training

If you buy only one cycling book... You will have to look very hard to find such a good cyclists' training guide. This book very clearly and simply shows how to effectively create a training program to meet your objectives and work within your constraints. Friel puts all aspects of training (sleep, nutrition, periodization, testing, balancing with the rest of your life, etc.) into perspective and provides a scientific foundation for all of these areas.

It is a little unclear for whom this book has been written. Professional, world class cyclists have their own training systems and don't need this book. It's difficult to see how 9-to-5ers who race on weekends have the time to follow a training program as complicated as this one.

The author starts by describing the basic cycling abilities of speed, endurance, and strength and goes on to describe the advanced abilities of muscular endurance, speed-endurance, and power. His training program consists of "periods" that emphasize the specific training of those abilities in varying proportions.

Those periods are Base I,II,III, Build I,II, Peak, and Compete. Throw in the factors of frequency, duration, intensity for all of the training periods, as well as lactate and cardiovascular monitoring and you have got yourself one complicated program. There is a lot of overlap in the training: to say that this manner of riding is this kind of training can seem somewhat arbitrary.

As a long-time runner and cyclist, I can attest to the fact that numerous training books exist for runners that are far easier to follow than is this one. There are a few basic workouts that can make one a successful runner. It is the opinion of this reviewer that the author would better serve those likely to buy this book or a next one if he would make the effort to simplify and reduce his descriptions of basic physiological systems and the corresponding training needed. And the author does readily admit that some cyclists are successful without going through such a complicated schedule. There must be some middle ground here.

This book is for someone who wants to race a bike and doesn't want to look foolish doing it. The book has everything you need to organize and create a training regimen that will lift your racing fitness to an entirely new level. Based on the concept of periodization, i.e.-training broken into four week blocks with scheduled increases in intensity and active recovery, the ideas presented by Friel will allow the reader to schedule and implement a year-long training plan.

The main drawback of the book is its complexity. The book never claims to be a one-size fits all sort of plan so there is a lot of information that will allow the reader to customize his or her own training. This can be overwhelming at first. The best approach to the book is to read it through a couple of times to get a feel for what is being said. Once this is done, the material will feel a lot less overwhelming. In any case, there is some effort to be put into understanding the book just like there is effort that must be put into training to achieve the result of better performance.

Short of going out and hiring a coach to do your thinking for you, this book is the best way to start training for competition.