Know Your Local Bike Shop
Roman, let's talk about five things that I wish I knew as a beginner. Let's cue that intro! The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness and our longevity? That is the question, this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh and welcome to the Roman Podcast. Robeman, welcome back, it's another Robeman cycling podcast, it is Monday the 22nd of November, thank you for joining me. Robeman, I want to talk to you about five things that I wish I knew as a beginner and the podcast is kind of prompted by, we'd couple of new lads out on the groups bin at the weekend. And I got me journeying back to all those years ago when I got started and five things that I wish someone had a juice whispered in my ear and said, you know what, here's five things you need to know and what would have saved me a lot of heartache. So that's what I want to rattle through today. Before I do, let's just me remind you about Patreon. Patreon is where you can buy me that festive cup of coffee or point to say, thanks for the work over the year. If you're getting some value out of the podcast, if you're listening to the podcast, which I know so many are looking at the downloads that so thanks for spreading the good word But another way to pay it back is to buy me a point of beer over on Patreon The link is in the boy over that to do that and support the podcast all you do is head to patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore watch and you can buy now point of beer to say thanks and I'll tip me out cap to you Okay, five things that I wish I knew as a beginner well number one It's fine and get to know your local bike shop Your LBS as we call it and build a relationship with them because we're in an ear in there where even more so when I started It's a lot easier to shop around in chain reactions wiggle Canyon and just price match and get the best deal But I promise you at some point in your cycling career. You're gonna be in a pinch You're gonna be in a pinch because you've broke a stem bolt You're gonna be in a pinch because you can't get a derail or hanger and you're gonna have an event coming up and it pays you Multiple times are over more than you're gonna save to have a relationship with your local bike shop They will get you out of a hole also if you're new to an area or you're just getting started in cycling your local Bikes up. It's gonna be able to advise you on the group rides that are local to you They're working on it's gonna be able to advise you on routes It's gonna be able to advise you on clubs bikes that are suitable for you and much much more so spend some time and invest in that relationship with your local bug shop. Even if you have to pay a little bit extra which you will because economies of scale they can't order fucking 22 tells and prayers of gloves like chain reaction can so cut them a break if they're a little bit more expensive than chain reaction. Step number two that I wish I knew the importance of the group ride and again this is nearly drawn on the same thing where it's you know I love the idea of learning from mistakes but they don't have to be your mistakes when When you're in a group right and you surround yourself with experienced roiders, you're gonna learn so much from the verbal and non-verbal. If you look at experienced guys in the group, when do they eat? What are they wearing on a day? This is one that, like, it's actually, you know what, I'm gonna do it, I wasn't even gonna do that one.
Group Rides and Winter Dressing
That one's so important. I gotta do it as a full, one of the four heave on its own. What are you wearing in a minute? So forget that. But they're gonna show you what to eat. They're gonna show you how to get out with a saddle, without kicking the bike back. They're gonna show you how to go around the corner. going to tell you the Reuters to watch the Reuters to stay away from. The group right is just this beautiful symbiotic relationship you get into where everyone's helping each other out and you learn one of the most valuable things in cycling to shelve the idea of self that we're not an individual going into this group that as soon as we slot in here we abandon thoughts of I'm better than this person we abandon the thoughts of our own personal ambitions and we think about how we can function as a group, how we can help others, how do we protect the weak, how do we shelter them. Because that's what's like Liz, it's this beautiful magical team sport and the group ride is one of the easiest ways to get indoctrinated into this amazing culture. So the first two of them are very much relationship driven. The toward one I just knocked one off my list that I was gonna have and I'm gonna try this one in on its own because it's just so important. How to dress for the winter. I wish somebody experience had told me at the time, how to dress for the weather. And it's so important for me dressing for a session begins the night before when I check the weather forecast and always layer kit out the night before a spin. Check the weather forecast, layer kit out the night before a spin and I'm letting in on my little routine here. Then the next morning I wake up I have my coffee, I bring the dogs out to the toilet the next morning and then I suss out the actual ambience to feel it, but go, okay, what is it? Are we looking like it's going to be a gloves day? Are we looking for heavy gloves, like gloves? Are we looking for light shoe covers, heavy shoe covers? Is it a rain jacket in the pocket day? This is super super valuable information because when you get out on the road and especially if you're in a group where it's going to be surges and speed or you're going you know climbing or you're going to have periods of long threshold work and then the sense. Dressing appropriately for that is super, super valuable and I wish I knew that at the start. I wish I knew about structure training, number four, I wish I knew about structure training at the start. So much of my time was spent what I call now headless chicken roiding and the idea of headless chicken roiding, you've heard me drown a lot about this on the podcast before, but if you head out the door and you don't know why you're heading out the door or what that specific session is or you don't know how that session fits into the grander plan, you're a headless chicken. And the headless chicken is defined by this idea of, I don't have much time to do today. I've only a never, so I better get out and ride, kind of hard. And that makes intuitive sense, because if you only have 60 minutes to riding, kind of hard seems like it's maximizing your available training time. But the problem with that is we normally default into zone tree riding. And zone tree has a narrow set of physiological adaptations to take place. Not a bad set of adaptations, which is the narrow set. And we don't get the set of adaptations from riding in zone one, zone two, zone four, zone five, zone six. We only get, and I've equated it on the recent webinar, actually, if you're heading out the door and you're riding in zone three all the time, it's like heading out the door to play golf and only ever bringing a seven or seven or in which it.
Structured Training and Rear Lights
You need to learn how to play the full bag of clubs, that's what makes you complete. And it's the same in cycling, that's what makes us complete as a boy-croider. Can we go long, slow distances using fat as a fuel source? We train this in zone one and zone two. Can we generate massive 10 second power out corners to close gaps? We practice this in zone six and zone seven. Start structure training. If you start structure training early, my God, it's just your waste so much time and energy with riding around like a headless chicken and it's so easy to avoid. So getting all your local boy up, start structure training, important to the group, really dress for the weather. And another one that I've only picked up in recent years, and this is more of a do as I say, not as I do, because I'm actually not brilliant for even doing this myself. I picked it up over in Jaroni when I noticed that all the pro guys are now training with a rear light, and it makes so much sense, and it's something that when I head out and I forget the rear light, I'm like, why do I forget the rear light again? And there's some amazing ones out there, like the Garmin Varia rear light, which is also a radar, which speeds up It's the intensity of the light and the frequency of the blinking based on the proximity of the car. So we're getting really clever and smart and the rear light can be just a bit of breathing room at car needs if they're in a tent if they just catch their eye for a second and get around you. And you know, this is a quite personal and a good friend of mine and an old teammate who got hit from behind outran and a super talented rider on the best of a generation in Ireland and he never rode his bike again after it. you know, thankfully he's met a full recovery, but he chose not to ride his bike again after us. You know, who can blame him, but it's just, it's that important having a rear light on. And you know, a couple bracketing to that, dressing for the weather is known at what time it gets dark, knowing, you know, how dimly lit it's gonna be today, wearing appropriate colors for those type of days, of a jacket that's been rocking an orange one for the last while on the darker days. But that all starts on planning the night before. So there are five things I wish I knew as a beginner folks. Build that relationship with your local bug shop, start structure training, get into a good group, ride, dress yourself properly and stick a real light on. I'll get a chat to you again tomorrow. Hey, roadman, it's Anthony again. Just before you head off real quick, I just wanna mention the roadman blueprint. It's the ultimate coaching package. It's four months long. It's four months of one-on-one coaching sessions, with your own professional roadman cycling coach. It's four months of strength and conditioning plans, so you never need to worry about, is this strength and conditioning plan aligned with my cycling goals? It's four months of nutrition plans to fuel all that. It's four months of boil hacks, which you know I love so much, and I'm getting to pick the brain of all these experts, and it's four months of motivation to make sure you never miss a session, and every single session, you hit it with commitment and with purpose. The whole package is 997 euro. I have a limited number of places on the Roadman Blueprint. If you're interested in getting started, pop me an email and add me in at roadmancycling.com. This is the ultimate coaching package for those looking to take their cycling and performance to the next level.