November tends to be a down month for many pros (ie tour type riders). December will start some longer days and come January pros will start racing into fitness.

NCC Crit series starts March 21. I won't be up to speed by then but to be honest I'll have to work the spring backwards to comment.

I got to talk to Chad Haga this week and asked this question. His down time after World's ended this last week, so he is back at it. It sounded like a lot of gym work to build strength and between 2and 3 hours on the road bike. None of the 6 hour LSD stuff. His first race is the TDU in January followed by Oman or Dubai (I think).

Time off is over; back to training now. Many team camps now take place in December instead of January. Even riders switching teams, though their contracts technically don't run out until Dec 31st, will attend their new team's camp. It used to be you wouldn't be caught dead outside of your current team's kit until Jan 1, but even that has seemed to be relaxed over the last two years. Not sure if it's a handshake agreement among teams, but it just doesn't seem to be a big deal anymore.

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My coach(races NRC and NCC) has me on a similar program to most of the crit guys and its basically the same thing. Tuesdays I'm doing squats, and different types of single leg presses with and emphasis on different muscle groups. Thursdays its weighted lungs, weighted step-ups and box jumps............so many box jumps at this point. Group ride plus miles on Sat with over an hour of big gear work on Sunday with some sub threshold thrown in for good measure. I can do as much core/back work as I want and some arms because I am a sprinter.

Sagan and co have been climbing Mount Kilimanjoro, sounds like ideal spring classics prep...

As mentioned above, riders will start to race themselves into fitness in January, the training camps start in December, November is a bit of down time.

And I believe Team Garmin spent the week on a sailboat in the Caribbean.

For many teams November is no longer a downtime. After Worlds and Paris - Tours lots of guys end the season and then take a short break for 2-3 weeks, but started training again early November. They will do mostly Z1-z2 type stuff, combined with some more strength training / resistance training versus what they do in season. They might still do some crosstraining (my cousin with Belkin does some inline skating for example), or ride on the velodrome, or on the mountain bike depending on the weather. Some will also start preparations for next season getting new bikes a little sooner, optimize their positions etc. They also have sponsor obligations normally this time of the year. In other words they're quite busy in November. Training camps start in December so they'll add quite a bit of volume then, but want to make sure to be well trained. Remember there is always also some internal competition, you may want to do the classics but so do 15 other guys on the team. Better show early that you're on of the top performers so you don't lose out.

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Fair point re cross training and other competition, such as the track racing at the minute. So not so much downtime, especially for those that raced Lombardy in October, after the Worlds. Varies from rider to rider I guess, e.g Mark Cavendish is racing the track, will likely race in early 2015, ready for Milan-San Remo in March, but take some down time when the hilly classics roll round... (bad pun intended, sorry).

To try to answer my own question, did some strava.com/pro stalking and saw that a lot of the guys who are probably looking to come good in later spring/summer have begun hitting more or less daily L1/2 rides of 2-4 hours that get them around 80-100TSS each. Of course we already know that using Strava to figure out what pros are doing probably doesn't do justice to the question, but better than nothing

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in the terminology of coaches, Lots of them are 'base building'.

you have to realise Pro cyclists also do something called 'racing themselves into fitness', which involves using races as training. Thats why you see at the 'minor' spring classics- ghent wevelgem, E3 , west flanders, de panne etc- lots of cyclists use those races as intensity training to fine tune their form towards their A races.

Most of the guys racing Flanders and Roubaix will also race E3 and/or Gent Wevelgem, but that's only one week before Flanders so they need to be in top shape by then. They typically no longer do the 'Tweedaagse van West Vlaanderen' or 'Driedaagse van De Panne' anymore.

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Yea I suppose they are near to top form for E3 and ghent, maybe 90-95%, But I do think doing ghent and E3 helps. could be a mental/ironing out teamwork/course recce kinks thing. riders like boonen, paolini, terpstra langeveld have done races like omloop, KBK, which are slightly earlier than ghent and E3, and I'm pretty sure it plays a role in race prep for the bigger A races.

the classics guys will be at 99% by E3 if they want to race for the win in Flanders or Roubaix. Can't improve by 5-10% in just a week. Also consider these guys are already racing for the win as of the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne Brussel Kuurne, just look at the results and you'll see it's the same guys. (Except for Cancellara who doesn't often do the abelgian opening weekend anymore).

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I'd agree with you 99% in terms of fitness. a good rest/taper will give them that final 1%. maybe 90-95% in terms of mental preparations. I think alot of them do ghent simply because the course is similar to flanders, so it's like a dress rehearsal, and a good performance at E3/ghent gives one a mental edge when everyone is coming into fitness- i.e. if you do well and are in the running then you know come race day at flanders you're going to be able to mix it with the big boys.- remember when cancellara blew everyone away at E3 a couple of years ago ( was it 2011 or 2010? can't recall exactly) and it just shattered everyone's confidence such that some belgian fans even put up a sign saying Fabian please have mercy? Mentality plays a big part in cycling, I think, more so that triathlon.


'training race' doesn't necessarily mean they won't try to win if they can. You're right in saying that the same guys in the running for omloop and KBK are also the same guys going for the win at E3, ghent, P-R and flanders, because simply they are the best classics riders in their team and they will be the protected rider on the day. that and plus they are exceptionally talented cyclists ( put a boonen/terpstra level rider in a classics race and of course they will be one of the hot faves to win)

What I meant is that the race plays some role in their buildup toward the A races like P-R , tour of flanders, etc. same reason why the grand tour riders use races like criterium du dauphine as a prep race for the tour. The same guys at the dauphine are the same guys fighting for the win at the tour- albeit with some exceptions. ( nibali improved quite abit in the last month, while talansky had a very very bad day at the tour. ) One can get fit by racing intervals and everything but I think at the top level some of that 'racer's edge ' is needed, and you can think of the race as a hard interval session anyway.

Chilling out and doing some easy rides with friends and family. As, judging by the pros I follow on Strava, they're doing some running. Peter Stetina is actually a reasonably good runner. Traditionally, running was strictly verboten for pro cyclists. Apparently things have changed.

I think you underestimate how pros approach all of the classics like E3 versus monuments. They're going to win, not race as buildup to a monument. The latter obviously has more prestige than former but still a huge accolade. And they don't get a 5% boost from taper. 1 or 2% is the difference between winning and being off the podium.

I don't think E3 or any of the smaller races are small fry, sure. obviously they go out there wanting to do the best they can- thats what they're paid for, anyway. In general, the whole flemish cycling week is so close together that I think most everyone tries to bring their A game to that whole week and then some will try to hold onto it for paris roubaix- obviously if they can delay that 'peak' fitness into the more important monuments then so much the better . you don't hear cyclists saying hey are building their season around ghent wevelgem- its usually one of the monuments or they just want to have 'a good spring classics' campaign.

What I'm saying is that races like these play a part in their buildup to race fitness, of which having that mental edge is part of. Ghent and E3 maybe less so in terms of the physical fitness bit, because they are so close to flanders and P-R. Omloop and KBK are about a month out from flemish cycling week, so I'm pretty sure some of the pro cyclists do them as part of prep for their later races and there are physical gains to be had by doing them. Lots of coaches and cyclists talk about racing into fitness having some race days in the legs before they feel good.

I had a fantastic XC coach in college ( it's not the ebst analogy, but the bets I got) who had an uncanny ability to know how to get our team to ;peak' at the right time for he big races- Now we'd be racing every weekend nearing the race season and we never went out not trying to win- But we knew that if we wanted to try new stuff- tactics, nutrition, etc. then one of the smaller races would be the right time to do it, not the big day of nationals itself. racing hard certainly didn't hurt our fitness (unless we over raced, of course, but thats a different story) and I think we may have benefited from that. Would we have done equally well if we'd just done interval training instead? maybe, maybe not. I certainly think it had an effect.

I don't hink you can compare guys doing stage races to prepare for bigger stage races with people doing single day events. The classics guys will also be doing mostly stage races to get ready for the one day classics, and race each of those to try and win. And they'll spend their time training on the course of Flanders, Roubaix, etc. They don't need one day races anymore to build their fitness or mental game, all that stuff is already done by then. Take my cousin as an example, when 1.5 years ago he crashed in Tirreno-Adriatico (stage race in preparation for the classics) and busted his knee which almost cost him his classics campaign. He missed several races but did lots of physical therapy and doing other things to maintain his fitness (like swimming when he couldn't ride a bike). He got back in time for Flanders but wasn't good enough to play a role, a week later he rode onto the velodrome in Roubaix together with Fabian but got outsprinted for the win.

Point being - fitness has to be maximum by the time the classics start and if it is, you can reduce the risk of losing races somewhat. There are races you will lose, and by losing i mean you're not in contention due to sickness, a flat tire at a bad moment, etc. you get very few chances and have to take whichever one you can get.

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hmm. care to share which races they use to prepare for their events then?

It'l vary depending on the team and how much training they need. Many guys will start in Qatar and Oman. Some will just be training. If I look at Sep's training program, it was basically as follows:

- January training camp on his own + team training camp
- February second team training camp + Volta y Algarve stage race to get ready for the opening weekend of the classics season.


- March: Omloop HN, K-B-K (4th and 3rd), Tirreno Adriatico to finalize fitness build

Then the main set of two weeks with E3, Ghent - Wevelgem, Flanders, Scheldeprijs and Paris-roubaix.

Some guys like Boonen will race more and will typically do Qatar and Oman. Fabian will skip the belgian opening weekend and will do something else like Paris - Nice and start his classics campaign not with Omloop HN but with Milan San Remo instead. Boonen does it all i.e. Omloop, San Remo, and everything else.

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