual tactic is turn up, drink to numb the pain, pedal like fuck till someone tells me to stop, try not to throw up. Seems to have worked ok so far (although I did throw up after the finals last year....that trophy was worth it! Haha)

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!

*spazz face*