A few weeks ago we wrote about the release of a series of training DVDs by Three Legs Cycling (3LC) based on the Isle of Man and the home of Mark Cavendish. 3LC currently has five, one hour long training sessions that are designed specifically for cyclists and take a little bit different approach than other training DVDs. 3LC’s approach is to focus on cadence and Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) instead of the watts or heart rate. Being primarily a mountain bike rider and occasional racer who prefers long distance races like the Leadville Trail 100, my best performances on dirt seem to happen when riding at a higher cadence – these DVDs seemed perfect for my winter training needs.
3LC sent three DVDs our way, ‘Road Race’, ‘Sprinting’ and ‘Climbing’. Each of these 50 to 60-minute sessions are designed loosely to simulate the power exertion that can occur while performing each of these activities on a bike. ‘Road Race’ was first picked to review since it featured a little climbing and sprinting that might occur during a race; and in all honesty, starting with ‘Sprinting’ featuring Mark Cavendish wasn’t the physical abuse that I was looking to begin with. The riders in the video are all using turbo or rear wheel trainers. In theory any bicycle trainer is fine to use with this series as long as you can adjust the resistance to a point that you can maintain a cadence of 80 RPMs and lift it to 130+RPMs during various times in the session. Since the mid-1990s, I have been using Kreitler Dyno-Myte rollers (below) and recently added a weighted flywheel to simulate road resistance. This would be the trainer used for our evaluation.
After popping the DVD in the player, climbing on the bike and starting to soft pedal on the rollers, the ‘Intro’ was selected in order to try to get the most out of this workout. The introduction lays down some basic guidelines that will make the training session much more effective. There are three important items to watch on the screen during any given segment of a session is the time, cadence and RPE. The time is a no-brainer, it lets you know how long you will be exerting yourself or recovering. The cadence is a true number of how many times each leg makes a full revolution in a minute. The Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) is how hard that you feel that your body is working. Even though the original Borg RPE scale is 1-20, the RPE scale on the video is 1-10. The RPE scale may be the most difficult part of this DVD to judge. ’1’ is easy to figure out – it is softly and easily turning the pedals while maintaining the cadence on the screen. It is mid-range and up to ‘10’ that is a bit harder to judge and may take some riders a little bit of time to determine.
Segment Times
Each working segment of the ‘Road Race’ DVD seemed to be a decent amount of time given that the session is suppose to fit within one hour. The amount of time for the big exertions felt similar to a Spin class at a gym and were spot-on in length. An audible tone is sounded when a segment changes and the screen is updated with the new segment riding information. It might take a couple of times using this DVD to determine if you are going hard enough, but the last minute during the ‘final sprint’ is really tough if you hit the cadence and RPE levels. The video calls for a RPE of 10/10 and a cadence of 130+ for a full minute. That is hard to maintain on rollers without bouncing a bit, but it is not impossible and these types of training sessions help to adjust riding form at that intensity level.
The only segment that felt a little long was the ‘warm down’. Though it is extremely important, at 10 minutes, even the riders in the video climbed off of their bikes with about one minute left.
The 60 minute session is comprised of the following segments:
10 minutes progressive warm up
10 minutes ‘covering the moves’
3 minutes steady
5 minutes ‘in the hills’
2 minutes steady
5 minutes ‘through the vallies’
5 minutes ‘through and off’
3 minutes steady
6 minutes ‘lead out’
1 minute ‘final sprint’
10 minute warm down
Cadence
If you are the type of cyclist who lives in the land of 53-11 and doesn’t realize that your bike has 19 or 21 other gears, the 3LC ‘Road Race’ DVD is going to be a wake up call for you. During the entire session, the cadence never dips below 80 RPM. During my first use of this DVD, the approach was taken to ride with a non-cadence cycling computer and follow the cadence of the riders in the video. With the changing camera angle, this plan did not seem to work too well. Along with the changing camera angle, not all of the riders in the video seem to be maintaining the cadence that was shown on the screen. So visually trying to match my cadence with their cadence was pretty difficult.
The ‘Road Race’ DVD does not have background music. This can be viewed two ways, without music there is no beat to ride to that matches the cadence, but this also means that there is no music to become annoying as this DVD is used a number of times.
Without metronome type of audible or visual cue on the screen, counting the cadence manually seemed to be the only option. That involves counting off the number of times my left or right leg went around in 15 seconds and multiplying that number by 4. This system is not too practical and is nearly impossible during the last segments of the DVD when the video was calling for a RPM of 130.
Following the initial first use of the ‘Road Race’ DVD and the difficulties trying to determine the correct cadence, I ran out to the bike shop and bought a Cateye Astrale cadence computer for $35. During the subsequent times of training with this DVD, it was much more enjoyable, effective and easier to use this DVD. Certainly a cadence computer is not required, but after trying it both way, this DVD will be much more beneficial with one installed on your bike.
Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE)
As previously mentioned, RPE is subjective and will be tough for some riders to judge. A heart rate monitor might be helpful, but this is one part of the training DVD that is left up to you as the rider to push yourself as hard as you can on any given day. It is an subjective rating scale that if used correctly can help you achieve your cycling goals, but you can easily cheat yourself if you get lazy. During this training session, the riders did not seem to be exerting themselves as high as the scale was calling for during a segment. This really seemed to be the case during the last 6 minutes. Maybe they have excellent game faces or are afflicted with always exhibiting the same facial expression like Andy Schleck’s grimace, but part of the job of a training session like this one is to also push the user. Without music, the riders are the biggest motivating part to watch on the DVD. The best recommendation after using this DVD is to follow the RPE number on the screen, not watching how hard the riders are perceived to be working.
Overall
Ultimately, at the end of each 60 minute ’Road Race’ session an excellent workout was achieved. Once the cadence computer was installed on my bike, the session was that much easier to follow and the focus could be placed on working harder. It would have been nice to have seem some sort of visual cue or background music to help with the cadence, but the information on the screen was easy to follow and this session could easily be ridden with your own background music. Having not been a follower of the idea of RPE before, after using this DVD, the realization is that it is a helpful training tool.
There were really no issues with using rollers instead of a turbo trainer, except for the time that the video was calling for a cadence over 120, it took a bit of focus to control the amount of bouncing that can occur while pedaling at a very high cadence. Over time, this should help those who have a tendency to bounce while riding and if you choose to use rollers, not only should you become stronger, but your handling skills should also improve.
Though this DVD does feature Mark Cavendish, he is donning a track jacket, walking around giving advice and engaging in a little banter with the other riders – he is not riding. The tips that Mark does divulge are informative and he pokes fun at himself as a road racer. Most of the riders are from Manx, but you might recognize a few of the names, Peter Kennaugh (junior) and Rob Holden.
The writing of this review was not quite complete before starting with the ’Climbing’ DVD. During that session, there was a technical issue that ended it after only eight minutes. Not wanting to hang up the bike that soon, I turned on the TV and started to watch. This was immediate proof to me that the ‘Road Race’ is worth every penny. The ‘TV watching workout’ was not nearly as effective as the 3LC ‘Road Race‘ DVD. Even if the riders on the video are not that motivating, following the RPE and cadence provides a superb workout.
Pros:
– Excellent workout in 60 minutes for cyclists
– No watt meter or heart rate monitor required
– Can be used with, turbo trainer, rollers or most other cycling trainers
Cons:
– Cadence computer strongly recommended
– No background music (if desired)
– Not seeing Mark Cavendish on a trainer riding a RPE of 10/10 at 130+RPM
Format: DVD – Region-free
MSRP: £24.99 or approximately $40USD
Country of Manufacture: UK (Isle of Man)
Additional Features: Five stretching sessions designed for cyclists ranging in length from 9 to 12 minutes.