I am excited to announce our LW Coaching SINGLE SPEED mountain bike training plans are now available! Whoohoo! It is no secret I love single speeding.  These training plans have been a long time coming! The SINGLE SPEED cross-country base training plan and the following SINGLE SPEED cross-country build, peak and race plan can be purchased as a PDFor in TrainingPeaks format.

This is the first time the single speed specific workouts we have been training our coaching clients and ourselves with have been released to the public! We (Dave and Lynda) have been training and racing single speeds with power meters on board since 2006 and spent the past 5 years designing bomber workouts specific to single speed race fitness to enhance the rallying around the trails on an SS part of every essential training plan.

Here are a couple of my favorite single speed training sessions – which ironically are better ridden on a geared bike 😮 so you can be sure to get the gear ratio correct during the main set of the session.

Standing L3’s 40-60 rpm. Planned Time: 1:30

This is a workout cross-country and endurance racers would put in their base training phase.

This workout can be done on a mountain bike with gears or SS. I think it is easier to execute on a geared bike. Make sure you have flat/riser mtb bars on board.

Warm up for 30 mins then ride 30 mins in heart rate zone 3 or power L3 standing out of the saddle, 40-60 rpm. The best course for the 30 min standing segment is a steady grade climb or a flat road into a headwind. Choose a paved or hard packed dirt road surface. Finish the ride time at an easy pace. After riding use a combination of rolling on the foam roller and stretching to work out your hot spots for 10 minutes.

You can work up over time to 3 x 20 min standing L3’s.

L3 2 x15′ uphill w/micro intervals. Planned Time: 1:30

This is a workout cross-country racers would put in their Build, Peak and Race training phase (the final 12 weeks prior to your most important race)

Do this workout on a mountain bike with gears.

Warm up well then ride a paved or hard packed dirt road up a moderate grade 15 minute climb. Ride heart rate zone 3 or hold a steady power level at mid L3. At the top of every minute, shift to a gear that puts cadence under 40 rpm. Then, stand and hammer at *near* maximum effort. Get in the saddle as cadence rises and continue at max effort until cadence is 95 rpm or the effort has lasted 10 seconds – whichever comes first. If cadence hits 95 rpm in under 5 seconds you’ll need to shift up a gear. Continue this for 15 minutes for a total of 15 all out efforts. Do 2 of these 15 minute climbs with 10 + minutes recovery between. Finish the ride time at an easy pace.

This workout might make you cry for your mamma by the end 😉 It will make you a wicked strong single speeder!

By Lynda Wallenfels Google+