Alison Powers - Featured Blogger

We are excited to announce the addition of a Cyclocross Women's Race team to our ALP Cycles arsenal. ALP Cycles Racing is a women's race team based in Boulder, Colorado which augments individual professional coaching with race team techniques and camaraderie. By providing coached training rides and team races with team race strategy. ALP Cycles Racing hopes to change the way local race teams train and race. 

When I was 14 years old, I started mountain bike racing. With very little fear, and no sense of self preservation, I crashed - a lot. I loved to ride my bike, loved to get my legs burning and heart pumping, and I was a little bit competitive. But, I had absolutely no skills. 

"I'm 100% sure I can't do this." I told the yoga instructor after she showed us the next pose we were supposed to get into and hold. With tight shoulders and a delicate elbow, I was sure that my body would not get into or like the pose. The nice instructor came over and, in less than a minute, I was in the pose doing something I was convinced my body couldn't do and it actually felt good.

In order to reach peak performance during competition, our bodies and minds need to be prepared and ready. What goes on between our ears leading up to the competition and during competition can make or break the result.

Each month, the ALP Cycles Coaching get together for a coaches meeting. We discuss training, ask each other questions, throw around ideas, plan events, come up with ways to take over the world, etc.

"Preparing for the World Championships feels like preparing for any other race. Only this time I traveled to Europe about 4 weeks before and raced 2 stage races equaling in 10 race days over 11 days total. After that block was finished it was about some recovery and then back to work continuing to build over the remaining two weeks."

Riders who, in my mind, were on better teams, who had better equipment and who being provided better opportunities, were beating me. After years of pushing back weakness, I had no idea I was the one holding myself back. Relying on myself was causing me to not grow as an athlete or teammate- and thus as a person.

The most important aspect to riding and racing success is hard training. The second most important aspect to riding and racing success is recovery; for you can’t ride hard, unless you are rested and ready to do so.  But, how do you know when you are rested and ready to ride har

The art of being prepared comes down to one simple thing—no surprises on race day.

Preparing for race day is more than training and recovery.  Success on race day requires precise preparation. This means the things you can control should be dialed in, ready, and give you confidence to have the best performance possible.

“Fail to prepare and prepare to fail”—famous quote by someone who inspires people to get their sh*t together. 

If there was one magic training tool that you could do to become a better, faster, and more confident cyclist, would you do it? For most of us, the answer would be 'yes". Unfortunately, not very many people do this one thing. What is this one magic ticket? Improve your bike handling skills. While training, most people are focused on how many watts they are pushing instead of how many times they brake through a corner. Being able to carry speed through a corner or sit in the draft of a peloton is free speed. No intervals or recovery days are needed for free speed.

For most of us, we don’t have 15-25hrs each week to train and ride our bike. We have to make the most of what time to train we have. For this reason each training ride or workout session must be quality. The secret, then, is knowing if your ride or workout really was good quality, or if you were just going through the motions.

Over the past 4-6 months, many of us have spent time in the gym, or home gym, strength training. We're making our cycling bodies strong, well rounded, and ready to hammer out a strong and long lasting cycling season. However, no matter how strong you are in the gym, it doesn't necessarily translate into a fast bike rider. In order to make that strength transition to the bike, you need to transition those strong muscles to powerful and quick muscles.

After spending 4 hours re-creating our Off Season Strength Program last month, I was sore. My glutes, upper back, and hamstrings all had signs of DOMS. DOMS (Delayed onset muscle soreness) is a common result of physical activity that stresses the body...

Here in Colorado, our winter weather is sometimes not conducive for a big 'burn lots of calories' ride before eating a holiday dinner. For those that like to ski and/or play in the snow, winter weather is great for them. For those of us who prefer to ride our bikes over the holidays, snow and cold is not so great. The good news is you can have your pie and eat it too, thanks to a high quality trainer workout.

Here at ALP Cycles Coaching, we decided to use this opportunity to create a new workout. Just like President Elect Trump, this workout will take you by surprise, kick some butt, then leave you feeling mentally and physically drained.

As coaches, we continually look for ways to make our ALP athletes better, faster, stronger, and more knowledgable. We want them to be the best athletes they can possibly be. 

Personally, when I think back to my racing and training career, I wish I had known many of the things I now know as a coach. So, that lead me to think of ways we can teach our athletes this 'high performance'  knowledge so they can raise their game to the next level. With some brain storming we came up with a new training/learning/teaching camp. The ALP Cycles High Performance Camp.

Wednesday was our monthly ALP athlete ride and it was all about cyclocross (CX). In last week's Blog Post Friday, ALP Coach Alison Powers, wrote about how 50% of CX racing success (or lack thereof) is solid bike handling skills. We put that to practice, broke down individual skills, and worked on several important CX specific drills.

Our 4-day Climbing Challenge has come to an end. The Challenge was just that, it was challenging and hard. The 4 days of climbing over and over again, on top of our Saturday ALP Ride got people out of their comfort zones.

Bikes and equipment have been dialed in, training has been completed, and now it's time to race. Not so fast. Energy management and skill building must be thoughtfully planned out and constantly worked on to ensure an entire season of success.

As ALP coaches, we continually look for ways to make our ALP athletes (ALPletes) better, faster, and stronger. We want them to be the best they can possibly be. Personally, when I think back to my racing and training career, I wish I had known many of the things I now know as a coach. So, that lead me to think of ways we can teach our athletes this 'high performance'  knowledge so they can raise their game to the next level. With some brain storming we have come up with a new training/learning/teaching camp.

For most of us, the answer would be 'yes'. Unfortunately, not very many people do this one thing. What is this one magic ticket? Improve your bike handling skills. While training, most people are focused on how many watts they are pushing instead of how many times they brake through a corner. Being able to carry speed through a corner or sit in the draft of a peloton is free speed. No intervals or recovery days are needed for free speed.